CG native and retired brigadier general pens book on player-centric coaching

Posted 12/14/22

‘Hustle and Have Fun! A Coach’s Guide to Winning Over Players and Parents’ Still not done with Christmas shopping but not sure what to buy? If you’re shopping for someone into sports like a …

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CG native and retired brigadier general pens book on player-centric coaching

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‘Hustle and Have Fun! A Coach’s Guide to Winning Over Players and Parents’

Still not done with Christmas shopping but not sure what to buy?

If you’re shopping for someone into sports like a coach or other family member, you might consider ‘Hustle and Have Fun! A Coach’s Guide to Winning Over Players and Parents.’ The book, which NBA legendary coach Gregg Popovich called “a positive and refreshing approach to teaching youth sports,” was written by Cottage Grove native Greg Gutterman in honor of his three life passions of family, the U.S. Air Force, and student athletes, the “purposefully short” read of 89 pages before appendices puts forth and elaborates a seven part message that Gutterman has learned through the years and in his experiences coaching sports. Chief among the takeaways, is the purpose of sports.

““The purpose of sports overall is to create people of character who are productive members of Society,” Gutterman shared recently of his approach to athletic competition. “This book is a practical approach on how to do so.”

A retired brigadier general and sports coach of some three decades, Gutterman started out playing hockey as a kid while growing up back in the ‘70s and ‘80s near Hearthside Park at the corner of Hearthside and Hillside, in Cottage Grove.

Among the memories from his youth and high school years are the local firemen flooding a spot near a baseball field at Hearthside Park to double as a hockey rink in the winter and being made captain his senior year of hockey at Park High, before being recruited to play for the U.S. Air Force Academy’s hockey team.

Playing 84 NCAA Division I games as a member of the U.S. Air Force team before graduating to begin a military career as a mechanical engineer and meeting his wife rink side in Ohio, Gutterman’s experience as a player and later coach has given him insight into the best time to teach players lifelong lessons.

“Game day is a key opportunity for coaches,” he said. “Because a game heightens emotions. Second, players are not distracted on game-days (by their phones, social media, schoolwork, etc) and they are focused on competing. So when you take the emotional factor with the focus factor, you really have a rare opportunity to use game days as your primary classroom to teach lifelong lessons to an open minded and focused student-athlete. In my opinion, there is always a lesson to be taught on game days, irrespective of the games outcome.”

“Subconsciously or consciously when the players are adults, they will remember you as a coach,” he said. “Make it a positive memory, and reinforce the theme: gritty, never-quit, team-oriented cultures matter, in sports and life. Make that theme (or your own character-based theme) a part of your players DNA and it will have the power to elevate them for life.”

Among the coaches Gutterman remembers is one who spoke at a banquet dinner during his graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1989, the legendary Bob Johnson. The three-time Hall of Fame hockey coach challenged Academy graduates that day: hockey had gotten them where they were in life, what were they going to do for hockey to give back?

Going on to decades of coaching in multiple states alongside his military career, Gutterman focuses on his top seven recommendations for coaches, players, and parents of all sports. Among the quotes Gutterman shares is one from General Douglas MacArthur, who said: “On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days and other fields, bear the fruits of victory.” Gutterman agrees with this point.

“Only 1 percent of the players will play Division 1 college hockey or beyond, but 100 percent of them can remember the positive character-based lessons a player-centric coach teaches,” Gutterman said. “I still remember, and included in the book, some of the lessons my great coaches taught me when I was a youth player in Cottage Grove.”

Available for sale at Amazon, a portion of the proceeds from book sales of ‘Hustle and Have Fun’ will be donated to the not-for-profit Academy Hockey Club, to “increase participation and diversity in hockey, providing free learn-to-skate and learn-to-play opportunities.” For more information, see academyhockey.org.


Future coach Greg Gutterman as a Peewee/ Squirt in Cottage Grove, circa 1976. Submitted photo.

Player Greg Gutterman during his time on the U.S. Air Force Team, 1985 — 1989. Submitted photo.