I am currently completing an online professional development course through Santa Clara University called the Coaching for Life Academy. In our second unit we were asked to establish core values for our athletic programs.

The unit began with a YouTube video of Anson Dorrance, head coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels Woman’s Soccer program, and how he grades character based off of their team’s core value.  North Carolina has had great success at the NCAA level and Anson attributes this to expectations that his core values set.

When looking to establish our core values, my teacher asked us to utilize Patrick Lencioni’s Six Critical Questions to Gaining Clarity for what we find important in our teachings.

Carondelet Cross Country Core Values

1.  Why do we exist?

2.  How do we behave?

3. What exactly do we do?

4. How will we succeed?

5. What is most important? What is our top priority right now?

6. Who must do what to allow us to succeed?


I would like to challenge everyone to use these questions to establish your personal core values, as well as core values for your classroom.  

I question if my current lessons will align with my soon-to-be core values? So my goal this summer is to use this lesson to better my teachings in the classroom by establishing core values for each course I teach, as the needs for each class are different.