Looking for people with convictions who can influence their peers

Came across a great quote from Joe Paterno in the book "The Competitive Edge" by Dr. Jeffrey Brown, a sports psychologist and instructor at Harvard Medical School.

"We need people who influence their peers and who cannot be detoured from their convictions by peers who do not have the courage to have any convictions."

[Here's a video at Coach Paterno at work that's worth a look.]

Veterans provide knowledge; young players bring the energy

Reds manager Dusty Baker, 59, "has a reputation for preferring veterans at the expense of young players."

"I get tired of defending myself," he says. "It's the biggest crock of (bull) I've ever heard. I never had one (young team) except my last year (2006) in Chicago. In San Francisco, they had a big mortgage on the building. We had to win now."

What's important to Coach Baker is not whether a player is young or a veteran; it's whether the player wants to improve.

"Growth, that's exactly what I want," Baker says. "Baseball intellect, the ability to learn and retain what they learn. Some guys get it right away. Other guys you've got to keep reminding. I want intelligent, energy-type players. Competition from within without envy and jealousy. Veterans give us knowledge, kids give us energy."

When asked if some of the younger Reds players were likely to develop into team leaders, Coach Baker replied: "Leadership is not appointed. It's anointed by your teammates."

It's about making each other better

Good story in the Raleigh paper this morning about how NC State guards Javier Gonzalez (pictured here with Wolfpack coach Sid Lowe) and Farnold Degand go after each other in practice in an effort to improve one another.

Gonzalez, urged by his mother "to be 'a warrior' on the court," says that while he and Degand are friends away from practice, the battles in practice with Degand is "about making each other better."

NC State assistant Pete Strickland compares it to a Bible verse:

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

According to the article, Gonzalez has worked hard on his game, sometimes "working on his game from midnight to about 2 a.m. before falling asleep on a couch."

"He's a gym rat," Coach Strickland said. "He's always the first at practice and the last one to leave. Sometimes he drags other players with him."

You can't take a loss and hold on to it

Saw a quote yesterday from Kobe Bryant talking about the Lakers' four-point loss at Utah on Wednesday, his team's last game before the All-Star break.

Kobe acknowledged that LA didn't play well, but kept the loss in perspective.

"We just didn't play well defensively. We didn't play hard enough on defense. We played lazy. They got a lot of points in the paint. It's one game. It's good that (my teammates) have a competitive spirit, but they can't take a loss and hold on to it. You can't get too hard on yourself or you don't play your best basketball."

Even at 1-23, you find a way to compete

Sixteen games in, Loyola Marymount picked up its first win of the season. Without a doubt, the 1-23 Lions have experienced one of the toughest seasons in many years in college hoops.

First-year head coach Bill Bayno, who was hired last April, took medical leave in November, and ultimately resigned last month.

Assistant Max Good, who'd gone 132-86 at D2 Bryant University in Rhode Island, took over the team, which "lost three starters and a 6-foot-9-inch reserve to season-ending injuries" and "suits up eight players, only five of whom are on scholarship, including two former walk-ons who were put on aid for their senior seasons. The Lions start three freshmen who average at least 30 minutes each."

As this columnist puts it, "This isn't a project. It's a nightmare."

"It's hellish in some respects and rewarding in others," Good said. "These kids come to practice every day like we're undefeated. Their attitude is so positive. I have to be a little more patient than usual. I can't be as demonstrative, but that doesn't mean we're not demanding. But you motivate kids the best way you know how. I don't mind other teams trying to kill us. It's what I would do. It's my job to prepare our team. Someone said it's David vs. Goliath. It feels more like King Kong against Fred. What do you do? You find a way to compete. You deal with it. That's life."

The four pillars of a successful team

Here's a good excerpt from Phil Martelli's book, "Don't Call Me Coach."

Coach Martelli is in his 14th season as head coach at St. Joe's, where he's won 18-plus games for eight consecutive seasons. This season, the Hawks are 13-8 and have won 9 of 10.

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To me it's never been about a system. It's about building on foundations. It's absolutely essential that our players be willing to compete. That's the first pillar. We set up a competitive atmosphere throughout -- in practice, in our scheduling, and our game opportunities.

Yet, it's also essential to learn to share the basketball. To me, sharing the ball is the ultimate sign of respect on the court. That's the second pillar in building a team.

I think it's really important that you take your shot, the third pillar. Everyone's worked hard to get you that opportunity, and if you don't take it, that's worse than taking a bad shot. It sounds ironic, but teamwork is based on competition.

To relate that to the wider world of work, suppose someone has prepared you for a promotion, to take a position in your company, and you decline to accept it. Your not taking the shot others set up for you is harmful to the whole organization. They thought you were ready, and put their effort behind you. You let them down, as well as yourself.

The fourth thing we ask every player is to know your abilities, the key final pillar that holds the structure up. There's nothing harder than being realistic about yourself, but we all have to do it.

Go to your strengths, stay away from your weaknesses. We will try to analyze both, as we've seen them, practice after practice. We will explain both to you, and then plan around your strengths, in combination with those of your teammates. But then you have to do the rest.

If life is a competition, stressing your strengths is the way to be a winner. I don't want to make basketball bigger than it is, but it's the same lesson you'll need in life.

I know it sounds simplistic -- to compete, to share, to take your shot when it comes, to really know your strengths and weaknesses -- but that's what builds a team. Nobody does it alone. Look into the stories of great statesmen, great generals, great entrepreneurs, great leaders in any field, and see how they achieved success. It won't be a waste of your time.

When you play on the road, you need men

In the words of Muhammad Ali:

"The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road - long before I dance under those lights."

At 19-4, winners of six of their last seven, Mizzou has already won three more games than all of last season. According to this story in today's St. Louis paper, increased intensity in practice is one reason for the Tigers' turnaround.

"Coach [Mike Anderson] (pictured above) is a strong believer that road games are pretty much won by toughness," said junior guard Zaire Taylor. "He always says, 'When you go on the road, we need men,' and that is pretty much the mentality we've been taking in practices.

The reason we've won our last two games is because of our practices. Ever since we lost at Kansas State, our practices have been like wars. We've been taking (hard work) that we've been bringing in practices and we're bringing that same energy into games. The practices have taken a step up.

When I go home from practice now, I feel more bruised than I do after games. The competitive atmosphere is real high. You wouldn't know we are teammates by the way we get after each other."

Lessons of competition and compassion

There's been so much written about the 100-0 high school girls game in Texas that I wasn't planning on posting about it.

But as the father of two young kids, and as a coach, it's hard to let it go.

To put it plainly, it's disgraceful. Even at the professional level, as a courtesy, coaches typically "take their foot off the accelerator" when they have a big lead late in the game.

In this case, at halftime, when the score was 59-0, couldn't the coach with the lead have gone over to the opposing coach and had a private conversation about how he'd like to proceed? After all, these are high school kids in a private school game.

At the least, why not switch off the scoreboard? Did he really think his team might blow a 59-point lead? Could he not see that his opponent was completely overmatched? Was his team actually getting better by playing a team so much weaker than his? Wouldn't a crisp 90-minute practice have served his team better?

From what I've read, the winning team's players and an assistant coach were cheering increasingly louder as the score approached the magical "100."

Really? Why? Was this a big victory? Had they really been challenged in the game?

That kind of behavior in a 100-0 win reminds me of something Ben Franklin said once:

“You must not, when you have gained a victory, use any triumphing or insulting expression, nor show too much pleasure, but endeavor to console your adversary, and make him less dissatisfied with himself by every kind and civil expression, that may be.”

I've seen youth league coaches with 25-point leads call a timeout with a minute left in the game. It's silly and, if done unintentionally, it's thoughtless.

Recently, I watched a youth league coach lead his team in prayer before a game, then proceed to leave on his full-court press until the final buzzer even though his team was up by 25 points. It's not only hypocritical, it's completely unnecessary.

In this article, Michael Josephson, founder of the Josephson Institute for Youth Ethics, asks, "What is the ultimate goal of coaching [kids]? It should be teaching good life skills. When Wilt Chamberlain scored 100, he did it against a professional team. It's a huge difference when you're dealing with children. It's a terrible black eye to believe that people are defending the proposition that there is anything worthwhile about that type of game."

I remember 20 years ago when SMU played at No. 1-ranked Notre Dame in SMU's first season back from the "Death Penalty." Led by coach Forrest Gregg, SMU's roster was made up of mostly freshmen players.

On the other sideline was Lou Holtz, who out of respect for Coach Gregg and empathy for his team's situation, directed his team to go easy on the young Mustangs. The final score was 59-6, though it could have been 40 points worse if not for Notre Dame's repeated intentional delay-of-game penalties.

At one point, a Notre Dame ballcarrier had a clear path to the endzone, but stepped out of bounds rather than score. According to one Irish player, "What was said was, 'If anyone scores, they'll be kicked off the team.'"

"These things happen when you're outmanned," Coach Gregg said after the game.

To say that the girl's team on the losing end of a 100-0 score was "outmanned" would be an understatement. Winning and losing are important lessons for kids, but it's hard to find a lesson in a 100-point loss.

Coach Holtz was criticized by many for ordering his players not to score, writing that "athletics are meant to be a test of competition."

I understand the importance of competition. I also understand the definition of "compassion."

"Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it."

A signed commitment to core beliefs

At Virginia Tech this week, coach Seth Greenberg had his players sign a contract asking "his players to commit to his 'core beliefs.'"

According to this article, "the move came in the wake of Sunday's 69-44 loss at Duke -- a defeat in which the Hokies mustered just 13 second-half points. Tech forward Jeff Allen has said that Duke played harder than the Hokies in the second half, and that his team 'gave up.'"

Greenberg said Thursday he didn't like the team's "competitive spirit" in the second half at Duke. He said the contract reminds the players "of the essence of the culture of the program" and makes sure they don't "compromise" that culture. Players said this year's version of the contract covers everything from playing hard and playing up to one's potential in games to not talking back to coaches in practice to not using cellphones during team dinners.

In Coach Greenberg's words, "I've done a contract almost every single year I've been here at different times. I'm taking measures to help us get better."

Says one player: "It's just stuff on and off the court, the stuff that we [were] kind of letting go, and it was kind of affecting the team. [Coach Greenberg] won't tolerate some of the small stuff he was tolerating. A lot of the contract is ... [about] effort in practice."

A reminder that there's a competitive aspect to the game

After a recent road loss, coach Todd McLellan announced to his Pacific Division-leading SJ Sharks that they'd be returning to the visitor's arena the next morning for a brief, but intense practice.

As this article puts it, it was a "non-stop, 35-minute reminder that talent is wasted if effort isn't there. [Coach] McLellan and his staff set up a series of exercises that reduced the sport to its basics while driving home the point that hard work is required every night."

Said one SJ player: "At this stage, you shouldn't need a little kick in the ass to get you going, but sometimes you do, I guess."

"As a coaching staff, we spend probably too much time working on systems... and we forget that there's that competitive aspect to the game — the one-on-one battles, the back check, preventing turnovers," said Coach McLellan. "We had a chance to work on that this morning. It was a work day for us. Nobody takes any satisfaction in thinking it was a punishment skate by any means. It was something we needed to do, the guys competed hard, and we'll move on now."

The most physical three days of basketball

In the St. Paul paper this morning, DAL coach Rick Carlisle talked about going to camp with the Timberwolves in 1989, the team's inaugural season.

"It was the most physical three days of basketball I've ever been involved with," Carlisle said of the camp, mostly made up of CBA players and fringe NBA players. "The reason was that Bill Musselman (Minnesota's first coach, pictured here) had referees come in and (he) told them basically not to call any fouls. Bill wanted to find out who really wanted to play. ... It was extremely competitive. I got through it."

In his mind, he still doesn't think he's quite good enough

Before the BOS-TOR game last night, TOR coach Sam Mitchell spoke to a reporter about Kevin Garnett's incredible work ethic, saying:

"Nobody can teach that to you. It’s got to be in you, and he had it from the first day. The guy just competes so hard. In his mind, he still doesn’t think he’s quite good enough. And I guess that’s what you have to have to be great. You don’t believe what people say about you. Somewhere in his mind, he probably doesn’t think he’s quite good enough."

Channeling competiveness in a postive way

Almost one year ago, the Tampa Bay Rays made a trade that included Matt Garza, a pitcher who "was 8-13 over parts of two seasons with Minnesota and was known for having a temper that could be as explosive as his fastball."

After an incident in June when Garza and a teammate "scuffled" in the dugout during a game against Texas, Garza went to Rays manager Joe Maddon and said, "I need help controlling my emotions." Coach Maddon contends "it was a huge turning point for him."

With the help of a sports psychologist:

"Garza learned to channel his competitiveness in more positive ways. For instance, when he needs to make an important pitch, Garza is apt to walk off the mound, remove his cap and read inspirational writings scrawled inside it."

The results were immediate and clearly contributed to the 24-year-old Garza earning ALCS MVP honors, the youngest pitcher ever to win the award.

Said one of Garza's teammates: "I've never seen a guy mature emotionally and professionally over the course of one season like this guy has done."