If you are coaching in the NCAA, you know that winning is important to your team, your players, your program, your school and to you personally. The reality of the job is that, in most cases, coaches are judged on whether they win.

Even though you have a "winning-is-important" philosophy, you still care about what kind of education your players receive on the team. Winning and educating are not mutually exclusive. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The more your players know about how to think to succeed, the better your players will become. This is not a viewpoint or theory, but a science.

While we know what winning entails, what is the subject matter we are teaching in sports, and how are we educating our players on a daily basis in both practices and games? It's time to consider changing the way sports are taught. It's not that sports have to be raised to a new level; instead, sports have to be played in an entirely different arena if educating our players for a successful life is a priority. If it's not a priority, that's a different problem that needs to be addressed separately.

The Lasell College men's basketball program has adopted a Massachusetts high-school initiative that implements a written curriculum and text, read and studied by both players and coaches, which is based on the mental skills studied in sport psychology. Our team focused on effort before we started reading and applying the curriculum, but now we are focusing on understanding what the team vision of effort is, how it feels, how it looks, how to attain it and how to prolong it. The kids see this as the game within the game. They see maximum effort as a choice to be made. Teaching basketball hasn't changed at all, but the players are learning new ideas on how to think and apply what is learned. They understand that it's a science by reading about it, as well as listening.

Presently, coaching methodology, like a pagan religion, is passed down orally from one generation to the next. The current model of the sports team is a verbal place, where athletes focus on sport-specific skills and some ambiguous life-skill messages are taught. Some of these life lessons arise through situations that develop. The subject matter studied in sport is as varied as the number of coaches in the school, as everyone is teaching something different. In addition, the starters and the players on the bench are learning completely different mental skills.

A new model for a sports team currently being piloted in Massachusetts, Ohio and Maryland has athletes learn from a structured, science-based, written curriculum and text, read by player and coach. In this model, the bench and the starters are learning and practicing exactly the same skills. Players read, learn and then practice mental skills daily as the focal point of the team, using sports as the vehicle to learn how to think to be successful on and off the field. A big bonus is that most players actually play better if they participate regularly in the exercises. This is not theory, but a proven fact.

Sport psychology is precisely about what we do as coaches and players. Not using it as a tool seems like trying to teach geography without maps.

Writing down what we want to be taught produces a comprehensive, academic-driven educational product. It would seem that it is a more educationally sound way of teaching than simply relying on each coach to "re-invent the wheel" as the situation arises.

More importantly, when we write down mental exercises, and then follow through with coaching these skills daily, we focus on the process more than the winning. When we concentrate on the details, a win is more likely.

Moreover, by focusing themselves on their thoughts and changing those that are not helpful, players will probably play better, have more confidence and be more satisfied with their experience on their team.

The mental skills that are learned and practiced daily are transferable and mirror our community values. Hard work, helping others and achieving our goals are our community values, and it is in our national interest to teach these values to the future leaders of our country.

Lastly, the skills support the common-sense belief that people who feel good about themselves as people perform better in anything they do. You don't have to be a doctor with 17 degrees to know that. But within science, there are proven principles that apply in sports and in life. Your players should know them. After all, education and winning are not mutually exclusive.

Students are given specific exercises to improve the following self-worth building skills. It is a skill to:

Work hard and actively help others, since both make you feel good about yourself.

Be positive with others because people perform and learn better in a positive environment.

Be positive with yourself, since what you are thinking generally affects your behavior or performance.

* Recognize harmful or distracting thoughts and change them to helpful ones so our chance of success is better.

Set proper goals that assist in attaining challenging success daily to build your self-worth.

Concentrate on the details of a task, not the outcome, for better results.

Visualize successfully completing a task to improve chances of success.

Meditate to relax and to control thoughts, feelings and actions.

At Lasell, our team has a definite idea of what we want to do because we think about it a lot. We emphasize the skills that will teach our players to be good thinkers after they leave Lasell College and our team. We have reached a higher level earlier than in seasons past. Of course, I want to see us get a third straight bid to the NCAA tournament, but more importantly, I want our kids focusing on the very next possession. Getting that bid is more likely when we consciously think like that.

Our players understand how it all works, and they practice it daily.

Mitch Lyons is an assistant men's basketball coach at Lasell College. He also is the president and founder of GetPsychedSports.org, Inc., which is dedicated to changing the subject matter of youth and school sports teams to promote better mental health in athletes.