In sports, teams rise and fall all the time. Specifically in college and high school athletics, the wheel of powerhouse programs is always turning, sometimes faster than others. Every team not winning consistently year after year wants to be at the top because success brings power, money, and future success. Not everybody can do it though. There is no secret to “Getting Good,” but throughout athletics, one factor stands out: Leadership.
While money, recruiting, and facilities all play a role, the ultimate factor in success is who is at the helm. When programs improve in long lasting, culture changing ways, it is almost certainly as a result of the right coach stepping into the job.
Unsuccessful programs seldom fail from a lack of drive and motivation. Continuous loss is a reflection of poor standards and normalized underperformance. This is the first task for a coach to overcome. The elimination of these habits will pave the way for success. A cultural change is invisible to the outside world, but players and coaches can feel it, and it begins well before the drastic change in the win column.
For example, the recent national champion Indiana Hoosiers resurgence from a bottom Big Ten team to a national title contender has sparked conversation over head coach Curt Cignetti’s methods. When Cignetti took over, he acquired the program with the most losses in college football history, covering over 715 all time losses.
In his first ever press conference after his introduction to the Hoosiers, Cignetti was asked how he would build a winning culture at historically losing Indiana. His response was simple: “I win, Google me.”
He was not wrong. After just two years at Indiana, Cignetti has an overall record of 25-2, two playoff appearances, one national title, and an undefeated 2025-2026 season. Fans wonder if this success will last, and every sign is pointing toward yes.
Another prime example of a program exemplifying a drastic turnaround is Nebraska Men’s Basketball. Throughout college basketball, Nebraska has been labeled as an embarrassment of a program. As the only power conference school to never win an NCAA tournament game, “Nebrasketball” has never seen better days.
In 2019, Nebraska basketball hired Fred Hoiberg as their new head coach, replacing Tim Miles. Hoiberg had proved to be a good coach at the collegiate level, as he had a very successful career at Iowa State, tallying 115 wins and four NCAA tournament appearances over five years.
But, the beginning of Hoiberg’s tenure at Nebraska left a lot to be desired. In his first three years his teams went a combined 24-72 and got last in the Big Ten every year. In 2024, Nebraska made their first NCAA tournament as an eight seed, only to lose in the first round to 9-seed Texas A&M.
After missing the tournament again in 2025, Hoiberg’s 2026 squad has had its best start in school history, rattling off 20 straight wins to start the year, breaking numerous school records. As a seemingly tournament bound team, the Huskers look to finish the season strong and finally get the weight of the first tourney win in school history off its shoulders.
So, like Cignetti, Hoiberg got it done. He took a program that was dead in the water and got them to become a top ten team in the nation. How? Through consistency.
Hoiberg has preached consistency throughout his coaching tenure, emphasizing the same standards of never being satisfied, pushing for constant daily improvement in practice and in-game execution. His approach has the Huskers in uncharted territory, but only time will tell if this brand of “Nebrasketball” is a fluke, or if they are here to stay.
High school sports are a whole different world, as most coaches teach during school hours and have other responsibilities outside of coaching. The wheel of success and failure in high school athletics is more balanced than the college level, as students aren’t given as much freedom on where they attend school.
The story is different for new programs who don’t have a history of either winning or losing, and coaches are tasked with developing a winning culture from the get go.
Elkhorn North’s Samuel Stanley has had a major impact on the culture of the program and school as a whole. Building the football program from the ground up, he has established standards of determination and success, while also acknowledging the work it took to get the program there since its opening season in 2020.
“I think the journey of our first three years really tells the story of the program,” Stanley said. “Those kids went through some hard times and persevered through a lot to put this program in a position to be very successful.”
Stanley and the Wolves have made the playoffs four years in a row, with a record of 34-12 in that span. The program has the pieces in place to continue its success for years to come.
“We have program standards that we expect every team to exceed, such as family and hard work,” Stanley said. “We work hard year-round to hold players accountable to those standards.”
Right inside the doors of Elkhorn North’s gymnasium lies another team’s culture that was built from nothing. The Elkhorn North Boys Basketball team’s rise to a class B Contender is an example of a program’s determination to raise its standards
Head coach Andy King has been the basketball coach at Elkhorn North since the school’s founding. He saw the program struggle in its first few years, but has also watched it grow into a proud and confident group with state championship hopes.
“It’s not easy to “build a culture” as a new program because it takes time,” King said. “You can say all the right things but it’s all about your actions and having trust in those actions.”
Each year, King has established goals for the program, and his players strive for these milestones, regardless of how realistic they may be.
“We made small goals as we built this thing – something as small as winning back to back games for the first time ever,” King said. “Then that evolved into having a winning season, hosting an EMC tournament game, hosting a District final, etc.”
The Wolves had their first winning season in 2023-2024, an EMC tournament game in 2023, and hosted a District Final in 2024, and made state for the first time in 2025. This shows a steady progression for the program. King and the wolves will look to continue their success for the remainder of the 2026 season, and take their momentum down to Lincoln.
“Now our goal continues to be to make the State Tournament and once we are down there, put three straight days together and cut down the nets,” King said.
These teams, at the collegiate or high school level, all strive for success. Whether the program is a hundred years old or brand new, the influence of leadership on the culture is undeniable.
The coaches of these teams set the standard. By exemplifying confidence, consistency and determination, they pave the way for players to follow their lead and build a positive culture for the program.
