Schutt - College Coaches of the Year

Mike London University of Richmond Creating Competition in Practice – Making Players Perform Under Pressure After seven games into the 2008 season with a record of 4-3, nobody believed Richmond could win it all, except Mike London himself, who saw something special in his guys. “I knew that our losses could have gone either way early on,” said London, who was the defensive coordinator at Virginia before taking the job at his alma mater. “We lost to a Virginia team who knocked off two ranked teams in North Carolina and Maryland. We lost to a Villanova team who I thought was one of the better teams in the county. And we lost to James Madison, a perennial powerhouse, in the final seconds of the game. So I knew that if I kept these kids positive things would work out.” Much easier said then done. London kept them motivated by getting them to compete every day in practice by