#417 David Baird, UEFA A Licensed Coach and Founder of Scoreboard Soccer on How to Create More Engaging Practices and Small Sided Games
Release Date: 02/21/2025
#425 How to Win the Inside Game Through Clarity, Purpose and Belonging with Author and Coach Steve Magness
Way of Champions Podcast
Steve Magness (@stevemagness) is a world-renowned expert on performance. He is the author of the new book . He is the author of the bestselling Do Hard Things, coauthor of Peak Performance. The Passion Paradox, and the author of The Science of Running. Collectively his books have sold more than three quarters of a million copies. Magness has served as a performance coach to numerous professional sporting teams, executives, entrepreneurs, artists, and more. He's worked with Olympians, athletes from every professional sports league, and the U.S. military. His focus...
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#424 Raymond Verheijen, 4x World Cup and EURO's Coach, on the Importance of Fitness Training Within Sport Context, Overuse Injuries, Periodization of Training, and Managing Load When Athletes Play up an Age (replay)
Way of Champions Podcast
Raymond Verheijen (@raymondverheije) is a world renowned fitness coach and has been involved as an assistant in 4 World Cups and 4 EURO’s working under Legendary Dutch coach Gus Hiddink, as well as working with several European top clubs like FC Barcelona, Chelsea and Manchester City. As a youth player Verheijen was part of the famous Dutch Youth Academy structure. Unfortunately, his dream of a professional career ended as a chronic injury forced him to retire at the young age of 18. This disadvantage became an advantage as Verheijen started his coaching career...
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#423 Mark Bennett MBE, Former British Commando and Founder of PDS Coaching on The Rule of Three, and How Coaching Behaviors is the Key to Excellence
Way of Champions Podcast
Mark Bennett (@pdscoach) is one of our most popular all-time guests, and for good reason. His coaching methodology through PDS Coaching has influenced countless teams and coaches throughout the NBA, MLB, professional rugby, soccer and Olympic and World Championships. John has had the pleasure of working with Mark, and it changed him forever as a coach. Mark has extensive experience working with the elite British military as a training designer, manager, coach, & senior instructor. He has also worked with both individual & team elite professional & amateur sports globally,...
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#422 Dr. Debbie Sayers, Co-Founder of the Campaign for Children's Rights in Football
Way of Champions Podcast
Dr Debbie Sayers is a lawyer from the UK with a PhD in human rights law. She founded in April 2016. The youth football club takes a human rights-based approach to sport, prioritising the rights of children in practice. The club has gained recognition nationally and internationally for its ground-breaking work, and we have been fans since its inception. Debbie recently co-founded the l (CCRF) a wholly independent and impartial organisation campaigning for, and promoting the realization of, children’s rights in football internationally. In our chat Debbie and John discuss the...
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#421 Matthew Mitchell, 3x SEC Coach of the Year for University of Kentucky Women's Basketball
Way of Champions Podcast
Matthew Mitchell (@coachmatthewmitchell) is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, speaker, three-time SEC Coach of the Year, and the winningest head coach in the history of the University of Kentucky women's basketball program. The foundation for his teams’ achievements is the Winning Tools principles: honesty, hard work, and discipline. Through Mitchell’s focus on the fundamentals, he led the program to new heights and UK’s first SEC Championship in 30 years. In his new book, Mitchell shares proven principles that lead to resilience, preparation, and growth. In...
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#420 Breanne Smedley, 4x State Champion Volleyball Coach on Incorporating Mental Training Into Every Practices
Way of Champions Podcast
Coach Breanne Smedley is a 14-year head coach, 4x state champion, certified mental performance coach, and co-founder of The Elite Competitor. She helps coaches build mentally tough, connected, and resilient teams so they can consistently compete at a championship level. After stepping into her first head coaching role fresh out of college, she quickly realized that while she knew the game, there was no playbook for the challenges that truly make or break a program—team culture, leadership development, and mental toughness. Determined to bridge that gap, she became a certified mental...
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#419 Dr. Jamie Taylor on Sport Skill Acquisition, Coach Development, and the Keys to Designing Effective, Engaging and Challenges Practices
Way of Champions Podcast
Jamie Taylor, PhD () earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of Edinburgh in 2020. He is currently an assistant professor and lecturer in coaching and elite performance at Dublin City University. As a senior coach developer at Grey Matters UK, Taylor offers ongoing contributions to the development of coaches and coach supporters in athletics, netball, rugby union, football, adventure sports, and the Special Olympics. He has worked with over 150 coaches in a developmental capacity and consulted across a wide range of sports and contexts, including Olympic and Paralympic programs....
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#418 Rob Ramseyer, Founder of the Impactful Coaching Project, on Leading and Coaching the 21st Century Athlete
Way of Champions Podcast
Dr. Rob Ramseyer is the Vice President of Athletics and Strategic Expansion at Friends University, where he oversees 24 teams and also serves as a member of the President’s Cabinet. Under his leadership the athletic department has reached many milestones both on-and-off the field including two Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference Commissioners Cups (KCAC), many teams qualifying for post-season play yearly, record fundraising, and helping lead the first capital campaign in nearly 30 years for Friends University. During his tenure the athletes have exceed a cumulative 3.0 GPA each...
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#417 David Baird, UEFA A Licensed Coach and Founder of Scoreboard Soccer on How to Create More Engaging Practices and Small Sided Games
Way of Champions Podcast
David Baird (@CoachDavidBaird) holds a UEFA A License and a UEFA Elite Youth A License. He has coached youth soccer for more than 15 years. Currently, David works as a Coach Educator and Football Development Officer for the Scottish Football Association. Prior to this, he spent time coaching in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and most recently, with the Heart of Midlothian Football Club academy in Scotland. His book is a wonderful addition to your coaching toolkit, as he gives you dozens of ways to create more competitive and engaging games in your training session. These...
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#416 Jonah Oliver, World Renowned Performance Psychologist, on Taking Positive Action Instead of Waiting for Positive Thoughts
Way of Champions Podcast
In this replay from May of 2022, John interviews Jonah Oliver (@jonah_oliver1) one of Australia’s leading performance psychologists. Combining his training in sport psychology and neuroscience, Jonah brings a unique, simple and effective approach to facilitating peak performance. Over the past two decades he has worked with a wide variety of clients: ranging from professional golfers (caddying on the PGA tour), Olympic athletes, professional soccer teams, AFL clubs (Gold Coast Suns Football Club, Essendon Football Club), car racing teams (Porsche – Le Mans World Champion) elite tennis...
info_outlineDavid Baird (@CoachDavidBaird) holds a UEFA A License and a UEFA Elite Youth A License. He has coached youth soccer for more than 15 years. Currently, David works as a Coach Educator and Football Development Officer for the Scottish Football Association. Prior to this, he spent time coaching in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and most recently, with the Heart of Midlothian Football Club academy in Scotland. His book ScoreBoard Soccer: Creating the Environment to Develop Young Players is a wonderful addition to your coaching toolkit, as he gives you dozens of ways to create more competitive and engaging games in your training session. These scoreboards, external methods of keeping game scores that include technical challenges and help create thinking players, can be used in any invasion game, as well as boundary sports if you are creative. Check out www.scoreboardsoccer.com to learn more. Connect with David at [email protected].
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Our 2025 Mastermind and Certification Program is sold out, but we do have a waitlist as well as a collection of coaches who are interested in being part of our next cohort. If you want to take a deeper dive then ever offered before into your coaching and personal development, or work within your school or club improving coaching or transforming the culture, or you want to hit the road as a speaker and presenter working with teams and youth sports organizations, we will give you the tools and support to do so. We are collecting names who are interested at this moment in joining the waitlist or being the first to know when we offer another program, you can do so by clicking here and adding your name and email to the list.
This week’s podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sprocket Sports. Sprocket Sports is a new software platform for youth sports clubs. Yeah, there are a lot of these systems out there, but Sprocket provides the full enchilada. They give you all the cool front-end stuff to make your club look good– like websites and marketing tools – AND all the back-end transactions and services to run your business better so you can focus on what really matters – your players and your teams.
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