CHAPEL HILL – Veteran coaches have personal standards, methods, and mottos by which they live. Usually, it’s every day and with nearly everything in their lives.

Good coaches use life examples to help teach their sport to athletes, as it truly applies in all avenues of sport. It’s partly a way to jell the message with the desired action. It helps them understand what’s what better.

The professional outline also gives them boxes to operate within. Tried and true. They swear by it.

North Carolina defensive line coach Tod Monachino is no different. As an NFL assistant coach for 16 years, and many other years coaching major college football, he crafted a floor plan as his foundation for how he attacks each life mission.

“I’m a little bit of a words-that-work guy,” said Monachino, who is in his first year as UNC’s defensive line coach after serving last season as a defensive analyst. “So, I’m thinking about the things that really apply to me specifically, and me personally.”

At 57 years old with 34 years of coaching experience under his belt, the Missouri native knows exactly who he is, and what works.

“I’m excited, right,” Monachino said, unveiling his five life words. “I’m determined. I’m focused. I’m honored. And I’m aligned.”

Makes sense, as those words really would apply to any aspect of life and any endeavor. A form of Monachino’s personal framework is an absolute for any successful coach. They all have them; the repeated sayings in press conference that fans sometimes tire of hearing and about which sports writers make wise cracks.

For Monachino, however, the five words are his football lifeblood, and are intended to always lead to success.

“I think that word ‘alignment’ is really important,” he said. “And the thing about all that stuff is I could take the word ‘I’ out of it and replace it with the word ‘we,’ because in our time that we’ve spent, that’s been our goal. It’s to make sure we’re aligned and everybody is pulling in the same direction.”

So, in using Monachino’s five words to live by, coaches must get players excited about doing all that is necessary to improve and excel. The coaches must be determined to find the right buttons to push for each player, as each has a different button. Along those lines, the coaches must also infuse the excited player with his own level of determination.

Focus goes with the latter two items because it allows for implementation. The honor is the ingrained glue that enables excitement, determination, and focus to become something tangible and effective.

And with all of that, when a staff does this with its players, and they follow within themselves, all are aligned in the meeting rooms and on the field.

“Getting our best players doing what they do best most often is the best way for us to play better defense,” he said, noting the mission of the Tar Heels’ defensive staff this season.

It’s almost as if he can hand out 3x5 cards to the rest of the staff with those five words written on it, fueling them that day.

Of course, Geoff Collins, Charlton Warren, Jason Jones, Tommy Thigpen and company probably have their own set of words and principles by which they live. Just like Monachino.