“Excellence is achieved by the mastery of the fundamentals.”—Vince Lombardi
 
When coaching legend Vince Lombardi took over the Green Bay Packers in 1959, it’s said that he met with players on a practice field, held up a ball and said simply, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” 
 
He wasn’t insulting their intelligence. Rather, he used the ball as a prop to point out that the team, which had finished with a losing record in the previous season, was weak on the core principles of the game. “What we’re going to do now is go back ...