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Camp is a big thing built on the little things
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The great John Wooden won 10 NCAA basketball championships 12 years UCLA. Even armchair fans know him as one of the greatest coaches of any sport in history. And he spent a ton of time teaching his players how to put on their socks. You read that right. Putting on socks. The best basketball players in the country. This wasn’t some sports metaphor. He literally sat down and showed them how to put on their socks. Before practices, before games, Wooden would go through properly seating a sock on the foot so there were no wrinkles. That’s because he believed a wrinkled sock caused blisters. Blisters affected movement, and movement affected performance. Championships were won and lost in those small details. There are photos of him kneeling down to tie players’ shoes. The most GOAT college hoops coach, on his knees, making sure the laces were right. The Little Things at CampRunning a camp is a big thing built on dozens of little things. Hundreds, maybe. Thousands? You could sure make the case. The welcome email. The first phone call to a new family. How staff greet parents at drop-off. The wording on the packing list. The speed of photo uploads. The subject line on a newsletter. The pictures in the brochure. The way cabins are swept. The second activity on the third day of staff training. None of these feels like a championship-level decision in the moment. But they compound. When a few of them slip, the whole thing starts feeling off. The challenge for most camp folk is stacking all of these things together. Summer staring you down on the calendar, and now the to-do list grows way past what any single brain (or even team) can hold. You end up trying to be great at everything and landing somewhere around mediocre on most of it. You forget to put on your socks correctly. A Pattern that Shows UpWhen I work with camps, I often hear some version of: “I was doing that, but I guess I wasn’t doing it to that degree.” I’ll ask about email marketing, and the subject lines are so vague nobody opens them. Or social media that’s really just one post a week with no engagement. Or lead follow-up where weeks go by between touches. The intention is there, but the execution might be lagging a bit behind. And sometimes you don’t realize it until you go back to some of the basics, and have someone with outside eyes taking a look. What’s your version of putting on socks? What could go back to basics? It pays to take a look and find out. If the winningest coach in college basketball could spend time doing it, so can camps. Sincerely, Senior Consultant at Immersive1st PS - Book a Call I take these calls all the time. So do David and Hunter. We’re happy to look at what you’re working on and help you figure out what’s slipping. Talk about putting on socks together. Learn more about Immersive1st's Approach |
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