Former coach aims to inspire leaders

While he may be a legend on the football field – after all, he’s led the Wildcats to the state championships twice, won one and is only the fourth athletic director in the history of Plano ISD – coach Gerald Brence is expanding his horizons.

“A lot of people will associate me with coach Clark, coach Kimbrough and the great players at Plano Senior High, and I take great pride in that,” he said. “But my first association was with the English department at Plano Senior High. They welcomed me with open arms and accepted me from the beginning.”

On Saturday, Brence will be marking a major milestone in his life at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore on 15th Street: the release of his book, “The 70-30 Split: Blending Motivation, Leadership and Coaching.”

“In a team, it’s 70 percent about the players, and 30 percent about the coaching,” he said. “As the season moves on and the competition level gets higher, the split tightens. When peak performance is realized, the split may tighten all the way down to 51 percent the players and 49 percent the coaches. But regardless of the situation, the tilt will never go in favor of the coaching; it will always tilt toward the players.”

“The 70-30 Split” is about maintaining the balance between athletes and leadership in order to make a team successful.

“A successful team has figured out how to balance the split,” he said. “My book is about how to manage the split. This book is a guide on leadership abilities in coaching, business and your personal life, and handling tough situations.”

From the highs to the lows, Brence included in his book many personal experiences from 26 years on the football field as head coach and assistant coach.

While many coaches would sugarcoat the 2003 0-10 season, Brence said he featured the embarrassing event to show his readers determination and perseverance, as just two years later, Plano Senior High made an appearance in the state quarterfinals.

“We all fail as much as we succeed, but we have to pick ourselves up and deal with it and continue moving forward,” he said. “Real high-achievers fight failure off after falling down.”

But the book is not only for those involved in team sports; Brence said he wrote it for anybody who plays a part in any kind of team.

“People always ask if this is a book about exercise or football, and I tell them not exactly,” he said. “While readers will learn about exercise and football, I kept it broad. This book is not only for middle-aged football guys like me. There are things that appeal to a lot of different kinds of people in this book.”

Football coaches will also learn a thing or two with “The 70-30 Split.”

Coach Jaydon McCullough, who served as Brence’s assistant coach, said the book gave him a lot of food for thought.

“I worked with him for 17 years, so there weren’t a lot of things that surprised me, but what his book did do was reinforce a lot of things I believe in and feel very strongly about in terms of leadership and motivation,” he said. “The book is good for anybody who has intentions of being a leader in any capacity.”

As he started out as an English teacher, Brence said his first passion was English.

“I love reading and writing, and I have been collecting books for a long time,” he said. “For several years I had been talking about writing a book, but I never knew how to start.”

But one visit to Office Depot to pick up office supplies that provided him the motivation to finally sit down and write.

“Several things came together at once,” he said. “I was at the store and I saw a display of blank books. I had had a format in my mind about how I wanted the book to be, but seeing those blank books changed everything. I bought one and went home and went to work. I printed out the pages, and I started cutting and gluing the text into the blank book.”

Writing a book based primarily on his experience on the football field with a team of high school athletes was not his original intention, Brence said.

“It just came naturally,” he said. “There are recurring themes throughout life, and those are motivation, inspiration and leadership, so the topics in this book can apply to anybody.”

“The 70-30 Split: Blending Motivation, Leadership and Coaching” is available for purchase at www.GeraldBrence.com.

Brence will be at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore at 15th Street and Central Expressway on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. signing books and greeting readers.

Current Rating: 1 of 1 votes!

Rate File: Select Rating: * ** *** ****

 Plano Apartments
 Plano Attorneys
 Plano Auto Dealers
 Plano Auto Parts
 Plano Auto Repair
 Plano Beauty Salons
 Plano Car Rental
 Plano Dentists
 Plano Doctors
 Plano Flowers
 Plano Hotels
 Plano Insurance
 Plano Loans
 Plano Mortgages
 Plano Movers
 Plano Pizza
 Plano Realtors
 Plano Restaurants
 Plano Storage
 Plano Tax Preparation
 Plano Travel
 Featured
 More...