PAT SUMMITT ON COMPETING (PART II)

This is the second part of a two-part series on Coach Pat Summitt and her thoughts on competing.  These thoughts come from Coach Greg Brown.  Greg is currently the head coach at Lipscomb University but served on Coach Summitt's staff and recently wrote an outstanding book, "The Best Things I've Seen In Coaching."  The book is a collection of notes, thoughts and observations from working with Coach Summitt as well as Coach Don Meyer.

Compete in everything you do.

What do you see in great competitors?  Best everything they do.  Don't take possession off.  Push through being tired.

Competition isn't social.  It separates achievers from the average.

You can't always be the most talented person in the room but you can be the most competitive.

Influence your opponent:  by being competitive, you can affect how your adversary performs.

Competitors do not simply do things just to finish.

Competition should inspire you in all that you do.

It's fun to have someone to push you.

Competition allows you to set yourself apart.

Only by learning to compete can you discover just how much you are capable of achieving.

Competitiveness is the opposite of complacency.

Recruit competitors,  because they are winners.

You can always be better.

Play every possession like it's a game winner.

Must know who your most competitive players are.

People ask Pat who do you get them to play so hard?  The answer is they either go hard or they don't play.

This just a small sampling of Greg's observations in regard to competing as it was under Pat Summitt.  This is simply an outstanding book and would encourage anyone in coaching to purchase.  The proceeds from the book go to the foundations of both Pat Summitt and Don Meyer.

Click here to find out more and to order your copy.

PAT SUMMITT ON COMPETING (PART I)

This is the first part of a two-part series on Coach Pat Summitt and her thoughts on competing.  These thoughts come from Coach Greg Brown.  Greg is currently the head coach at Lipscomb University but served on Coach Summitt's staff and recently wrote an outstanding book, "The Best Things I've Seen In Coaching."  The book is a collection of notes, thoughts and observations from working with Coach Summitt as well as Coach Don Meyer.

BE A COMPETITOR

Competition and being a competitor may be what has always separated the Lady Vols and Pat.

Competing is the vital element of the Lady Vol success because all the teams at the elite level have superior athletic ability and skills, but no team has had the success of the University of Tennessee.

What sets the standard of competition?

Competing against self, not the other team.  The standard isn't just the opponent.  The standard is much higher than any opponent on the schedule.  You want to leave here knowing you competed every possession.

What can you learn from watching players run sprints?

Are they simply trying not to be last?

Are they just trying to finish?

Are they mad because of having to run sprints?

Are they trying to win every sprint?

Are they encouraging others or only thinking of themselves.

This just a small sampling of Greg's observations in regard to competing as it was under Pat Summitt.  This is simply an outstanding book and would encourage anyone in coaching to purchase.  The proceeds from the book go to the foundations of both Pat Summitt and Don Meyer.

Click here to find out more and to order your copy.

INSIDE LOOK AT TWO HALL OF FAME COACHES AND THEIR PROGRAMS

I've wrote before about how much I absolutely love Coach Greg Brown's book "The Best Things I've Seen In Coaching."  But I was rereading parts of it this week and thought I'd share some more thoughts about why this book is essential for all coaches on all levels. First, just to get insight into the teaching methods of Coach Don Meyer and Coach Pat Summitt makes is must-have book. Add to the fact that all the proceeds from the book go to charities for the foundations of both Coach Meyer and Coach Summitt and you have something very special indeed.  Ordering information will be at the bottom of the post.

Here is just a portion of what you can find in this book:

A look at the “Cornell Notetaking” system as taught by Coach Don Meyer.

Coach Pat Summitt talking about the components of “The Tennessee Way.”

Greg’s notes (he’s a prolific notetaker) following the Lady Vols games in which Coach Summitt meets with the team.  This includes post game notes from non-conference opponents like UConn as well SEC rivals.

Greg’s notes from John Maxwell as he addresses the Lady Vols.

Coach Summitt’s post-season meetings with players following the 2004 National Championship game.

Coach Summitt’s practice expectations.

Sections with Coach Summitt’s thoughts on responsibility, attitude, discipline, competing and communication.

An absolute great section titled “Put The Team Before Yourself.”

Coach Meyer’s core values: Team Attitude.

A great section with Coach Meyer’s principles in regard to planning and organization.

Coach Meyer’s views on self-improvement and being resilient.

An amazing section on Coach Meyers thoughts about leadership.

Coach Meyer’s formula for building a team and building a program.

For information on ordering "The Best Things I've Seen In Coaching" click here.

COACH SUMMITT ON TEAMWORK AND MENTAL TOUGHNESS

In honor of Coach Pat Summitt's birthday, here are a few of our favorite blog posts on Coach:

Great Thoughts On Teamwork from Pat Summitt
This came via Greg Brown's book "The Best Things I've Seen In Coaching."

Ultimate Coaches Clinic: Pat Summitt
A great list of philosophical thoughts from Coach Summitt comprised by Pat Williams.

Coach Summitt on Mental Toughness
An excerpt from her book "Reach for the Summit"

GREAT THOUGHTS ON "TEAMWORK" FROM COACH PAT SUMMITT

Here are three amazing quotes about teamwork that I have not read before from Coach Pat Summitt.  They come from Coach Greg Brown who has wrote a book about Coach Summitt and Coach Don Meyer, whom he both worked for.  These are but just a small sampling of some great notes that Greg took while being in staff meetings or listening to Coach Summitt talk to her team:

"Teamwork is not a matter of persuading yourself and your colleagues to set aside personal ambitions for the greater good. It's a matter of recognizing that your personal ambitions and the ambitions of the team are one and the same.  That's the incentive."

"Teamwork is not created by like-mindedness.  It's an emotional cohesion that develops from mutual respect and reciprocity and from coping with good times and adversity."

"To me, the greatest reward for being a team player, far outweighing any personal gain, is that it means you will never be alone.  Think about that.  Life has enough lonely times in store for all of us.  The wonderful thing about partnership is that it halves your sorrow and compounds your joys.  When you are pressure, your teammates will only multiply it.  The amount of success you are capable of enjoying and the pleasure you are capable of feeling, is equal to the number of people you are willing to share it with."

The name of Greg Brown's book is "The Best Things I've Seen In Coaching."  It's an outstanding book and you can order a copy HERE.

LESSON LEARNED: CHARACTER - DO IT THE RIGHT WAY

I came across an interview between Swish Appeal and Tyler Summitt, the new head coach at Louisiana Tech.  As we all know, Tyler is the son of Coach Pat Summitt.  Because of this, I loved the question posed to Tyler and loved even more his answer.

SA: Out of the all the things you have learned from your mother, what is the one thing that stood out the most?

TS: "I think it's character, it's doing things the right way. My mom never cut corners; she always did things right way, treated people the right way. And at the same time, she held people accountable, I don't care what they were doing, they were held strictly accountable to be the best they could be.

"But at the same time, she always did things the right way. She just had (great) character on and off the court, everything she did. So, I'm going to strive to have character as well."

Tyler obviously had a great teacher in Coach Summitt but he was obviously a great learner -- understanding it goes well beyond X & O's.

You can read the entire interview here.

THE "INTENTIONALITY" OF TEACHING

The best coaches are often the best teachers.  They take great pride in the practices -- which are well designed and often take more time to construct than to execute.  It takes time to develop a great practice plan because of the "intentionality" of selecting the drills that are necessary to improve upon the habits of your team.  What is important to the success of your system?  I've always made the comment that while watching video and scouting a team, you could tell what is important to another coach and therefore select what she drills and emphasized in her practices.  One of the first examples that comes to mind would be offensive rebounding by Tennessee under coach Pat Summitt.  No team that I've coached against hit the offensive boards that way a Summitt-coached team did.  Without ever attending a Lady Vol practice I can guarantee that it was something that was worked on in drills...that it was something that was emphasized in whole method play...that it was something that she talked to her team about constantly -- in practice, in the locker room, in timeouts, and the video room.  She was intentional in teaching it and emphasizing.

There are two things that the master teacher does in creating habits. He is "process oriented" -- he knows it is in the details of the specific skills that makes it effective or not effective.  You just don't tell a player to block out.  You teach them the specific footwork, handwork, and timing to successfully blockout.  The second thing a master teacher excels in is in the "emphasis" of what is important.  One of my favorite Don Meyer quotes is that "It isn't what you teach, it's what you emphasize."  Making it important in the mind of your players creates an increased focus for them.

In the book "Practice Perfect," written by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway and Katie Yezzi, they have this to say about the intentionality of practice:

It is more accurate to say that practice makes permanent  IN practice you can master a skill thoroughly or not at all, and what you master can be the correct method of one where you knees are locked.  Either way, what you don is likely to become encoded -- it will be instilled in muscle memory or mental circuitry and become habit -- for better or worse.  Practice all the wrong moves and your team will execute the wrong moves when it's time to perform.  Practice without intentionality and you will perform without much intentionality.  A critical goal of practice, then, should be ensuring that participants encode success -- that they practice getting it right -- whatever "it" might be.  While that may sound obvious, practice that encoded failure is common.  There are a lot of reasons for this, but two seem especially pervasive.  First we can fail to observe our practices carefully and strategically enough to see whether participants are getting things right, and second we can put participants in situations that make failure likely in a mistaken effort to steepen the learning curve. 

Running effective practice requires a systematic attentiveness to particpants' rate of success.  "You haven't taught it until they've learned it," Wooden liked to say, and the best teachers test to see how much students have learned -- a process called "checking for understanding" -- every few seconds.

Practice should be designed so that a participant who fails to succeed at an activity tries it over again.

DOC RIVERS TALKS ABOUT COACH SUMMITT'S LEGACY

In an earlier post today, I shared some thoughts from Coach Marsha Sharp on legacy that included the amazing reach of Pat Summitt.  Here is further evidence (though none is needed) via an article written earlier this week by John Adams of the Knoxville Sentinel:

The Boston Celtics clinched their division championship two weeks ago, and coach Doc Rivers concluded his postgame media conference by talking about Pat Summitt. His comments were heartfelt and accompanied by tears.

They also were thought-provoking.

Why did an NBA coach feel compelled to comment on the resignation of the Tennessee women's basketball coach?

He hadn't worked with her. He wasn't a close friend. He only knew her as millions have — through her myriad of accomplishments in 38 years of coaching basketball and, most recently, a difficult last season in which she worked while dealing with early onset dementia. Yet you would have thought he was talking about a colleague.

"When you see a giant like that leave the game — and leave the game because of health — it's just sad," he said. "But she is responsible for women's basketball. She's not just a women's basketball coach. She's a great coach."

John also spoke to the fact that Coach Summitt was always genuine and took time out for fans to help grow her team and the sport:

Summitt helped advance the sport with her 1997-98 team. She also helped advance the sport through all the connections she made over the course of a coaching career that spanned almost four full decades.

Her ability to connect with people made her a great recruiter and a great promoter. But she wasn't just doing her job. She was being herself.

She never stopped signing autographs. Or speaking to civic clubs. Or talking with fans after practice or in a hotel lobby. She did that when she was laying the foundation for her program and she kept doing it even when she became the face of her sport.

When you win 1,098 games and eight national titles, your bandwagon is bound to become crowded. But Summitt's fan base has been magnified by the thousands of times she has taken the time to converse with a stranger or sign an autograph.

Read John's entire article -- very well written: http://bit.ly/IKJA6P

MARSHA SHARP ON LEGACY AND THE EXAMPLES OF PAT SUMMITT AND KAY YOW

This is Part II of my notes on Hall of Fame coach Marsha Sharp's talk at "A Step Up Assistant Coaching Symposium" held in Dallas a few weeks ago.  The major topics that Coach Sharp spoke about were integrity and legacy -- and you can bet that she felt strongly that the two should be closely tied together.

As Texas legend Jody Conradt had said the night before, "we are the caretakers of the game."  She spoke about our ability as coaches to help our student-athletes win and to win the right way.

She spoke about all the trophies she had captured as a collegiate coach as well as all the rings she had garnered.  She then quickly said the trophies were gathering dust and she doesn't wear the rings.  But what she does cherish from her many years of coaching are the relationships.

She then gave two great examples and got emotional speaking of both.

The first was in regard to Coach Pat Summitt.  As the many reports of her retirement flooded the airwaves of television, filled the pages of newspapers and magazines and covered the screen of our computers via the Internet, there were numerous quotes from many people that had played for her, worked with her, played and coached against her, or just learned from her from afar.  Of those people, none ever mentioned the number of wins or championships -- only her impact on them as people and teachers.  As Coach Sharp stated, "It wasn't 'what' she won -- it was 'how' she won.:

The second example was about Coach Kay Yow.  Of course we all know she is a Hall of Fame coach with over 700 wins and a Gold Medal head coach for our Olympic team.  But Coach Sharp talked about being with her in the weeks before she finally succumbed to breast cancer.  She talked about the amazing journey of so many people who came by to see her in her final days.

Coach Sharp: "No one said thanks for the wins and the championships.  They told her they loved her."

ULTIMATE COACHES CLINIC: PAT SUMMITT

In 2008, Pat Williams, the GM of the Orlando Magic and a tremendous motivational speaker put out a book, "The Ultimate Coaches' Clinic." It is a fascinating book because of the style Pat utilized. He surveyed over 1000 coaches and administrators for insights to what is important to successfully do their job. It is a great book to own and I highly recommend it. Here are some thoughts from Pat Summitt:

•Communicating is not just about giving great speeches. It’s about allowing others to express themselves. Often a strong, dominant leader is the worst listener. He or she is too busy telling everyone else what to do and what to think. The more I have listened to our players, the better I have known them and understood them, and the easier it has been to know the right things to say to them. While you are listening to someone, don’t just take in the words. Study the speaker. Be aware of the speaker’s voice and mannerisms. Notice what his effect is on you. Become aware of your own voice and body language too.

•Coaching, parenting, and working in an office are all alike in one respect. To be credible, you must be consistent. Any sign of inconsistency and you instantly lose credibility.

•Your competitors make you better. Having worthy adversaries stimulates your work ethics, and bring out qualities you may not have known you had. So don’t resent them. You should love your competitors. And you should thank them.

•People will perform so much better if they understand their specific role and what is expected of them. It’s like the potluck dinner: It doesn’t work if it’s disorganized and unclear. If people don’t know what they’re supposed to bring, you don’t get a good dinner. Some people bring too much, others bring nothing at all.