Don't do things that take energy away from the team

Over on Hoops World, Travis Heath has a good quote from DEN coach George Karl:

"Don't do things that take energy away from the team. I call them de-energizers. Sometimes the way you say good morning in the morning can be a de-energizer. If you're going to play in June, you can't de-energize yourself. Mopiness, or being late, just little things of not remembering that we're practicing at 10:00 instead of 11:00, all those things take some energy from somebody. When you're the captain of the team and you're the best player on the team, it's best said that you should be serving us to energize us and not de-energize us."

Who is your "chemistry coach"?

Just getting into Urban Meyer's book "Urban's Way," which was published last year.

About 50 pages in, there's a great quote from Hiram de Fries (pictured here), a former lineman for Colorado State and retired oil executive.

When discussing how "one key ingredient to winning is [a team's] so-called chemistry," Coach Meyer says that, early in his career, "I always wanted to have an older guy as the chemistry coach on my staff to help us all get on the same page. Hiram is my chemistry coach."

But, according to Hiram, there's one thing that, regardless of chemistry, keeps it all together:

"Winning," he says, "prevents anarchy."

Allowing players to see the human side of their coach

Saw where Yankees manager Joe Girardi, borrowing a page from NY Giants coach Tom Coughlin's team chemistry playbook, recently "surprised his players with an impromptu field trip, loading more than 60 players and the entire coaching staff on a bus and heading for a Tampa-area pool hall."

Girardi "wanted to reward his players for their hard work with a day off from camp, and in the process, allow them to get to know each other in a non-baseball setting."

According to this story in the NY Daily News, "People familiar with the Giants said those events not only helped players grow closer but, more importantly, allowed them to observe a human side of Coughlin that had not previously been seen. For Girardi, who often carried a drill sergeant label with him during his first year in the manager's office, a little good will can't hurt."

"I've never been on a team that did something like this before, but I often wondered why," Girardi said. "There are a lot of other sports that do these types of things; get away from the park, enjoy each other off the field like you do on the field and get to know each other. Every year that you're here as a manager, you want to have more and more knowledge about your players and their personalities. You want to feel closer in a sense to your players so that you can read between the lines most of the time."

Listening to Yankee players, the experience made a real impact on the team.

Mark Teixeira said it was "probably the most fun I've ever had in spring training in my whole career."

Said Johnny Damon: "Today is one of those days that, as a ballplayer, you'll never forget. I don't think any team has ever really done this. It's a day I'll never forget. It says a lot about Joe. He knows we've been working hard and he rewarded us with a day off. For Joe to let us take a day off from practice like that, it makes you want to work even harder for him. I think everybody had a great time."

Is team chemistry a "figment of the result"?

Over the last year or so, I've posted about the issue of chemistry more than a few times. Now, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, whose team had what this story describes as a "meltdown" last season, has his say.

According to Jones, chemistry is a "figment of the result." In other words, winning takes care of chemistry. As the author of this article contends:

Jones is right; winning cures most of the ills. Problems get pushed to the side when you win. But what comes first? The chemistry or the winning?

Veteran Eagles safety Brian Dawkins says chemistry is "when you care more about the person next to you." According to Dawkins, you "don't want to let the guys down."

New Seahawks coach Jim Mora says chemistry develops over time.

"I think it's something that grows. It grows in the off-season work when you're together in the off-season program and through the mini-camps and training camp and then sweating together."

Ken Whisenhunt, who guided his Arizona team to the Super Bowl earlier this month, "had bowling days and movie nights for his players as a way to promote chemistry. Whisenhunt believed part of the reason his team rebounded from a bad end to the regular season was the players' belief in each other."

"We all as coaches work to try to create it," Whisenhunt said. "It's been a very important part of my belief that that's how you're successful in the league. I know I came from an organization [Pittsburgh] where chemistry was a big part of the reason why they were successful."

Rayfield Wright, a Hall of Fame offensive tackle who was a member of the Cowboys teams of the '70s, still remembers the chemistry those teams had.

"We all had a special feeling for one another. The sacrifice and the pain, the suffering – whether it was on the field or off the field – it touched the hearts of all of us. To understand that and be a part of that, it makes your heart pound."

If you don't communicate, you'll never be a great defensive team

Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie talked recently about chemistry and on-court communication:

"People, when they're talking about chemistry with a team, they always talk about offense," Coach Gillispie said. "Do they share the ball? Are guys selfish? Do they shoot shots they shouldn't shoot?

There's as much chemistry that has to be established defensively as there is offensively, maybe even more so, because you're seeing so many moving pieces.

You can have an above-average team, probably, if you don't communicate, but you'll never be a great defensive team if you don't. You have to be constantly talking."

According to this article, "great defensive teams can adjust on the fly. Strong defensive units can compensate when one teammate breaks down during a possession."

"You can't adjust if you're not talking with your teammates. Our young guys -- and it's understandable -- don't talk nearly as much as they need to and nearly as well as they need to," said Coach Gillispie.

"That's why you see really good teams playing on TV and they have the best recruiting classes in the country -- not even close, in everybody's opinion -- and all the all-star freshmen are sitting on the bench in the last five minutes of the game."

Connecting basketball and business to build a better organization

As Jason Quick writes, Larry Miller, president of the Blazers, "is known for his humility, and style."

To his employees, he is warm, approachable and inspiring. He often spends the first 45 minutes of his morning gliding from office to office, just to chat. In meetings, he encourages what one employee calls "creative tension," or debates, which is in sharp contrast to the tight-lipped fear many felt in previous regimes.

Along with POR coach Nate McMillan and GM Kevin Pritchard, Miller's management has been a key to the team's turnaround.

Quick traces the turnaround to a four-day team-building retreat in Arizona that Miller arranged for 14 members of his staff, including Coach McMillan.

By the time McMillan returned to Portland, he was a changed coach, and the Blazers were a changed organization. By the end of the week, the department heads would put their minds and bodies together to scale a 12-foot wall, balance evenly on a teeter-totter and coax a horse to reveal its hoof. In the process, there were scrapes, cuts and emotional, late-night conversations.

For Miller, it was the foundation to his grand vision of making the Blazers a global brand. Before he could push the Blazers forward, he had to eliminate a longstanding barrier between the basketball and business sides of the company.

To do that, he had to develop a sense of team.

A former executive for Nike, Miller says his goal was to "make everyone feel they are part of the team. To me, any leader is only as good as the team he has working for him. And my style has always been to try and get the right people in the right job and let them do their job."

According to Coach McMillan:

"I learned a lot about the people who are very important to this organization, and they learned about me. It became personal. It became emotional. And I came out of there feeling very strongly about making this organization better. It became family. It became, for me, a sense that, 'I want to work for you. I want to be a part of making this organization better,' because those are good people."

Friendships off the court translate to unselfish play on it

With a win over Nebraska on Saturday, Mike Anderson's Mizzou Tigers have moved to 22-4 on the season and have nearly cracked the top 10.

Coach Anderson says his team is a reflection of the relationships the players have with each other. In his words: "I think they like one another."

According to this story, Mizzou's "early season trips to Canada and Puerto Rico helped the team bond. Spending eight weeks together before school started brought players together as well."

"Our friendships off the court, I always say, translates to unselfish play on the court because we always want to see our guy, our friend, get a block or a dunk or a steal," said freshman Kim English. "It's just fun to play with your friends. We're just a bunch of college friends playing basketball."

In a losing streak, locker room warts are more apparent

It's been an up-and-down start of the year for the Rockets, who are 10-8 since January 1.  HOU has won three of its last four.

But Rockets coach Rick Adelman, who's been an NBA head coach for 20 years, can sense that something's not right:

"I see things," Coach Adelman said. "I've been doing this a long time. There's not too much that slides past me, body language, comments, whatever. Once you've seen it over and over and over again, you get a pretty good sense right off the bat. That's why it's important as coaches, we keep trying to talk to them about it. I think it's important as a team that individually, they talk to each other about it. You're going to have times throughout the year you're going to have guys irritated or whatever. It's important it does not carry over and stay and fester. That's what I keep trying to tell them." 

According to Shane Battier, team chemistry is a fragile thing:

"A locker room is always a few wins away from being a good locker room, a few losses away from being a good locker room.  All the bad things, the warts, are much more apparent in a losing streak or a bad streak and the flaws are not as apparent when you're winning a few games. We've had some tough losses. We want to look at the warts."

During his two decades as an NBA head coach, Coach Adelman says he's "seen a lot of teams where it starts going separate ways and before you know it, it's splintering here and there."

His advice is to "keep a positive mental attitude and you have to trust each other or it's never going to work. I've seen it happen the other way. It's important that they keep that mindset, especially with all the things that have gone in and out with us all year long."

"I don't know what they're waiting for. I'm not waiting for it. I've said it so many times to them; 'What kind of season do you want. It's up to you. You stay together. You get better. You stay consistent and you start getting better at a team. Or if you have a tough game, you start pointing fingers and you look at each other and you say this guy is not doing it. That's not going to get us there. You have to do it as a team."

The role of a team's spiritual leader

Thanks to Ken for pointing me toward the Washington Post's section called "On Leadership."

There's a terrific opinion piece there from former Eagles, Rams, and Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil, who writes about "Strength in Faith."

~~~~~~~~~~

There is definitely a place for religion in football as there is a place for it in all parts of life. It is a deep part of all locker rooms. Every team I've been involved with has had a spiritual leader. They have no particular responsibilities, but rather act to bring players together.

To anyone who would say there is "too much" religion in football I would have to ask: how could there be too much of something that improves the chemistry and attitude of a team whether that be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual? It is completely voluntary and really brings teammates together, sharing beliefs, thoughts, messages.

In my decades of coaching, I never recognized a problem with it. In most aspects of life, spirituality helps bring people together, that's our culture. Sometimes on a team different religions become one faith, they become a belief in each other, a belief in the team and strength grows out of that.

After a championship, some will ascend, some will descend

The first question after winning a championship is, "Can you repeat?"

For PIT coach Mike Tomlin, once the final whistle blew on Sunday night, the slate is wiped clean.

"You won't hear me say 'repeat' or 'defending,' because it's brand new [from here]. This group will always be special to me. Sometime soon, that group will assume its place with others in history. And they'll be just that, history.

The thing I'm going to sell to our football team, we're not attempting to repeat. That special group of men that were in that locker room last night at the end of that game, that's gone forever. There will be 53 new men in there. A lot of the faces will be the same, but nothing stays the same in this game. Those that remain, the roles will change. Some will ascend, some will descend.

Our focus will be about being the one at the end of the season. We'll start with a new group of men -- hopefully a lot of them will be the same."

There is only one ball and every player does something a little different with it

As promised, here's another excerpt from the book "Unguarded" by Lenny Wilkens, the NBA's all-time winningest coach, with Terry Pluto, one of the nation's best sportswriters:

Before the 1978-79 season opened, I called the team together and said, "We don't have to love each other. It would look stupid if all twelve of us walked down the street holding hands."

That drew a laugh.

"But we do have to respect each other," I said. "We have to play together. We have to learn from each other. I realize that certain guys will hang out together, away from the court, and some other guys will go their own way. That's OK. We can't all be together all the time. But we have to be a family when we're at the gym. It's us against everyone else. When a teammate makes a suggestion to you, take it the right way. He's not trying to insult you, he's saying something to make the team better. And when you go to say something to a teammate, say it the right way. Don't insult the guy. Treat each other with respect."

The guys sat there, taking it in. You know how things get very quiet when a message is hitting home? How it gets so quiet, you can hear yourself breathe? That's how it was when I spoke to the team that day.

"There is only one ball," I said. "Each of us does something a little different with it. Some of us are better shooting it, some at rebounding, some at driving on the fast break and some at defending, taking it away from the other team. The way we win is to get the ball to the guy with the hot hand, the guy who can do the most with it right now. That guy often changes from game to game, even quarter to quarter. We have to be unselfish enough to keep finding that guy."

Players working together is more than coach-speak, and the coach can't do everything. This is part of what a coach means by chemistry. It's the players looking out for each other. It's veteran players spotting a young player who's spending too much time on the town, taking the kid aside, and explaining, "Hey, man, you gotta get your rest or you'll never last in this league."

Young players want the respect of the veterans, and they're more likely to listen to a veteran player than they are to some coaches. That's just a fact. It comes down to peer pressure, and when it's used the right way, it's the best thing for any team. For a couple years in Seattle, we had that.

Being accountable to each other

Ray Lewis on the importance chemistry and accountability have played in BAL's success this season:

"Our whole season has been about just chemistry. A lot of people don't know that, really when you look at our ball club and the way we practice and look at the things that we do, we prepare a certain way with each other. Coaches give us the game plan and give us their part of it, but our part is being accountable to each other. We have more guys over at each other's houses than anything. The togetherness and the brotherhood we have is kind of more overwhelming than anything."

Assembling players who can lead and players who can follow that leadership

Good story in the Fort Worth paper today that uses the early Dallas Cowboy teams as an example of how to build chemistry.

With coach Tom Landry, GM Tex Schramm, and personnel director Gil Brandt running the team, the early Cowboys were careful about selecting players who not only "ran fast [and] played smart," but "mixed well."

Landry, Schramm and Brandt built trust on their teams. They acquired solid citizens who could play good football. They assembled players who could lead ... and players who could follow strong leadership.

"The whole thing about football is trust," said Brandt, Cowboys’ player personnel director for 29 years (1960-88). "Guys like [Bob] Lilly, Lee Roy [Jordan] and Mel [Renfro] not only were good football players, they were good leaders."

To lay the foundation for chemistry, the team would "hold a team function around May 15 every year, and invite all the players and their families to [a local] Country Club," Brandt recalled. "We’d sit around the pool, play golf, play volleyball, hit golf balls into buckets. That’s how guys got to know one another."

As the article puts it, "Landry’s philosophy was simple: Team chemistry on the barbie."

As familiarity spread, players and coaches soon knew the first names of wives, kids, even family pets. In fact, Landry knew how each player on the team liked his steak cooked.

"Tom and I used to cook steaks on the grill every year at the country club," said Brandt.

Chemistry built upon a foundation of trust

A key to CLE's success this season has been the team's chemistry. According to coach Mike Brown, Cavs players began jelling in training camp, "watching 'Monday Night Football' together, hanging out after practice and at games."

As described in this story, "James likes to refer to the Cavaliers as family because 'no one is isolated from the other.'"

"I've said this many times before: Watching this team come together, watching them interact with one another, it's some unusual stuff. They've found on their own that if they can trust one another, at the end of the day, that's what helps build chemistry and that carries over to the floor."

How statistics can be misleading

Wizards coach Ed Tapscott on how stats can be misleading:

"There are lies, big lies and statistics, and statistics can tell you whatever you want them to tell you," he said. "Seeing the chemistry of the team, that's like HD. If you just look at statistics, it's like watching black-and-white . . . [pause] . . . analog TV. If you just look at stats and think you know something about the team, you're watching analog television."

A locker room linchpin

Good article in the Boston Globe about 32-year-old Miami QB Chad Pennington, who the writer describes as "a locker-room transformer."

According to the story, those within the MIA organization say that "Pennington's presence in the diverse, complex locker room that binds 53 players has probably been his greatest contribution. He's a locker-room linchpin."

Here's a good excerpt from the article:

It starts in the locker room, the underrated place that probably doesn't receive enough attention from football scribes. A football locker room is a fascinating place, bringing players together at different points in their careers, from different backgrounds, with varied salaries and personal agendas, in a testosterone-filled environment.

If only it were so easy to order up good locker-room chemistry, it would be one of the first items on a coach's to-do list each year, because a bad mix can quickly sink a season.

Usually that chemistry must evolve over time. With Pennington, however, the culture of the Dolphins' room changed almost immediately.

Said Dolphins coach Tony Sparano:

"When you have people like Chad in the locker room, I think it's a calming influence. I think it's critical, and it certainly was for us when we started this whole [rebuilding process] because we had so many players in from different places. I think we've changed 50 players since the time we started here.

He's been through this, so it's not the first time he's seen people come and go in locker rooms and those type of things. He can help spread the message, and is very good at spreading the message that the head coach sends and that the organization wants to send.

He's a tremendous leader, and has done an awful lot for our young players - he's taught them a lot about how to study this game and what it takes to prepare. It's just been his leadership skills and the way he goes about his business. He's a true professional. The guy's work ethic is unmatched from anyone I've been around."

Veteran Dolphins LB Joey Porter said this about Pennington:

"From day one he was doing stuff that the [players] weren't doing before. He was meeting with the offensive linemen and the receivers, [things] that leaders and captains are supposed to do. He passed that on to our young guys, so he has them working harder. Everything he brought to the team is what we needed."

Recreating chemistry takes time

If you've ever had a good friend move out of town, or have a trusted co-worker leave a job where you worked together, you know that while it's part of life, it can be pretty affecting.

It's no different in the NBA as illustrated yesterday when PHX traded Raja Bell, Steve Nash's best friend on the team, to CHA. Said Nash:

"It's tough. While I'll welcome my new teammates with open arms, it's tough when you lose your best friend. It's tough when you lose two of your best buddies. It's tough and it hurts. He's my best friend and the guys loved him. It's hard. I have a hard time committing to this as a business. I take this personally and I take my career home with me. I care about my teammates. When you lose two of your best friends on the team suddenly, it's hard. It (recreating chemistry) takes time, that's for sure."

A one-ingredient soup is a bad soup

Attended DePaul's practice yesterday at Cal's Haas Pavilion where the Blue Demons will take on Cal tonight.

Many thanks to Coach Jerry Wainwright and assistant Gary DeCesare for allowing me to sit in.

When I got home, I dug out an article from November 2006 from the Chicago Sun-Times that I'd saved about Coach Wainwright, who's also coached at Richmond and UNC-Wilmington.

According to the story, "Wainwright and DeCesare are gym rats. They like to outwork everybody. They understand that recruiting is about relationships. Wainwright is very approachable, someone who cares about his players and the people who are involved in their lives. DeCesare is a grass-roots guy who knows what it takes to succeed at the high school, AAU and college levels."

A sign on his desk -- ''You can modify behavior but you can't rehabilitate character'' -- provides a hint to his philosophy. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, a good friend, once told him that he traced much of his success to the fact that he talked to his players more than he coached them. Wainwright never forgot.

A couple of highlights from the article:

-- On his recruiting philosophy: ''I want to recruit Cadillacs and polish them. There is a place for people to rebuild junk cars, but today what we do will be on the front page. If a Cadillac hasn't been polished or fine-tuned, it speaks to problems in the future.''

"One of our rules is I don't recruit someone I can't have a conversation with. I'm almost 60, and these kids are 20. I have to stay current. I know more about rap songs than the U.S. Treasury policy. I'm not real good at cocktail parties."

-- On what he looks for in a player: Wainwright looks for "good shooters and good attitudes, players who blend versatility and athleticism, basketball players who are athletic and can play multiple positions."

-- On the importance of role players and chemistry: "Backcourts win games, inside play, not inside players. Most everyone in college basketball has a pretty good first five. Six through 11 is where they measure championship teams. A one-ingredient soup is a bad soup. But the most important thing is chemistry and team morale. It matters what they do, not what I do."

A coach's opportunity for fellowship with his players

Every year, games and practices keep a lot of college athletes around the country from spending Thanksgiving with their families.

But University of Georgia assistant Rodney Garner uses the holiday as a platform for team-building, inviting UGA players over to his house for Thanksgiving dinner.

“I do it so they can have a home-cooked meal and be in a home environment,” said Garner, Georgia’s defensive line coach.

Last year, about 60 players came over to Coach Garner's home for "turkey,ham, sweet potatoes, macaroni-and-cheese, black-eyed peas, greens, dressing, cakes and pies."

According to this article, "Garner started his Thanksgiving tradition when coaching at Auburn in the early 1990s, continued it at Tennessee and brought it with him to Georgia a decade ago."

Says Coach Garner:

“It’s fun fellowship. Even though the economy is like it is, we still have so much to be thankful for. [It’s] an opportunity to fellowship with the guys in a positive manner . You know, sometimes I’m not the most positive guy. So they get a chance to see me in a different light. I hope they see that I do have a human side and I do care and I love them.”

Winning is a bonding opportunity

In the NFL, it's not unusual for coaches to sometimes give the players Monday off following a victory on Sunday.

In fact, former 49ers coach Mike Nolan did it from time to time, calling it "Win Mondays."

But new Niners coach Mike Singletary "wants players together after a game, win or lose. After losses, he wants players to talk to one another about what went wrong. After victories, he wants players to figure out what went right. Winning, he said, is a bonding opportunity."

"Who else are you going to talk about a win with?" Singletary said. "You can call your mom. You can call your dad. But with your teammates the next day you can talk about it and laugh about it, watch together and grow from it."