Thank you for your football coaching questions. Here’s a partial answer for those who asked.

This blog is an excerpt from a football book I’m writing to answer football questions I’ve been asked for 47 years.

This blog post includes the introduction and Chapter 1. Hope this excerpt answers some of your questions.

Rich Coach, Poor Coach

A Personal Football Thesis

This is a different football coaching book. It’s a thesis about the Arrangiarsi Mentality and Culture and how we applied it to our football program.  It’s Unheard Of, multiple meanings. We do the Unheard Of with Unheard Of scarcity, with Unheard Of resource challenges, and Unheard Of tactics and training, all resulting in student-athletes doing the Unheard Of, in Unheard Of places. 

Thank you for your football questions over the past 47 years, about how to become a first-time Football Boss—Head coach, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams coordinator, strength coach (11 man or 12 man)—in a situation where few want to coach: Football Poverty. Coaching the Least with the least. Poor teams, not rich teams. Bare minimum resources, minimum staff, no recruiting, only open-admission and where no one gets paid, not players, not coaches. Where you have to build players, not buy them. Where you have to coach Minus Zero teams to a Higher Degree. From scratch, with Next-to-Nothing. This book is an answer for those who asked.

This book is my personal football coaching thesis. My hypothesis is:

Build the “Arrangiarsi Mentality.”

Build the most with The Least and the least using the unconditional, uncompromised Arrangiarsi Mentality and Culture that governs all aspects of Training Day, Gameday, X Fitness strength training, practice, teaching, learning, SWAT no-huddle offense, SWAT Defense, SWAT special teams.

Chapter 1.      “We speak Work”

Over 90% of what I learned about coaching football was taught to me by my poor, illiterate, Italian immigrant parents, Antonio and Maria. It was, The Law of Unintended Consequences, at work, dual meaning. No one hated football and all sports more than Antonio. Every time he caught me watching sports on our 1960’s black and white TV, Antonio got pissed off. “Are they going to pay you?” I thought Antonio was insane. Turns out he wasn’t. Antonio was old enough to be my grandfather. Our relationship was more than a Generation Gap. It was Culture Shock, dual meaning—for both him and me. Antonio and Maria endured a level of struggle and sacrifice in Italy, before, during, and after World War 2 that I have never experienced. Not even close. Their struggle forced them to focus exclusively on relevance—ROI (Return on Investment)—to solve their main problem: hunger. Poverty. Illiteracy. Being broke. Being able to speak only one language that few understood…Broken Italian. Eventually, they became bilingual. They learned a second language…Broken English. Neither Broken Italian nor Broken English was enough to solve their hunger problem. And the threat of more hunger. And the threat of another Depression, dual meaning. Good news: They communicated with a Third Language, non-verbal communication that is understood globally. Work. Hard Work. Harder Work. Hardest Work. “Language of Labour” is understood by all, by those who do it and those who don’t but benefit from those who do. The whole world is fluent in “Language of Labour”—those who build with it and those who buy what’s built by it. Antonio wasn’t a Rich and Famous Leader. He was a Professional Builder. And a Professional Lifter.

I completed a M. Ed. Degree. I majored in and wrote a thesis on “Organization Leadership.” As part of my conclusion, I wrote that I don’t use the words “Leader” and “Leadership” because Antonio taught me that they are misleading and misrepresent what the job actually is. Instead, I use “Builder” and “Lifter,” dual meaning. Builder and Lifter are connected. The more you build, the more you lift. And vice-versa. A leader by conventional thinking is a Lifter who builds (both meanings of “Lifting.”) Antonio couldn’t pronounce, “Master Degree” or “thesis” or “mission statement.” But he taught me my personal two-word mission statement that I used as a mission statement for my football coaching ideology, for my college law enforcement teaching/academic coordinator ideology, for my strength coaching athletes, for my business—X Fitness—philosophy, for my book writing and publishing mission: To Lift.

To Lift, dual meaning. We never have and never will lose focus of our football mission statement. We’re a Lifting Team—dual meaning—that joyously expresses our souls and strengths on a football field and in real-life. We’re a Lifting Team that competes on a football field to reveal what we lift for. We’re a Lifting Team that builds, multiple meanings. We build every essential that’s necessary to survive in Real Life & Death, on or in any field. Football is a game. Real Life & Death isn’t. Real Life & Death doesn’t have rules to protect against Unnecessary Roughness or Late Hits or Piling On. Real Life & Death doesn’t have a 60-minute time limit. Real Life & Death is measured by a different scoreboard. Football plays a part in building the essentials to survive Real Life & Death but it’s not essential to build all the essentials. Here’s evidence. Antonio was the toughest human I ever met and worked with in my life. He never played football or any sport. He never coached any sport, never watched any sport. He wasn’t a spectator. He was a 100% Participator. Antonio was a Professional Builder, a Professional Lifter. He was paid to lift and carry heavy weight, 40 hours or more a week, for life. Not heavy lifting 2 days on, 1 day off. Not just during pre-season. Every season, every week, every month, every year, for life. Antonio and Maria specialized in Arrangiarsi – building the most with the least. Enduring hell, surviving it, beating it. Building with Next to Nothing. Building the best with the worst. Building the best in the worst.

Sports never fit in Antonio and Maria’s struggle. Sports provided zero ROI to solve their hunger, their threat of Another Depression. Antonio never taught me Xs & Os. Antonio never taught me how to block or tackle or throw or catch. But he taught me how to lift. He taught me how to build. He taught me how to labour. He taught me how to work. He taught me how to “Speak Work.” We never once played catch together but we worked manual labour together. At home, at construction jobs, at the Maple Leaf Flour Mill. Antonio never taught me how to squat and press in a gym. He taught me how to squat-press-push-carry 140 lb. four bags, wheelbarrows, shovels, dirt, cement. He taught me DitchDigging, dual meaning. He taught me how to labour In The Field, not to play on the field. Another Law of Unintended Consequences – labour On The Field, serve & protect On The Field, win On The Field.

Antonio was my only Strength Coach. He had no degree, diploma, certificate, no gym membership, never worked out in a gym. But he was the strongest human I have ever worked with anywhere, including in my manual labour jobs, policing, football, teaching, running a business. Strongest human, pound for pound, dual meaning. In mind-body-soul. I translated Antonio’s Strength Coaching into my own 53-year workout streak and my 47-year coaching career. And he taught me that Strength Building Wins. Weight Room Wins. Work Wins. Working out wins. Wins player safety, wins Gamedays, wins Championship Rings, wins scholarships, wins pro contracts. Not just in football. On/in any field. The Law of Unintended Consequences prevents consequences.   

More Law of Unintended Consequences. Antonio and Maria Antonio taught me how to build a Mentality & Culture that they couldn’t pronounce, write, or read. I didn’t know the name of the Mentality & Culture until after both Antonio and Maria had died. The actual name of the Mentality & Culture—Arrangiarsi—didn’t matter. What mattered is how it worked, dual meaning. The full meaning of “Arrangiarsi Mentality & Culture” is a long story. How to build it for life is a longer story.

Nothing just happens. Nothing happens coincidentally, randomly, accidentally, by luck, or overnight. Something always happens to learn how to make something happen. It’s easy to ignore Synchronistic Spiritual Promptings or reject them by labelling them, “a pain-in-the-ass.” But when you finally pay attention, you change intention. And vice-versa. Then you change exertion and production. Intention is only the starting point. But there’s no point if it doesn’t manifest in exertion and production. I became a victim of No-Point Intention during the first 9 years of my coaching career. I ignored all the Arrangiarsi Mentality & Culture lessons I had learned and lived. I abandoned my Arrangiarsi Mentality & Culture during my first 8 years as an assistant high school football coach, all winless or one-win seasons. Then I ignored them again as a 26-year old rookie high school head coach in 1984. Another winless, 0-10, dead-last embarrassment. Good news. 1985 was different. I woke up. I paid attention to Synchronistic Spiritual Promptings and changed my intention. Changed our team’s exertion, execution, and production. I had learned the lesson—the consequence of ignoring lessons learned. I had been taught the solution to chronic losing but never applied it to coaching football. I knew the solution, should have applied the solution. The lesson was that the Arrangiarsi Mentality & Culture wins. And wins big. Multiple meanings. Until I ignored the solution that had been taught I was part of the problem—no building, no lifting.  And vice-versa.

I learned that you don’t have to learn or shape your football coaching mentality from someone who loves football. It’s not the sport that they have to love in order to mentor you and teach you. They have to love to work. They have to love to lift. They have to love to build. They have to love to carry. They have to love construction. They need the Love of Labour. They have to be experts in LEO—Love Each Other, Lift Every One. Despite Antonio’s hatred for sports, he taught me over 90% of my football ideology, over 90% of what I needed to know to be a football head coach, about how to build a football program into something with Next to Nothing, how to build the most from The Least and with the least. And to deeply and profoundly love it and live for it.

Doesn’t matter if you can pronounce it, read it, write it, Arrangiarsi Works, dual meaning. That’s what this football book is about. This book is my Football Thesis, compliments of my gym, X Fitness. I encourage every football coach to write a Football Thesis for their own personal growth, team growth, and sport growth. The concept of writing a Football Thesis worked for Italian Soccer. Some of the most successful professional soccer coaches in the world graduated from Coverciano, a.k.a. The Center, the central training ground. A soccer academy for the Azzuri, Italy’s national team, for national coaches, for youth teams. and their coaches. Coverciano is located in Florence, Italy. I’m not a soccer fan but I’m a devoted student of soccer coaching. I urge you to Google Coverciano. Read and study their principles, their formal coaching education system, their thesis requirement. Even if you don’t love or like soccer or even understand it, you will change you entire perspective about football coaching, academics, education, and development once you’ve read about Coverciano.

When Antonio and Maria didn’t understand a question asked in English, they’d said, “I no speaka EEEngleeesh.” But they spoke “Work.” They were fluent in the universal language of Work. They communicated, “We speak Work” through their work, not their words. That’s the Arrangiarsi Mentality. That’s the Arrangiarsi Culture. And, it applies to our football programs: “We speak Work.”

#MUCHLOVE #soulofalifter

Blessings & all good things

#peace

Gino Arcaro