"Brick by Brick": How Adam Berry is transforming Sheffield Giants’ culture

34-year-old Adam Berry was appointed head coach of the Sheffield Giants in early November.

In little over one month in charge, he has made a complete 180-degree turn in the team's culture, now looking to bring Division 1 glory to Sheffield.

Berry's passion and dedication to the craft made him a household name in the local community, despite having only started playing at around 30.

In those last five years, he has had over 11 seasons of playing and coaching both contact and flag football.

He said: "The thing about me is I have a very addictive personality, I don't smoke, I don't drink. And yet, football I love, and I throw myself into it wholeheartedly. I rarely, if ever, missed a training session. I knew the playbook, sometimes better than the coordinator.

"It's just my happy place. So, it was natural for me to go up the coaching ladder. As I learned more about the game, I wanted to teach others about the game."

The first thing he did after taking over the hot seat was to find out what was wrong with a Giants team that went winless last year.

After spending time asking all the players about their dissatisfaction, the word that Berry received the most was "culture," and, particularly, a winning and accountable culture that was missing.

Answering the players' desire, Berry is instilling in the Giants' DNA a new "tough love" philosophy with the motto "wins are built day by day, brick by brick."

This is a culture of showing, not just telling, the players' accountability for improvement and passion on and off the pitch.

Berry said: "I give a statement of intent at every practice of who we are as a team and what we're doing. And I think eventually that message one by one, brick by brick, gets through to people and they get on board and now it's sort of snowballing."

The change started with a handful of players posting their workouts on Instagram before spiralling to the majority of the team, and even the newcomers have also hopped on the trend, assuming this is the norm.

With hundreds of stories every week, the term "brick by brick" circulated within the Sheffield American football community on social media.

"I say, "Look, tag me as many times as you want a week. I do not mind the admin." But it's actually getting to a point where the admin is actually quite a lot. I don't mind, because I've called that out. If I get a hundred posts a week, I want that," said Berry.

The visibility is not only a testament to the Giants' transformation from the inside but also a major recruitment tool.

He said: "When a recruit, transfer or prospective player is looking for a team they want to go to, and they see 80, 100, 120 posts every week from players working hard. If you play at a high level, that's incredibly hard to ignore."

The captivating shift in culture is evident in the record turnouts of the past three rookie days, including 30 new faces from not only Sheffield but also Mansfield, Leeds and other surrounding cities.

Regardless of being rookies, the coaching staff still holds them to the same high standards of putting in work and committing to the culture.

For Adam Berry, he would rather choose the correct personalities that will buy into and take this culture seriously over athletic ability and skill set.

Berry said: "I want to be really upfront. Every rookie day, I've said the same thing: American football is probably the most rewarding sport.

"But it's also the most demanding in a lot of ways, as a lot of your time is spent on American football. The training sessions are 3 hours, plus classroom, plus learning the playbook, plus gym sessions, plus watching videos and doing all this kind of thing.

"So you've got to take the sport seriously. And if you don't, not only could you get hurt, but your friends and brothers on the field could get hurt as well. And I won't stand for that," he added.

With the Giants now loaded up with talents and success-hungry players, there is only one goal next season: championship or bust.

"The goal for us this year is to win the Division 1 championship, not to get to the playoffs, not to go 8-0, but to win the championship.

"And we are going to conduct every training session, every film session, every post on Instagram, every gym workout, every behind-the-scenes meeting about game days as if we are a championship team wanting to win the championship."

The crucial offseason work that the players are putting in will be the premise of next season.

Berry said: "The Giants are going to show up to every game this year. And they are not going to assume that the win is theirs, but they are going to demand it, and we will go in with confidence. It's the confidence that comes from knowing that we have done the work every day from September, when the season concluded, right through to April, when the season starts again.

"That's why I'm talking about brick by brick every day. We do something to improve. We watch films. We look at playbooks. We eat better. We drink more water. We build each other up every day, better and better, brick by brick. But the goal is the championship, always."