Ideas for a Goals Bulletin Board for Football

Setting up a goals bulletin board is a creative way for a football team to gel as a cohesive unit. Targeting team objectives for an upcoming season will help garner unselfish attitudes and establish an atmosphere of community, where players are encouraged to work together to put the team before the individual.

  1. Outcome Goals

    • Pioneering research on goal-setting and motivation by Dr. Edwin Locke revealed that people respond best to clear objectives. Therefore, it is important to establish measurable goals for your team, such as a desired end-of-season record or a specific playoff seeding. If you believe your team has the talent to realistically win three out of every four games, your team should aim for a winning percentage of 75 percent or better. Use a tack to post an "Outcome Goals" document to the top of your goals bulletin board. The outcome goals should be placed at the top because the overall win-loss record should be the team's number one concern.

    Performance Goals

    • According to Dr. Edwin Locke, specific and difficult goals typically lead to better task performance than vague or easy goals. Urging your defense to "try harder" will be less effective than saying "try to allow 14 points or less in the next game." Difficult goals are more motivating than easy goals because of the sense of accomplishment they inspire. Accordingly, set challenging performance goals for both your team's defense and offense.

      Create a "Performance Goals" section immediately below the "Outcome Goals" section on your bulletin board. Performance goals should be subdivided into offensive and defensive categories. In the offensive section, list numbers-oriented goals that focus on passing yards, rushing yards and points you think are fair and achievable for your quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers. In the defensive section, list goals aimed at reducing the opponents' yardage and touchdowns and that focus on allowing only an x amount of points per game.

    Mental Goals

    • Mental goals aim to discipline a team's attention to detail. Listening to a coach's instructions during practice can be the difference between winning and losing. For example, during a fourth quarter 2-minute drill, it is important for a team to be on the same page. The players must be aware of how many yards they need to score, how much time is left on the clock and how many timeouts they have remaining. If a player calls a team's final timeout at an inopportune time, the team may suffer near the end of the game if they need to stop the clock. Coaches should make it a goal to teach their players end-of-game scenarios in practice.

      The bottom of the bulletin board should be dedicated to these mental goals -- effort and hustle levels should be stressed in this section. The "Mental Goals" list should be gone over before every practice and before every game because this is the only list on the entire board that is completely in the hands of your players. Keep the bulletin board visible in the locker room throughout the season and make plenty of references to it when meeting with your team.

    Progress

    • A goals bulletin board should display the initial goals and any progress made toward their accomplishment. Including feedback during a season provides opportunities to clarify expectations. Regular progress reports will also help measure successes and failures along the way, showing specifically which goals may need more attention going forward than others.