ALL STUDENTS ARE DIFFERENT

The following comes from the book "You Haven't Taught Until They Have Learned" by Swen Nater.  Swen was a player at UCLA during the John Wooden years and in this book he speaks of Coach Wooden's teaching principles and practices.  None are more important, in my opinion, than the taking the time and energy to learn your students.  It's not just what you know, it's you ability to understand the students so you can best figure out how to maximize the teaching/learning experience.

Coach Wooden: "They are all different.  There is no formula. I could name players, all who were spirited, but in a different way.  You can't work with them exactly the same way.  You've to study and analyze each individual and find out what makes them tick.  Some you may have to put on the bench more.  I wish there was a formula.  The same thing won't work with every team.  It depends on the personnel.  The same thing was true in my English classes.  So you have to know the individuals you are working with."

Swen Nater: "How Coach Wooden managed to keep me focused on learning and progressing reveals important principles and practices that every teacher can use.  These include:

Setting challenging expectations matched to each individual's ability and personality.

Getting to know each individual well enough to comprehend what each was capable of achieving.

Truly caring about each as an individual person.

Tailoring instruction and support to individual differences.

Treating everyone with respect and fairness.

WE GET TO PLAY BASEBALL -- WE GET TO COACH BASKETBALL

If you haven't watched the movie "The Rookie" you need to -- great messages throughout the video.  As a coach, getting up there in the years, my favorite scene is shown below.  Still you need to watch the entire movie to appreciate how he got to this point where he got excited simply by "getting to play baseball." 

For me -- well today, I get to coach basketball!

BULL'S THIBODEAU UTILIZES PRACTICE TO IMPROVE INTENSITY

The following comes from the Chicago-Tribune in a column written by K. C. Johnson.  I love the face that the Bull's Tom Thibodeau is adjusting and utilizing practice to see develop his team's concentration and intensity levels.  Read how:

Tom Thibodeau's initial training camp plan always had Saturday marked as a practice day, a rare time the Bulls' coach has worked his team with two days between games.

But his sense of urgency for doing so was underscored further Friday night, both before and after the Bulls' exhibition victory over the Pacers. Unblemished preseason mark or not, Thibodeau sounded like the perfectionist he is demanding more with the regular-season opener nine days away.

To wit, here's Thibodeau before Friday's game: "We're capable of doing much better." And here's Thibodeau afterward: "I didn't like the way we played at all."

And for good measure, Thibodeau saved this for Saturday: "We didn't play anywhere near 48 minutes of good basketball."

At least he's consistent, which, by his account, his team hasn't been in terms of attention to detail and practice intensity.

"You need a team to make a commitment to each other," Thibodeau said. "You have to put everything you have into each day. Practice is critical. The opener is going to be here soon. And that's going to be the moment of truth. You have to be careful not to take any shortcuts. You have to put the work in."
And so the Bulls did Saturday. They watched film. They did offensive drills. They didn't have much contact, but that will come Sunday in the second of the rare, back-to-back Berto Center sessions.

"This is an opportunity to get two good days in," Thibodeau said. "We had a good film session (Saturday), which allows you to see things. Sometimes you may think you're going hard or you're executing correctly. And then once you look at film, you can see that you can do it a lot better."

Anyone who has witnessed Thibodeau's first three seasons in Chicago knows his demands often are more mental than physical. Former guard Kyle Korver used to joke that Thibodeau would pace the Bulls through that night's opponent's eighth option on a side-out-of-bounds play for preparation.
In other words, his expectations are serious stuff.

"People can say it's the preseason but at the same time, we're trying to build as a team," Derrick Rose said. "We have a young team. And we're hungry right now. We're trying to win every game.

"We're trying to build those traits so that in the playoffs and in the season we're fine and we'll have been through a lot. We work really hard as a team."

Thibodeau is making sure of that this weekend.

THE PRICE OF TEAMWORK

The following is part two of two pieces from "The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork" by John Maxwell -- a tremendous read for coaches and/or leaders --  that deal with the price that must be paid for success. 

THE PRICE OF TEAMWORK

 

Sacrifice:
There can be no success without sacrifice. James Allen observed, “He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much.”
 
Time Commitment:
Teamwork does no come cheaply. It costs you time-that means you pay for it with your life. Teamwork can’t be developed in a microwave time. Teams grow strong in a Crock-Pot environment.
 
Personal Development:
Your team will reach its potential only if you reach your potential. That means today’s ability is not enough. Or to put it the way leadership expert Max DePree did: “We cannot become what we need to be remaining what we are.”  UCLA’s John Wooden, a marvelous team leader and the greatest college basketball coach of all time, said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
 
Unselfishness:
“When you give your best to the world, the world returns the favor.” –H. Jackson Brown

And if you give your best to the team, it will return more to you than you give, and together you will achieve more than you can on your own.

THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID

The following is part one of two pieces from "The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork" by John Maxwell -- a tremendous read for coaches and/or leaders --  that deal with the price that must be paid for success. 

Price Points

If a team doesn’t reach its potential, seldom is ability the issue it’s rarely a matter of resources either. It’s almost always a payment issue.

1.       The Price Must Be Paid by Everyone

In Straight Talk for Monday Morning, Allan Cox observed:

You have to give up something to be a member of a team. It may be a phony role you’ve assigned yourself, such as the guy who talks too much, the woman who remains silent, the know-it-all, the know-nothing, the hoarder of talented subordinates, the non-sharer of some resource such as management information systems (MIS), of whatever. You give up something, to be sure, such as some petty corner of privilege, but gain authenticity in return. The team, moreover, doesn’t quash individual accomplishment; rather it empowers personal contributions. 

 

“If everyone doesn’t pay the price to win, then everyone will pay the price by losing.”

 

2.       The Price Must Be Paid All the Time

Many people have what I call destination disease. I describe it in my book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader.

 

Some people mistakenly believe that if they can accomplish a particular goal, they no longer have to grow. It can happen with almost anything: earning a degree, reaching a desired position, receiving a particular award, or achieving a financial goal.

 

“As long as you’re green, you’re growing.  As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.”

 

Destination disease is as dangerous for a team as it is for any individual. Earl Balik, former football coach at the United States Military Academy, observed, “There is no substitute for work. It is the price of success.” Dwight D. Eisenhower remarked, “There are no victories at bargain prices.”

 

3.       The Price Increases If the Team Wants to Improve, Change, of Keep Winning

The higher you are, the more you have to pay to make even small improvements. World champion sprinters improve their times not by seconds, but by hundredth of a second.

 

4.       The Price Never Decreases

Most people who quit don’t give up at the bottom of the mountain; they stop halfway up it. Nobody sets out with the purpose of losing. The problem is often a mistaken belief that a time will come when success will suddenly get cheaper. But life rarely works that way.

 

COACH SUMLIN ON LEADERSHIP, CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION

The following are some excerpts of a story written on our Aggie football coach Kevin Sumlin in regard to his leadership style and thoughts.  The story was written for Forbes.com by Jason Belzer.  It is a lengthy yet well-written article and you can read it in its entirety here.

“Many people think that winning the game of football is simply a matter of having the eleven most talented players on the field, but that’s rarely the case,” explains Sumlin. “[At Texas A&M] we know that it’s as much about a player’s intangibles as it is what you can see from direct observation. We look for guys that are always at the ball, even when it’s not expected of them. When it comes to evaluating others, most leaders fail to realize that it takes absolutely no talent to give effort; effort is the great equalizer.”  

Yet for an organization to be truly successful, visionary leadership and exceptional talent is not enough. Great leaders like Sumlin understand the importance of fostering rigorous debate among their employees while insuring that such heated discussions remain constructive for the organization’s strategic efforts. They must carefully balance the need to be authoritative when discussing the team’s strategic direction, all the while avoiding dictating the underlying substance of the decision. To this end, the Texas A&M coaching staff has an unprecedented amount of autonomy when it comes to the sharing of ideas, and is encouraged to contribute vigorously when it comes to discussing what is best for the team in any particular situation.

“I don’t want to lead people down a certain path, but rather urge them to speak their minds without fear of reprisal,” explains Sumlin. “As a leader you can stifle ideas by leading with your opinions and preventing talented people from having the freedom to be creative. You’re not just hiring people to compliment your strengths, you also need to make sure they make you cognizant of your own weaknesses.”

Part of effective leadership is creating an environment in which dissenting views are shared freely with the intent of avoiding groupthink and fostering innovative ideas that lead to better decision-making processes. Leaders must work hard to avoid what management scientist Michael Aktins calls a “charade of consultation,” in which a leader engages the opinion of subordinates without a genuine interest in their opinions. Moreover, Sumlin is keenly aware that  this charade will expose itself at a time where indecision can be most fatal to an organization.

“If our staff isn’t on the same page when we’re in the middle of a game, it can be disastrous,” explains Sumlin. “When you get hit in the face with adversity and your back is against a wall, the last thing you can afford is dissention. You can’t fool our [players], if they sense conflict and indecisiveness among the coaching staff we’ll lose them right then and there.”

It is no surprise then that the Monday following each football game, the Aggies hold an early morning meeting known only as “The Truth”, where coaches and players are allowed to discuss, and even confront one another, over the preceding weekend’s events. Everything said during such sessions is considered confidential, and given some of the brutal feedback, most players would prefer to keep it that way. It also creates an opportunity for the coaching staff to reinforce their expectations for the players, and vice-versa.

“When it comes to teachable moments, there is no greater lesson than the one that can be learned from football. It only takes one guy to not do his job for a play to be unsuccessful,” explains Sumlin. “We can go back and show [the players] what happened on film and point out how their miscues caused a catastrophic impact on the outcome of the play. When you call someone out in front of their peers, it’s an incredibly powerful way to motivate them to want to do better the next time around,” he expounds.

“There’s a common misconception in football that the offense is aware of what’s happening on the field when the defense is playing (and vice versa). But in reality, that’s rarely the case. We know it’s easy for players to look at the scoreboard and make hasty judgments about what their teammates are and aren’t accomplishing, but rarely is it that simple. As coaches, we’re responsible for making sure the players know exactly why the outcome of a game occurred, rather than them assuming that it was due to one of their teammate’s failures,” Sumlin explains.

“I’ve always been a believer that more games are lost than won. There’s a million ways to skin a cat, and there isn’t just one way to run a great organization, but to emulate or be like somebody else is dangerous,” opines Sumlin. “You can have the most talented players in the world, but if you’re inconsistent in your leadership and strategy, it will prove fatal for you every time. Whatever your style may be, what matters is that you remain unwavering to it, and that you focus on how to make your organization better instead of figuring out how to make your competition worse.”

“When fall camp started and there was a tremendous amount of media attention on Johnny [due to the NCAA investigation], many of our detractors couldn’t understand just how it was possible for us to continue to practice and perform at a high level,” explains Sumlin. “From the inside though, we were as intensely focused as ever because our culture has always been about making what occurs externally irrelevant. This is why we’ve been to avoid all distractions. Our players recognize their focus should only be on the people they need most – their coaches and teammates.”

COHESION

"Unit cohesion is one of those terms that everyone thinks they understand.  In truth, most people don't have a clue.  It is definitely not about everybody liking each other or being nice.  It means you have a pride in the ability of your group to function at a higher level than possible for the individual.  The unit doesn't shine because you're a member, you shine because you're good enough to be a member."

-John Roat, Navy Seal

DO YOUR PEOPLE KNOW HOW THEY FIT INTO THE BIG PICTURE

I love this passage from John Maxwell.  It speaks to how we must properly develop each and every role that we have on our team.  Every single person involved is important -- we know this -- but do they know this.  Does the primary screener know on your team know that without her you primary scorer will struggle to get open.  How about members of your staff?  When was the last time you told your managers your secretary how they make a different and why they are so necessary for us to be successful?  Here is how Maxwell frames it:

Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, a leader of troops during World War II who was called a "soldier's general," write that "every single soldier must know before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole."  People on the team need to know why they are fighting.

John Maxwell from "The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork"

FINDING THE WINNING EDGE

To keep people focused when the company anthem doesn't inspire them anymore, narrow the focus of loyalty.  Military leaders have long known that the smaller the unit, the easier it is to feel allegiance to it;  the regiment, the platoon, even the squad, can arouse deeper fidelity than more abstract concepts like cause and country.  Just the goal itself may be enough.  Give people the chance to win a championship or design the widget that change that changes to world, and you'll get all the loyalty you need.

Getting people to "give a damn" means harnessing their concern about the future to your advantage.  The promise of the workplace is no longer the testimonial dinner and the plaque, but the change to improve skills and become more valuable in the marketplace.  I've coached short-term players who knew they were going to be around only one or two seasons.  But they realized they had an opportunity to leave the team better players than when they arrived and made real contributions.

Bill Walsh from "Finding the Winning Edge"

GARY BLAIR COACHING ACADEMY NOTEBOOK

As we did last year, we have had numerous requests for copies of our Gary Blair Coaching Academy Notebooks -- and here they are!  You can purchase an Academy Notebook for $25.  The notebook consists of the following:

100 pages of basketball material

2 DVDs including the video portion of the Academy so you can view the drills and plays on the court with the actual Aggie staff and team.

Section #1: Practice Philosophy and Planning

Section #2: Man to Man Offense -- complete with 17 Aggie man plays

Section #3: Zone Offense -- how the Aggies attack zone defenses

 

Section #4: Man to Man Defense -- Aggie defensive philosophy and drills

Section #5: Special Situations -- BOB & SOB guidelines and plays

Section #6: Skill Development -- Point Guard Play & Post Play

Section #7: Scouting -- Guidelines and a sample report

Section #8: Motivation -- 13 motivational passouts

Section #9: Resources -- How to contact the Aggie staff & follow them via Social Media

Click and print this form out, complete it and follow the directions to pay for your notebook.

Email me with any questions at rstarkey@athletics.tamu.edu