2021-01-01 19:41

Location: Deventer Devils internal communication
Date: 1st January 2021
Time: 09:00


Person: Ronald Vennegoor
Title: Owner

Who we are

I will be the first to admit that I was not an experienced owner nor GM when I founded this club. I had a burning desire to be one, that is for sure. However I did not have the operational experience of an owner nor football expertise of a GM. However through my hard work and perserveance I am now those two things, both an owner and a GM.

At the start I had hired Jerad Jones as a GM. However I quickly realised that to be successful, I have be able to do what I think is necessary. This is how I have always worked and how I have become rich. On top of that, I need to be able to see eye to eye with everyone who works for me, whether that person is a coach or the water boy.

So I’ve taken the last few weeks to assess the situation at the club. I realised I have not properly conveyed to our staff Who We Are. What is our Identity? What do we stand for? What do I expect from you? I therefore have taken decisions and set up some expectations that I am sharing with you below:

General Manager
I will become the General Manager because frankly, if someone is spending my money, it should be me. Coaches will have input but final decision is with me.

Coaches
I have a very specific culture in mind for inside this club. Therefore I cannot have coaches bring their own baggage into the building. I will therefore look to recruit a young and promising coaching staff. Expect an announcement to be made regarding the HC later this week.

Players
What I said regarding coaches also goes for players. I want players of a very particular mold and instill a culture in them that they will carry with them for the rest of their playing days. Therefore the focus will be on young players. If we have to choose for a quick fix (ie bringing a seasoned veteran in) or a long term solution (ie training a player) then I will always choose the latter.

Culture
I see the culture of a football club to be even a bigger thing than players, coaches and the owner. If a scheme is a system that incorporates players and plays then Culture is the scheme of a football club. Get that right and you are on the road to success. Simple as that. I see the following as the foundation of the culture inside this club.

’We’ culture versus ‘I’ culture
American football, more than any sport, depends on players working together. Therefore the individual should always be serving the greater good. We therefore cannot have big egos in this club.
in-game this means I will try not to recruit players with a TW rating of lower than 40 and the goal will be 45 of higher. Current players are excempt from this rule.

Leaders are a Necessity
Having said that, it is important to have leadership within each position group. Specifically I will appoint a leader per position group. This person requires different qualities than the standard squad player. This is not unfair but the way to get unity within a group of vastly diffferent personalities.
in-game this means that there can be one exception per position group on the We Culture rule. This is to account for players chosen from the draft.

Pride
To be playing for this club is a privilege. Not in the sense of privilege in that you a professional football player but a real privilige to be playing for the Deventer Devils. It is a right that has to be earned, the hard way. Because of this, the only source of new players for the Devils will be the Youth Academy. We have made a massive investment in the Academy recently and once I’ve concluded the coaching hires I feel we are in a position to train the best players this league can produce, right here in our academy.
in-game I wanted a real challenge and only relying on YA definitely is one.

Not Everyone is Good Enough
I will also make profiles per position group and share these with you all once we have a coaching staff in place. These profiles will ensure we will never lose sight of the overarching structure we are building here at the Devils. This will allow us to make the tough decisions we will need to make regarding future players in our academy.
in-game this will let me be rigorous with players who don’t have the right skillset. This because I tend to be very forgiving when it is concering youth academy players and embrace the ‘One of Use’ mentality 

This concludes this internal memo. As mentioned the next one will be about the new HC that we are signing as we speak.

Tags: Inside Deventer Devils