Big thanks to Joey Burton who brought this article to my attention via Twitter. It is an article on the intense style of coaching by Tom Izzo written by Tim Rohan for the New York Times:
Across the room from Payne, Keith Appling, Izzo’s starting point guard, said it was fun playing for a coach like Izzo, who was willing to listen. Appling had earned Izzo’s trust; he had already passed through the fire with which Payne was struggling.
“He’s not a regular guy,” Appling said of Izzo.”He’s going to yell. He’s going to scream. And for some guys, it takes longer just for that to take place.”
But the yelling is not devoid of purpose.
“It sounds impossible, but he wants his guys to be perfect — nothing more, nothing less,” Appling said. “And if you don’t hold up to those standards, he’s going to let you know about it. At any given moment. In front of the media or behind closed doors, it really doesn’t matter.”
Asked what he thought Izzo wanted him to improve on, Payne laughed nervously and said, “everything.” But then the tall, lanky post player thought more carefully and said consistency was important. He said Izzo wanted him to become more consistent and become a tougher rebounder.
The fifth-year senior Austin Thornton remembered what that was like. Out of many instances, he recalled one blowout road win for the Spartans during his freshman year.
“I was in for garbage time and I messed up something and he called timeout. You would’ve thought the world was coming to an end, the way he screamed and yelled at me,” Thornton said. “That’s his coaching style. That’s why he’s been so successful.”
“I don’t care what anybody says,” Thornton said. “I don’t care who you played for before you came here. There’s an adjustment period that always takes place with every single player.
“And he coaches every single player, every single minute as if it’s a close game. That’s hard for guys to understand sometimes. ‘Coach, we’re up by 30 points, why are you screaming and hollering?’ Well, he’s preparing for down the road.”
Thornton said of Izzo: “He doesn’t change. Guys grow up.”
Read the entire article at: http://nyti.ms/zmwIp5
This is a series of thoughts from "Competitive Leadership: 12 Principles for Success" by Brian Billick. Part XI deals with being opportunistic:
“The great secret of success in life is for a man to be ready when his opportunity comes.”
-Benjamin Disraeli
Opportunities don’t occur in life just because you want them to. More often than not, they take place because of planning and effort on someone’s part. They arise because circumstances were created that enabled them to occur.
...one of the most straightforward and meaningful approaches to creating opportunities in a person’s life is to establish and adhere to a template of positive behavior.
A list of the desirable habits that should help govern your behavior as a leader should include the following at a minimum: build on your strengths; see the big picture; develop exceptional relationships; act with confidence; ask for what you want and need; embrace success; act decisively; live purposefully; stay abreast of relevant technological advances; and embrace the potential of accepting challenges.
“When opportunity knocks on the door, you better have your bags packed.”
-advice to Denny Green from his grandmother
“Faith without works is not true faith.”
-biblical phrase
“If the majority were right, the majority would be rich.” In other words, if your opportunities were not validated by obstacles and failure, anyone and everyone would take advantage of them and, therefore, they would not exist.
The point to keep in mind is that sooner or later, fate will take a hand. The question is will you be prepared when it does.
“The ladder of success doesn’t care who climbs it.”
-Frank Tyger
Opportunistic leaders focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. They are aware of their natural talents and employ them to their utmost ability. They devote most of their time to doing things at which they are good.
All factors considered, individuals who are opportunistic are better able to prioritize their time.
“Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.”
-Frank Gaines
“The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
You must have people skills to be a good leader. The ability to inspire trust, to interact well with all kinds of people, to understand how people feel and think, and to treat people as individuals are examples of people skills that can help create a strong foundation for building exceptional relationships.
“Experience tells you what to do; confidence allows you to do it.”
-Stan Smith
Effective leaders have considerable confidence in their ability to perform their duties in a responsible manner, particularly their capacity to channel their energies and to pursue their priorities.
“One who never asks either knows everything or nothing.”
-Malcom Forbes
Almost everything in life is a choice. Effective leaders tend to make better choices. One of the primary reasons that skillful leaders are able to make better choices involves the fact that they often have more useful information available to reach and make decisions.
“Failure can be bought on easy terms; success must be paid for in advance.”
-Cullen Hightower
Effective leaders embrace success by putting themselves in a position to be successful. Not only do they know what they want, they are able to focus their energies on getting it...The precept to which they adhere is characterized by the maxim — carpe occasionam (“seize the opportunity”).
Opportunistic leaders are acutely aware of the need to keep abreast of relevant technological advances.
...leaders should also keep in mind that technological advancement should not be an end unto itself. The use of technology should be kept in perspective.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared with what lies within us.”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
The "3 I's," as I like to say. Intelligence: the ability to make sound decisions on your feet and to play smart. Immediacy: the sense of urgency in accomplishing a task; the belief that now is the time to act. Intensity: the emotion and passion that an individual brings to his or her task. Do you have the burning desire to be the best that you can be all at times? Not every player or employee has all three to the maximum, but those who do stand out from the pact. The teams that have individuals with the 3 I's are more likely see success.
From "How Good Do You Want To Be" by Nick Saban
"All that fire-up emotion is good, but any time we line up in a formation we're not prepared for, all that emotion won't do any good. We believe that a highly motivated team is a team that is basically very soundly prepared."
-Tom Osborne
"It takes courage to realize that you are greater than your moods, greater than your thoughts, and that you can control your moods and thoughts."
-Stephen Covey
To follow up on the previous post on the importance of persevering is a story from "The Maxwell Daily Reader" (one of my favorites) by John Maxwell:
On August 6, 1999, a major-league baseball player stepped up to home plate in Montreal and made another out — the 5,113th of his professional career. That’s a lot of trips to the batter’s box without a hit! If a player made all of those outs consecutively, and he averaged four at bats per game, he would play eight seasons (1,278 straight games) without ever reaching first base.
Was the player discouraged that night? No, You see, earlier in the same game, in his first plate appearance, that player head reached a mile-stone that only twenty-one other people in the history of baseball have ever achieved. He had made his 3,000 hit. That player was Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres.
During that game, Tony got on base with hits four times in five tries. But that’s not the norm for him. Usually he fails to get a hit two times out over every three attempts. Those results may not sound very encouraging, but if you know baseball, you recognize that Tony’s ability to succeed consistently only one times in three tries has made him the greatest hitter of his generation. And Tony recognizes that go get his hits, he has to make a log of outs.
One of the greatest problems people have with failure is that they are too quick to judge isolated situations in their lives and label them as failures. Instead, they need to keep the bigger procure in mind. Someone like Tony Gwynn doesn’t look at an out that he makes and think of failure. He sees it within the contest of the bigger picture. His perspective leads to perseverance. His perseverance brings longevity. And his longevity gives him opportunities to succeed.
How many coaches, players, and/or teams are close to a breakthrough -- in a game, in a season, in a career -- but quit because they don't realize it. So many times failure comes only because someone has quit -- when all they needed was to persevere. Here is a true story about R.U. Darby:
"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins- not through strength but by perseverance."
-H. Jackson Brown
"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another."
-Walter Elliott
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan, 'press on' has solved, and always will solve, the problems of the human race."
-Calvin Coolidge
"I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."
-John D. Rockefeller
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
-Winston Churchill
"Success seems to be connected with action. Successful men keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit."
-Conrad Hilton
"If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying. "Here comes number seventy-one!"
-Richard M. Devos
"Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience."
-Admiral Hyman Rickover
"For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again."
-Proverbs 24:16
The following comes from Kevin Eastman.
Where is it being set?
Who is involved?
What is their alignment?
What is our communication?
What is our coverage?
The following comes from Coach Kathy Toon via Creighton Burn's outstanding newsletter:
Does your assistant coach have your back? You better hope so. I just got off the phone with a colleague who quit coaching last week. The final straw was sabotage by the assistant coach. Granted, the entire season was fraught with challenges and upheaval – difficulty with a star player, an unsupportive administration and more than the usual amount of complaining by players and parents. Despite all that went on, the team was successful on the court and the head coach earned conference coach-of-the-year honors for the second year in a row.
One of my coaching mentors, Rolland Todd always warns head coaches that “there’s often more mischief with assistant coaches than with players.” What does sabotage and mischief look like? Holding team meetings and not telling the head coach, not backing up the head coach in front of the team, going to the administration behind the head coaches back, siding with players and calling the head coach out in front of the team.
I know all too well the “tight rope” an assistant must walk between supporting the head coach and being there for the athletes. I was an assistant coach for a good portion of my coaching career.
So what should a head coach do to avoid the potential pitfalls with assistants? Do the hard work on the front end in order to minimize hassles down the road. This includes the following:
• Spend time evaluating your own strengths and weaknesses.
• Look to hire folks who are strong in areas where you’re weak.
• Write a detailed assistant coach job description.
• Do your due diligence before hiring someone. Talk to coaches the person has played for and worked for. Talk to athletes who have played for them.
• Have prospective assistants submit a written coaching philosophy as part of the screening process.
• Give a copy of your coaching philosophy to all potential candidates.
• Write out and ask thoughtful interview questions. Here are some samples:
1. What qualities would you look for if you were hiring an assistant coach?
2. What are your strengths and weaknesses as a coach?
3. What is the role of the assistant in building a program?
4. Why do you feel you’re the best person for the job?
5. How would you deal with a player that came to you complaining about the head coach?
• The day you hire someone, ask them to articulate their expectations of you and of themselves. Then explain your expectations of them and of yourself. This way you are on the same page from the beginning.
• Have your assistant(s) introduce themselves in person to the team. Have them discuss their philosophy and their role as an assistant.
• Clearly define roles and responsibilities on the coaching staff.
• Make it very clear where and when “the buck stops with you.”
• Meet with your assistant(s) on a regular basis to make sure everyone is on the same page.
• Implement an evaluation process at the end of each season where you produce feedback to your assistants and vice versa.
Yes, there’s a lot of work involved. Remember – the more you do on the front end the less you have to do on the back end.
A special thanks to Mississippi State women's basketball assistant Joey Burton for pointing out this article in the Detroit News by Vincent Goodwell:
Lawrence Frank is an avid believer in legendary coaches Bob Knight and Bill Parcells, who both have military ties. Although Frank doesn't share such ties, he uses a series of nine questions the Army does, perhaps a reason he has preached the same message after long losing streaks and a recent winning stretch before the All-Star break.
It's called an After Action Report, which Frank learned about after taking his Nets team to West Point. It's about what they did well, what they did poorly, things they didn't prepare for in practice and more principles.
"There's a very thorough self-evaluation," Frank said. "The Army, that's what they use. Every major decision they make, and that's how they evaluate virtually every decision they make."
Comparing sports to war or even peacetime military operations usually isn't applicable, but Frank believes the Army method is a way for the coaches to properly review all aspects of the previous game.
"You have to be brutally honest with it," Frank said. "Every coach has to do an AAR, and that's why we don't let the wins and losses get in our eye. We have to be true to the process."
One of the minority owners of the Nets was a West Point guy, and gave Frank further information after their initial trip. Frank became intrigued and uses it in Detroit, assigning different assistant coaches to look at varying issues.
Whether it bears fruits this year remains to be seen, but Frank believes doing daily AARs will pay benefits down the road.
"You can't lie to yourself," Frank said. "It keeps us every day on task."
Read the entire article: http://bit.ly/xaWC0m
