Takeaways From The Last Dance

• MJ is probably the greatest competitor I've ever seen (Brady? Kobe?).
• Jordan's competitiveness turned into a lot of pettiness.
• I'm disappointed that Jordan had to approve it and his production company played a role in producing it. While it was entertaining and a fun watch, it's not a documentary, it's a tribute.
• Did the timeline jumping back and forth drive anyone else crazy, or was it just me?
• Tough for Phil to get laryngitis on interview day.
• Still believe we conflate winning and individual ability way too much.
• MJ's teammates deserve a ton of credit. The edge that he brought every day could not have been easy to deal with.
• Great old-school hip-hop soundtrack "Scenario," "I Got It Made," "Can I Kick It?" "The Choice Is Yours," among others. Well done.
• We didn't really learn much that we didn't already know.
• Jerry Krause is unfairly skewered. Look at the moves he made to put the dynasty together - he belongs in Springfield.
• Scottie Pippen should have been more mad at his agent than Jerry Krause.
• Sam Bowie averaged 11 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks per game for his NBA career.
• Phil Jackon's ability to manage personalities within the dynamic of a team are second to none.
• For a great read on his approach, pick up Jackson's "11 Rings."
• I thought MJ popped Kerr in practice, not Will Perdue. Or was it both?
• The Dream Team scrimmage footage was the best inside look of the entire show - a game some have called the greatest basketball ever played.
• I thought Jordan's answer on the "Republicans buy sneakers too" comment made sense and was genuine. He said it off the cuff on a bus to some teammates, and he never saw himself as an activist. His energy was as a basketball player. You don't have to agree with it, but I thought it was authentic.
• The "you might want to be MJ for a day," but not for longer than that comments are still repulsive to me. C'mon man.
• I loved how after that pick-up game in Barcelona, people started to realize the torch had been passed.
• Why did we have to put a college player on that team again?
• Sure, Mike, Rod Thorn called you and told you Isaiah wasn't going to be on the team.
• As a native New Yorker and a big Knick's fans in the '80s and '90s, having no sports on TV right now and seeing nothing but Bulls dynasty highlights from 25 years ago is a nightmare.
• Willow Bay talking about how the Reebok issue with the Olympic uniforms showed us how "competitive" Michael was made me want to puke. Either that, or he really liked money.
• Scottie Pippen didn't come across as a great teammate - waited on surgery until the season started so as not to ruin his summer, and sat out the last play of a playoff game because he wasn't getting the ball. And then said he wouldn't change a thing. Yikes.
• The fact that there was once a narrative that Jordan was a great individual scorer who couldn't lead his team to a championship should tell you why that narrative should never exist. It's only a story until you win, and then it's dropped.
• Krause hiring Tex Winter and Phil Jackson, and bringing along the triangle offense, doesn't get enough publicity.
• "I don't want Bill Cartwright with the ball with 5 seconds to go on the clock... that's fucking stupid."
• Not a fan of the "this documentary shows the young generation why Jordan was the best ever" narrative at all.
• I'm surprised about the response to Jordan's "leadership style" being so positive. Jordan's talent was the number one element in his "leadership style." He was the best in the game, so he could behave however he liked without fear.
• How about the fact that he showed up to play in the Olympics with his golf clubs? I'm sure other players did too. Think about being so good at a sport that you can represent your country in the Olympics, and bringing your equipment to play another sport while you are there.
• We remember Jordan's attempt at baseball as a failure, but what he did that year was actually very impressive.
• Acting like Rodman was a great teammate to have or someone that could be counted on is a joke. They made it work with him, but great teammates don't constantly put their team at risk. I don't care how many rebounds they can get.
• How much scotch did MJ drink during his interviews?
• It's hard for me to look at what you are saying as authentic when you had to approve it all and your production company helped produce it.
• You know what, Mike, I could handle being MJ for more than a day.
• BJ Armstrong was an NBA All-Star?
• Michael didn't come across as very likable to me. Cannot deny his talent, competitiveness, and success. But just doesn't seem like a person I'd like.
• Someone has to explain to me why they went with the flu instead of just saying it was food poisoning.
• Really, Tim Grover, you "had a bad feeling" about the pizza before he ate it?
• The depths to which MJ would reach to create a competitive edge for himself were truly mind-boggling.
• Come on with the jump ball with 7:00 to play in a 3-point game in game 7 was the key to beating the Pacers. Pretty sure the Bulls would have found a way.
• The "We had the better team, I really do believe that," from the team that just got beat is pretty tired.
• Luc Longley and Greg Ostertag got the same amount of burn in this documentary. What did Luc ever do to MJ?
• "Scottie was hurt, so I had to take all the shots, I had to bring all of the energy." MJ has some ego.
• It's hard to celebrate Dennis Rodman. Did so many things that hurt his team, both on the floor and off.
• Usually when a unique situation like his works out, it's not because of the players, it's because of the rest of the team.
• Phil Jackson was brilliant at not inserting his own ego into difficult situations.
• Getting on the other teams bus to congratulate them after a big game is more about you than it is about them.
• Winning is hard. Even for the teams that made it look easy.
• He has to be the most relentless competitor we've ever seen.

Virginia's SOW Culture

https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-basketball-players-reap-what-they-sow?utm_source=DailyReport&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news

Handling Adversity

I've been working with a bunch of teams and organizations over the last 2 months on leadership development. As we get into the discussion, one topic seems to come up more than any other - how do you handle adversity?

It's something we all have to deal with, as individuals or as a part of a team. There have probably been a million books written on the topic about turning negatives into positives, but one things I've realized is, like most leadership topics, it is situational. Context really matters, and what might work in one situation or for one team might not work for another. So there is no strict blueprint.

A few things I've discovered about overcoming adversity:

Your Long-Term Culture Matters

The ability to handle tough times does not start when the tough times hit. Belief and confidence in your long-term approach, and what you are doing every day, is very powerful when it comes to difficult challenges.

What is the overall purpose for why you do what you do? There needs to be something that drives you that is bigger than you. If it's a basketball team, and winning is all that matters, when you lose a few in a row you are going to feel like the world is caving in on you. But if you believe in the way you operate day to day and the impact it will have on the way you live your life long-term, that is something that will continue to motivate you when adversity strikes. Think about your long-term purpose and what you believe in.

Separate From The Results

If the results are what drives you, they day-to-day becomes a lot harder when things aren't going well. Focus hard on the process, and evaluating what you are doing every day. If you can honestly say you are giving a great effort, and you know you are getting better, you'll start to feel better about yourself.

Think long-term when it comes to your culture and what you believe in. Think short-term when it comes to the way you have to battle out of it. Focus on getting better today and just add to that tomorrow. You can't control the situation you are in any more, but you can control your daily approach.

Win Anyway

Your mentality is really important. We use the term "win anyway" as our way of saying "no excuses." It's a long-term mentality that we live and breathe in our program. The officials are bad? Win anyway. Two of our starters are hurt? Win anyway. You don't feel your best at practice today? Win anyway.

Whatever adversity just struck, you have to get over it. You can't feel sorry for yourself. Don't make any excuses or talk about the bad luck that has hit you and your team. It can't help you. Winning anyway is about how you respond. Make it a part of your mentality.

No one really cares about what happened to your or how you got here. Time to get over it.

Trust Your Teammates

Great teammates are essential to any high-achieving organization, but they are most valuable when things aren'g going well. Trust is the most essential element of great organizations. When adversity hits, you need the best out of everyone to turn things around. There isn't going to be one person who does remarkable things to pull everyone out of it.

I've found that natural tendency is that everyone wants to do more. People are driven because they are upset with what has happened, so there is renewed intensity and commitment to make a change. This leads to a lot of focus on yourself and a narrow scope. Don't forget about your teammates. Renewed drive is a good thing, but use the strength of your team to make impactful change.

Positivity

It's simple to say "stay positive." Yeah, but things stink right now, so it's hard to stay positive. But it's important to set the right mindset. Surround yourself with as much positivity as you can. Speak only positive things about your team or your program. Encourage everyone else to do the same. Celebrate the small daily successes you have with a high level of energy. Compliment your teammates on simple moments of progress.

Get any from the negative talk that naturally comes with the adversity that hit. It doesn't do you any good. Intentionally put yourself in only positive situations to create the mindset you need.

Find Solitude

I've found that when things aren't going well, I enjoy spending some time alone. It's great to keep a positive attitude, not to make any excuses and to count on your teammates, but adversity is also hard to deal with. It's not as simple as waking up and saying "I've got this" today and going to work. The fight you need takes time to process and can make you feel bad.

Find 15-30 minutes each day to get away from everyone, and just organize your thoughts. Get comfortable with how you are feeling and how you want to go about making changes. I don't think you want to try and be tough alone, but I need to be alone at times to figure out how to be tough. Take a break and spend some time alone and get your mind ready for the fight.

See Reality

Phil O'Brien, the Chairman of the York Consulting Group, always says "See reality for what it is, and act accordingly." This is a much more intentional process than it sounds.

You cannot overcome adversity if you are not realistic about the situation you are in, and why you are in it. We all have difficulty being brutally honest with ourselves because the truth doesn't makes us feel good. Ask for some help from someone outside your organization about your situation. Have direct discussions within your team about what happened and where you stand. It will be very hard to overcome adversity if you aren't dealing in reality.

Learn From It

Ask yourself where you are going to be as an organization when this is all over. Think about what this situation can teach you about your team, and how it can make you better. The toughness and togetherness it takes to overcome adversity are long-term assets for your organization.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that the challenges you face right now are going to make you better. But only if you take an intentional approach toward fighting your way out of it. Figure out how your challenge is going to make you better, and then put a plan in place to get there. The long-term positive can help fuel the way you recover.

Landry Kosmalski And The Motion Offense

Enjoyed this article from Mike Jensen on Swarthmore head coach Landry Kosmalski, his relationship with Harry Perretta, and the motion offense.

https://bit.ly/2YW1odd

The Malady Of The Five Monkeys

Liked this parable that addresses the idea of "that's how we've always done it," sent to me by Coach Daniel Gauthier.

https://www.kelleramerica.com/five-monkeys.html

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb toward the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the others monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey approaches the stairs, the remaining monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey soon sees the banana and tries to climb the stairs, but to his horror, all the other monkeys attack him! After another attempt and resulting attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked! The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with great enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey, then a fourth and finally the fifth.

Every time a new monkey approaches the stairs, he is attacked! The new monkeys have no idea why they are not permitted to climb the stairs nor why they are beating the newest monkey.

After replacing all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Yet, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why? Because as far as they know, that's the way it has always been done.

Challenge The Way You Think

It's always struck me how much in basketball we connect to traditional thinking. I remember watching college basketball growing up in the 1980s, and seeing John Thompson and John Chaney benching any player who had two fouls in the first half. It just became an accepted strategy and everyone started to do it.

I've kind of been a contrarian by nature, so I've always liked questioning things and looking at the other side. I always hated sitting on the bench if I got two fouls. It's the second quarter, there's only about 20 minutes of the game left, and I'm pretty sure I can play that amount of time without committing 3 more fouls. Plus, half-time is such a random barrier. To end the first half you can't have that guy on the floor, but to begin the second half he's good to go.

So I've always remained open to a different way of thinking. I like to challenge the reasoning behind we do what we do to see if there is a better way. I'm a believer that the most dangerous words for a business or team are "because that's how we've always done it."

I recently spoke on an online clinic, and I decided to take a different approach. Rather than just pick a basketball topic and talk about it for an hour, I put together a list of different coaching strategies/approaches that involved a common way of thinking, where I tended to think differently. I wanted to have a discussion about uncommon approach.

Challenge Your Thought Process

Good Shot/Bad Shot

How do you coach good shot/bad shot? It's not easy. Obviously we all want our team taking good shots. But I also want my team playing with confidence. I don't want them thinking about it.

So I don't coach it. I don't talk about it. I let the players figure it out. We make everything around our program competitive, including the pre-season pick-up games. So the players work it out. If you start jacking bad shots when the game is on the line and the losing team has to run a minute drill, you better believe you are going to hear about it.

I tell my teams I want the defensive end, they can have the offensive end. It's not like I don't coach them or we don't run some plays, but I don't talk to them about shot selection. I'd rather trade a bad shot here or there for the freedom and confidence I want them to play with.

Role Definition

Your role on our team is to help us win. That's it. I don't define anybody's role other than that. Sure, we coach you on what you are good at. The great Pete Carril said it the best, "Figure out what you are good at, and do that a lot."

We certainly coach our guys on what they are good at, but I don't put them in a box and tell them what they are supposed to be doing. I want to learn about what they can do to help us. And I'm sure I'm going to need them to do some things outside of their comfort zone at some point.

If you constantly do things that don't help the team win, you are a bad player. And you aren't gong to play. If you can't figure that out before we get to our first game, you can cheer hard for your teammates. Your role is to help us win.

Body Language

I think we make too big of a deal out of body language. I started thinking this way when I realized I just wasn't very good at evaluating it. I would make decisions based on body language and what I didn't like or thought might be about to happen, and I'd get it wrong. A lot.

I'm pretty sure if your starting senior captain reacts to something a certain way, and your freshmen who comes off the bench and has been complaining about playing time reacts the exact same way, you are going to see those two actions differently. I'm confident in that. Who the player is helps us determine how to respond to his body language (watch Tom Brady play quarterback, and you'll see "great leadership" and a "great competitor" when he reacts poorly).

I want to coach the behavior, not the personality. It's not like I'm a fan of bad body language. But I'm not going to make decisions on it. If it leads to bad behavior, then I have to do something. And it's good to see that body language first because I know what's coming. Not to mention, have you ever looked at your own body language on the bench as a coach? I just think we look at body language conveniently and tend to overreact to it, so I don't pay much attention to it.

Leadership/Captains

I'm just not a big believer in the top down model of leadership, where we have a coaching staff, then a few veteran captains, and the rest of the team, and we let the message trickle down. I think leadership is a skill, it's not a rank, and too often we see it the other way. Most of our "leaders" are our oldest, best and loudest players. But that doesn't make them our best leaders.

I want to empower everyone to lead. We define leadership as making the people around you better, and it's required of everyone. And you can do it in your own way, to fit your personality. We have captains, and they have technical responsibilities, but they aren't required to lead more than anyone else. Everyone is a leader.

Family

I know just about everyone considers their team or program a family these days, but I'm not buying it. I don't like it. My love for my family is unconditional. But membership on a high-performing team is highly conditional. If my brother screws up big-time, I'll always be there to help him. But there are limits to how often you can screw up on a team and still be a part of it. That's just the way it is, and it's okay.

I think we devalue the importance of a team, and what it means to be a great teammate, by talking about family. Great teammates have agreed to the conditions, some of which are hard, and chosen to be a part of it willingly. That's powerful, but that's not a family. The people that buy into that, those are guys I want to win with. I've got plenty of members of may family who I enjoy spending time with and sharing a beer with on the holidays - but I don't want to try and win with them.

I feel like the family thing is inauthentic. We are only family until you screw up too many times, but then we have to make a change. Being a part of a team is special, and should be treated that way.

Mentality

There are a lot of things we say or do as coach that can affect our players mentality, and I don't think we think about it too much. You'll never hear me say "on the road" when I'm preparing my team, like "we have to be really locked in, especially on the road." Road environments can be tough, but guess what, that's why we prepare the way we do. To win in those environments. I don't want my guys thinking it's going to be especially harder or we have to do something out of character to win on the road. We are prepared.

Do you play a different defense on the last possession of a game? Do you switch everything, when you normally wouldn't switch? A lot of teams do that. I don't like it. Why would I want to play a defense we hardly use on the most important possession of the game? I don't like what that does to our mentality, either. It looks like we don't trust our defense.

Have you ever heard the one about how it's hard to beat a team three times? That one gets thrown around in March a lot. Except it's not true. Over 10 years, in that scenario, the team that had won the first two games won the 3rd game 72% of the time. At RIC I was in that scenario 12 times, and we were 11-1 against those teams the third time. We hear people say it, it sounds good, but it's not true. And it affects our teams mentality in a negative way.

When you have a lead at halftime, do you tell your team to be ready for the opponent to make a run? I don't like the one either. If all goes well, we aren't going to let them make a run. I don't want our guys thinking that a run against us is going to happen. I want them thinking we are going to control the last 20 minutes of the game.

There are a lot of these thoughts that we use as coaches, that have become common in the game, that may actually have a negative effect on our team. I hope you find them worth thinking about.

Stretching

I hate stretching. When I was in college, practice started at 4, and when it started we met quickly and got right into our first drill. You got there early and got yourself warmed up and ready to go. But we never stretched.

I think there is value in telling your guys when to be ready for practice, and then getting started. Give them time before hand to do what they have to do to get ready, but when practice starts we are rolling. There's no time to warm-up or to ease our way into it. It's on the kids to get them self physically and mentally ready to play.

Now, you certainly want to show your guys how to take care of their bodies so they aren't coming into practice from the cold and playing live. But the important thing is it's on them. Get yourself ready to play. By warming up, then stretching, then easing in to practice drills, you are telling them "we'll give you time to get going."

When that horn goes off and it's time to go, I want them ready to play. And I want them to get used to getting there as players.

Communication - Ask Them What They See

I got to participate on a coaches zoom call recently with Dave Niland, the very successful long-time head coach at Penn State - Behrend. Coach Niland has a terrific approach to basketball and is a great guy to have a conversation with if you ever get the chance.

He was talking about communication and the issues we all have with getting our players to talk more. He brought up the idea that before you can get them to talk, you have to make sure they can see what is really happening on the court. They have to be aware, and be able to process exactly what is happening in order to be able to communicate properly. Many guys have trouble seeing the game very clearly and processing it quickly, and that inhibits their ability to communicate.

Coach Niland's point was before you can ask them to communicate, ask them what they see. Get them to describe for you what they saw on a certain play, and see if it matches with what you saw. You have to get on the same page with how to read and process plays before you can communicate to one another.

I love the point and think it's a really good way to approach communication. You can scream at your guys all day about taking on the court, but if you don't get to the bottom of what they are seeing and how they process it, you'll never get them to talk.

Great Competitors

Pat Riley had a great line once about one of the best feelings for a coach. He said it was when you ran into a former player 10 years down the line, someone that you were hard on and maybe didn't always see eye-to-eye with, and you gave each other a big hug. And you understand that all of the difficult stuff that happened between you was all part of the relentless pursuit of excellence.

Watching "The Last Dance" one ESPN, one of my main takeaways is that Michael Jordan might be the greatest competitor I have ever seen (Tom Brady? Kobe?). He is relentless in his pursuit of excellence, to the point where it can be a negative (when asked about gambling, he says he's "addicted to competition"). His competitive drive, even with all of the success he was having, might be unmatched by any great athlete anywhere.

One thing that gets lost with great competitors is the importance of the rest of the team. Great competitors can be hard to play with. They can be over-the-top at times, and they can make things very uncomfortable. Even if you have a team and a culture that is built on competition. Part of being a great competitor is challenging your teammates to get to a place where they've never been. To make them uncomfortable, to drive them to be great.

I think of the best competitors I have ever coached. Competition was always a core value of our teams, and we defined ourselves by how we competed. But the best competitors were still hard to deal with. They constantly challenged myself and their teammates in different ways, and it wasn't always positive. Trust me, I'll take an elite competitor on my team any day of the week, and I'll deal with the issues that arise. But the truth is, great competitors aren't always easy to deal with.

That is where everyone else comes in. I think it's important that you have discussions as a team about how you are going to connect, interact and communicate with one another. There has to be an understanding that at times it will get intense and uncomfortable. What we do in the athletic arena is intense. It isn't always team meetings and post-practice discussions. There is an intensity to it that is going to effect the way we deliver the message, and therefore the way we respond to it. So we need to connect on how we are going to interact, with an understanding that it won't always be positive and certainly won't always be comfortable.

The best teammates are connected and understand where the rest of their teammates are coming from. It is that understanding that really becomes the fuel for elite teams. There are going to be laid back guys who don't get all fired up every day, and there are going to be intense competitors who can't help themselves from getting after it. As a group, you have to recognize this and create and accept an atmosphere where your team can thrive. An elite competitor adds so much value to your team, but can also create some difficult situations.

MJ's ability to be an elite competitor relied on two factors - one, his own greatness, and the second, his teammates. Obviously he had all the credibility he needed as the best player in the league, maybe of all-time. He could say or do what he wanted, and his teammates had to accept it. But a big factor to me was there willingness to accept the way he was as a driving force behind what made their team great, even if it meant putting up with some tough behavior (was it Will Perdue that he punched, or was it Steve Kerr? Or both?). I'm sure those guys had some brutal days being teammates with MJ, but they got to a point where they realized it was all worth it.

Elite competitors are essential on high-performing teams, but their teammates play a big role in allowing that competitiveness to happen. Elite competitors really rely on the rest of the team, and MJ had a group of great teammates that allowed him to be himself.

And like Pat Riley said, I'm sure these days when he sees his teammates they give each other a hug and get past all of the hard stuff, understanding that it was all in the pursuit of excellence.

Power

"Perception matters greatly, because power rarely resides within just an individual. Power is not an absolute state but an arrangement among stakeholders. It is bestowed upon the leader as much as it was taken by the leader. While we speak about power as something that a leader seizes and dispenses, it is more accurate to say that power exists within the system that envelops a leader, and reflects that systems expectations of its leaders."

• General Stanley McChrystal, Leaders

Billy Martin

I'm currently reading a great biography on Billy Martin by Bill Pennington.

I found this excerpt from the 1977 American League Playoffs to be fascinating. The Yankees were down 2 games to 1 in the best of 5, in Kansas City for game 4.

As much as the Yankees pounded on Gura, Yankees starter Ed Figueroa was also struggling. In the fourth inning, the Yankees were leading 5-4 when the Royals put runners on first and third with two outs and George Brett coming to the plate.

In a move that was so unorthodox it seemed absurd at the time, Billy brought in his closer, Sparky Lyle, to the mount to face Brett. As Billy later explained, if the Royals took the lead, the Yankees might never have recovered and would have been eliminated from the series.

"Why save your closer for some other moment when that could be the do-or-die moment that decides a do-or-die game?" Billy reasoned.

Lyle got Brett to fly out to left field, then pitched five more scoreless innings, a rare achievement for a closer.

Billy Martin brought his closer in to face George Brett in the 4th inning, and then left him in to pitch the rest of the game.

In game 5, with the Yankees facing a tough lefty in Paul Splittorf, Martin made the decision to bench Reggie Jackson, his superstar clean-up hitter, because he had an awful time dealing with Splittorf.

Catfish Hunter famously said before the game "If we win, Billy's a genius. If we lose, he's fired."

Jackson pinch-hit in the 8th inning and drove in a run with a single to cut the Royals lead to 3-2. Then Paul Blair, who started in Jackson's place, singled in the 9th inning to ignite the Yankees rally to take the lead. The Yankees would win game 5, and go on to win the World Series.

How bold are you willing to be as a head coach? How willing are you to make some uncommon decisions to give your team the best chance to win?

Self-Awareness Leads To Authenticity

CBS Sunday morning did a segment on leadership which featured retired 4-star General Stanley McChrystal.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-kind-of-leadership-does-our-nation-need/

McChrystal made a comment about the importance of being self-aware as a leader. He pointed out that if you aren't genuinely self-aware, you will end up doing things that you said you wouldn't. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a leader is to say one thing and do another.

He brought up one of my favorite quotes on leadership that has been credited to Diane Sawyer.

"People will forgive you for not being the leader you want to be, but they will never forgive you for not being the leader you claim to be."

I absolutely love what that quote says about the importance of authenticity as a leader. If you aren't genuine you simply can't be an effective leader.

McChrystal's point about self-awareness is a great one to think about. You have to be really comfortable, confident and honest with yourself about who you are. If you aren't, you'll have a hard time being honest with the people you are trying to influence - even if you don't know it. Show any signs of being inauthentic and your credibility as a leader is crushed.

Work on being brutally self-aware. Have tough conversations with people you really respect and trust. Take a close look at the people around you and measure how they react to what you do and say. Evaluate yourself constantly. Listen more than you speak. Take notes or keep a diary on the decisions you make and the impact they have. Ask your players or employees for honest feedback. Do not let difficult emotions take over your mindset and cloud your way of thinking.

Self-awareness is a huge factor in the ability to lead well. It's hard to be authentic without being honest with yourself first.

Communication Strategy

I've worked with a number of teams and organizations at different levels during this stay-at-home period on leadership, and one central issue that seems to be a point for discussion with many teams is communication. When talking about a leadership approach and the behavior that goes along with it, the way teams communicate with one another comes up often. A lot of questions are asked - what is the best way to communicate with each other? How do we know when it's okay to speak up? How do we avoid too many people trying to get their point across at the same time? Communication seems to be a difficult issue for many teams.

Communication can never be an issue in high-achieving organizations. As a head coach, I said that to every one of my teams - communication can never be an issue for us. We have the most efficient means of communication available to us in the history of the world. We can face time with someone in China at any point in the day. We can never have issues with communication within our own team, especially when we know it is crucial to our success.

That's not to say communication is easy. It's difficult. How many times have you asked, yelled, demanded to your team that they have to communicate more on the court? It's a challenge. And part of that is because we don't have a plan. We tell our guys to communicate, but we don't talk about how to communicate or when communication is most important. We just tell guys to talk more, and we think it's going to happen.

It's crucial for every team to have an intentional plan for communication. Yes, one of the main reasons why we struggle to communicate is because we don't communicate about it. Get your team together and talk about it. Start with how important it is to be able to communicate with each other. I'm pretty sure everyone will be on board with that. Then talk about the best ways to communicate with each other - how are we going to give the message, and how do we receive the message. We might have some guys who are sensitive to getting yelled out or hearing voices raised. We might have some guys who need to hear it at loud volume to be able to get the point across. We all deliver messages differently, and we all receive them differently. So talk about the best way to get the point across.

Context matters, as it always does. So talk about that as well. Sure, on a Sunday night when we have a day off we can all get together and talk openly about what is going on with the team. But when there's 3:00 to play in a tie game and we need to beat a ball screen, we don't have time for a team meeting. I'm going to say it differently then, to get my point across and make sure it is heard. What we do is intense, and at times our communication is going to reflect that. That's okay, we just need to acknowledge it and get comfortable with it. It's not personal. Sometimes in the heat of the action, when a message needs to be sent, it's going to be sent in a certain way.

Give everyone on the team a chance to express how they respond to messaging. Spend some time getting to know the personalities in the room, and the goal of direct communication. Come to an agreement on how it is okay to talk to each other, and what the best way is to get the message across in different situations.

Communication must resolve conflict on a high-performing team, not cause it. My sense is that communication on teams causes more problems than it solves. And that is a huge obstacle in the way of elite success. Come up with an intentional game plan for how your team is going to communicate. It's an essential dynamic for any organization.

Mike Dunlap

Pat Scanlon form Greenwich Country Day has set up some great online coaches clinics. These are my notes from a recent visit with Mike Dunlap - who has coached at just about every level all over the world.

• Prioritize what you want, then throw two things away.
• A lot of people think your offense and defense have to be married to each other - I don't believe that.
• What are the characteristics of the best leaders he's been around? 1) Competitive spirit - they have to have "some serious dog in them." 2) At some point you are going to ask your leaders to give something up - they have to be unselfish enough to do that. 3) They will have to be able to fight through discouraging times.
• As far as a leader goes, "there is nothing better than someone who shows up the same way every day."
• Kids don't come into your gym as leaders. I don't believe it. You have to develop it.
• Don't try and make a leader out of someone who doesn't want to do it - "Why is everyone trying to jam something down his throat that he doesn't want to eat?"
• Hunt out the things your players do well and make sure you point them out to them.
• Developing mental toughness - 1) Use peer pressure - surround them with 1 or 2 mentally tough teammates. 2) Have physical practices - start gradually and build it up.
• To overcome adversity - make sure you add unpredictability to your practice plan.
• "When things are going bad, that's when coaches need to be great."
• On taking the next step as a coach - "I always felt that high-risk meant growth."
• Taking over a new organization - Being on time is non-negotiable. So many bad organizations have issues with time. Time is extremely valuable.
• Have a blue print, and fit that blue print to the overall culture of the organization.
• How do you grow as a coach? Make sure you simplify and prioritize. Then walk through the door and try it.

Pressure

How much does the pressure around us effect our decision-making? Take a look at this experiment from the '70s, that Simon Sinek cites in his book "The Infinite Game."

In 1973, two Princeton university psychology professors John M. Darley and C. Daniel Batson, conducted an experiment to better understand how situational variables can affect our ethics, specifically, how pressure impacts our will to help someone in distress. They asked a group of seminary students to travel across campus to give a talk about the story of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan is a parable from the New Testament in which a samaritan, traveling from Jericho to Jerusalem, is the only person to stop to help a man who had been beaten, robbed and left on the side of the road.

To recreate the scene, the professors hired and actor to lie in an alley, slumped over like he had been mugged or hurt in some way. The students would have. to pass him as they made their way across campus. Each Tim the experiment was conducted, with a different group of students, the professors added a little bit of pressure to see how it would affect the students' behavior. One group had a lot of pressure to hurry across campus. "You're late," the experimenters told them. "They were expecting you a few minutes ago. We'd better get moving." A second group had intermediate pressure put on them. "The assistant is ready for you, please go right over." And the last group had only light pressure added to them. "It'll be a few minutes before they're ready for you, but you might as well head on over."

When there was low pressure, 63 percent of the students stopped to help the injured man. When medium pressure, 45 percent stopped to lend assistance. And under high pressure, only 10 percent of the students stopped to help someone in apparent distress. Some even stepped right over him. The conclusion was stark. The students were good people who cared about service. They were all studying to be priests, for heavens sake. However, when pressure was placed upon them, in this case time pressure, their will to do the right thing gave way to the demands placed upon them.

Think about the last sentence. When pressure was placed upon them... their will to do the right thing gave way to the demands placed upon them. And these were not only seminary students, they were walking past a man clearly in need of help, on their way to give a talk about The Good Samaritan!

Man, does this make clear what pressure can do to our decision-making process. We face a ton of pressure as coaches - some external, a lot of it internal, some real, some perceived. But we all operate with a certain level of pressure on us every day.

Recognize the pressure that is on you - and the pressure you put on yourself - and think about the ways it can affect your decision making. None of us are immune to it. Pressure can have a significant impact on our decision making, and we might not even realize it.

How Old Is Too Old To Play Pick-Up Basketball?

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe with a great look at what basketball has meant to him.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/16/sports/how-old-is-too-old-play-pickup-basketball/?event=event25

Control

So often we feeling like being a leader is having control of everything, when in fact it is often the opposite. As a head coach I learned to fight the pull of trying to control everything.

I started at a D3 state school where you don't really have the control that you want. We had the gymnastics team practicing in our gym with the greatest hits of 1984 blaring over the speakers. Sometimes the wrestling team was on the side court. The physical education teachers had to come in and out to get stuff out of the closet. There was just a lot of stuff around that I couldn't control.

We also couldn't really control our players. We started practice on October 15th and we could coach our guys until the season ended - usually March 15th or so, if we had a great year and went to the Tournament. That's five months we got to coach our guys, and that was it. No off-season workouts, no supervised conditioning, and we couldn't be in the weight room. The strength coach was allowed to handle all of that stuff. The problem was we didn't have a strength coach.

So you can try and control what your players are doing all of the time, but good luck with it. It really wasn't reasonable, which made it really not worth it. So I came to embrace the lack of control as a way of giving the players ownership. Leaving it up to them. I put the off-season on the team, challenging them to make sure they were getting better, staying in great shape and holding each other accountable.

It was really out of necessity, but along the way I started to think about how much control coaches like to have - and I realized it didn't make sense. We always try and control everything - the temperature in the gym, the noise in the building, the right practice time. We want everything to be perfect so our guys can compete and get better at a high level. The problem with that is we don't play in controlled environments. Once the games start, we lose control (literally, and, well, literally). Is controlling everything we can about the environment preparing our guys succeed in games?

At the division I level now we can pretty much control everything. We have off-season workouts. We tell them when they can go home for holidays. They are on campus most of the summer. We get some of our kids just after (or maybe even before) they officially graduate from high school, and we bring them into our programs. And we start controlling them.

Is that the best way to make them better? We feel like we have to "introduce" them to our culture and show them "what it takes" to play at our level. And I certainly get the idea of off-season workouts and making our players better. But isn't there a way to do that without exhibiting so much control? (Hint: I think there is).

The best teams I've ever coached are the ones where they had control. They took ownership of what we were doing. And for them to do that, I had to let go. I had to give them the chance to take control. To make some important decisions and to make some mistakes. If they decide to take a Friday off from pick-up in September to go to a barbecue, is that really going to have lasting damage? When they have control, they own it, and it becomes that much more important to them. So when they are playing or working out on their own, they are a lot more committed to it.

I honestly believe that the more control we have the worse we are as coaches. I know for myself, the more I gave up control, the better my teams played. The more they gave to each other, and gave to the team. It was more personal to them.

I've never been a big fan of summer access or earlier start times in the fall. I think our season is long enough. Of course, we don't have to use all of the time we are allowed, but when we don't we feel like we are falling behind. We constantly have to drive our players to get better. Is that the right approach? I feel like we should create an environment where our players want to get better, and then give them the freedom to do so.

I'll bet if you ask a majority of division I coaches they'd tell you "their guys need it" and "we have to be on them all the time." We all feel that way to some degree. The pressure is real, and so many of our kids do need guidance. But if they don't learn how to get better and the work ethic needed during the year while you are coaching them, something isn't right.

The more we learn to give up control - by creating the right environment where our kids know how to handle it - the better coaches we become.

Fauci On Team

Loved these quotes from Anthony Fauci on the importance of team, and clarity of purpose. Both of them connect very well to coaching.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mentor-who-made-dr-anthony-fauci-11587040520

“It’s almost impossible to do anything meaningful without either leading a team or being part of the team,” Fauci said. “You want to be able to get someone who’s looking to answer the question, as opposed to looking for self-aggrandizement.” 

“I like clarity of thought,” Fauci said of his own hiring style. “Don’t get involved in distracting minutiae and details that cloud what your question is, what your mission is, what your mandate is. There are some people who are really good scientists, but you never know what they’re talking about. You never know where they’re going. You never know what the big picture is.”

Coach Hurley

I was lucky enough to be on a Zoom call this week with Coach Hurley from St. Anthony's - thanks to Pat Scanlon from Greenwich Country Day School.

My notes from Coach Hurley:

• As a young coach, it helped to be a JV coach first. It was a great way to learn.
• The philosophy I took - never allow your players to be average. They can be average everywhere else. Not in the gym.
• Do not ever lower the bar for anyone - the kids have to raise their level to meet your bar.
• In 45 years of coaching, no kid ever said "Coach, I wish you would have pushed me harder."
• How did we measure toughness? We had 6 "Win Stats" - Deflections, steals, charges, loose balls, blocked shots and hit ahead passes. We charted those every day for each player.
• What would I have told my younger self? To be who I am, I still would have grown up in Jersey City, coaching in Jersey City - that shaped me. Find a way to make connections with my players.
• Assists were always our most important statistic.
• What separated our great teams from our good teams? 1) Range of play doesn't deviate. Great teams were never erratic. 2) Won games when our best player didn't play well. 3) Could play fast, medium or slow paced. Whatever we needed to win. 4) Had a point guard who thinks like the head coach. 5) Balance - lots of guys between 8-14 points per game. 6) Reacted to a spurt from the other team. Always responded.
• "If something didn't go well in practice, I learned over the years it was my fault."
• Our focus was skill work/competition/conditioning. Every drill in practice should have 2 of the 3.
• As the season went on we would shorten practices from 2 hours to maybe 1:30 - but the level of intensity was always the same.
• Structure vs. Freedom with my team - changes every year, depending on personnel.
• "I will give you freedom if you are playing hard."
• Every player has to learn when to shoot, when to pass.
• Your offense should always be trying to get to the 3rd side.
• On a great offensive team, your best player must be a great passer.
• Your philosophy as a coach is more important than the plays you will run.
• "The passer is the eyes of the shooter."
• Offensive philosophy - always had motion, always had a continuity offense (to slow them down if they needed it), and always had quick hitters/ATOs for best players.
• Always make the opponents best player defend.
• Emphasize open shooting - you cannot play kids on the perimeter who cannot shoot. Always had 45 minutes of shooting on Saturday/Sunday with coaches and players before practice started.
• As the head coach, always work with the kid who is struggling with his confidence on shooting.
• Anytime you leave your feet to pass in practice it's a turnover.
• Once you get your rotation set, use all 8 or 9 of them in every situation. You never know when you are going to need them to do something different.
• Scout your own offense after 10 games - are you becoming predictable?
• On the bench - I always wanted to sit next to my players. Assistant coaches at the head of the bench.
• Advice to coaches - everything in life is about relationships. They will know if you care about them. You must personalize your coaching relationship with each player.
• When you see a player on TV during a game put his arm on his coach, when things aren't going well - you know there is a good relationship there.
• Parents - they get one meeting a year, usually in the pre-season. After that, if they have any questions, they ask their son. I'll meet with your son, and he'll bring the information home to you.

How Do You Sustain Elite Success?

The toughest thing to do in sports is to sustain success at an elite level year after year. It is underrated and overlooked. It's why I don't think things like Kansas' run of 14 straight regular season titles or Gonzaga's string of NCAA Tournament appearances get celebrated enough. We emphasize the tournament, the playoffs, the rings so much that we don't appreciate how hard it is to be consistently great year after year.

I was talking recently with a head coach who just had a great year in his first year as a head coach, and his question for me was a great one - how do you sustain it?

In nine years at Rhode Island College we went to 8 straight NCAA Tournaments, winning 5 regular season titles and 6 league tournament titles. Our regular season finishes were 1st five times, 2nd three times and 3rd once.

I had a special group of players and they bought into something uncommon. I've said it for years that I don't know if I'll ever be a part of a culture that good. It was special. But the conversation made me think hard about it - how do you sustain elite success?

It's not like I had a blueprint for this when I first became a head coach. A lot of these lessons were learned along the way, through success and failure.

Define Who You Are Clearly And Simply

As a head coach you have to have a clear vision of who you want to be as a program. And you have to make this clear and simple for your players.

Define the core values and standards for your program. Your values should define who you are as a team - and you should define them in behavioral terms. Your standards are your benchmarks of our conduct, how you measure and evaluate what you do.

Your culture is the behavior that comes as a result of your shared beliefs. It is not just the beliefs themselves. Think of your culture as action. Define the behaviors for your team. You cannot ever over-communicate your values and standards.

Think of it this way - if I asked everyone of your players to describe your program in one word, what would they say? Would they all say the same thing? Or at least something similar? At RIC our word was "relentless."

You have to clearly define your culture to get your kids to believe in it and to be able to sustain it at a high level.

Alignment

The culture of your program needs to align with who you are, but also with the culture of the institution you work at, as well as the players in your program. It will be very hard to sustain elite success otherwise.

You have to be true to yourself. You also have to be able to recruit talented athletes - and retain them - at your school, and to do that they better feel comfortable there. Your school, your program, your own beliefs and the character of your players should all fall in line for you to truly sustain elite success.

You have to live your culture, every day. Your players do as well. They should be walking billboards for what you believe in. If you don't have alignment, and your culture only matters to them when they are in front of you, success will be hard to sustain.

Put Your Culture First - Always

After my first year at RIC we had some issues in the spring with some guys being late for class. So our rule was we would meet at 7 AM as a team, and after the meeting the guys would run. I'm sure some of the guys were testing me because the season was over to see if I'd still follow through on the rules regarding classes.

I got on the guys pretty good that morning and made it very clear that we weren't going to put up with being late for class. I told them directly that if they didn't like it, they could leave. One of our rising sophomores, Benjy Nichols, who was frustrated because he didn't think he should be there because he wasn't late himself, spoke up and said "Man, this is bullshit." And he walked away.

Benjy was a great kid, and a good player, a rotation guy who would have a chance to start as a junior and senior. I loved having him on the team. When he walked away, I had a pit in my stomach. I was thinking to myself 'what if everyone starts walking away right now?' I was afraid we'd have a mutiny.

I stood firm, just looked at the guys and said "Anyone else?" And no one moved. Benjy would never play for us again, even though he would stay in school and go on to graduate. And he and I have stayed in touch.

I always think of that day as one of the most important in establishing our culture. From that point forward, our guys knew that if they tested me (or what we believed in) that I wouldn't flinch. I learned that day that you have to be willing to lose a good player for your culture. Always put your culture first.

Create Ownership

Your values, your standards, and your overall culture - they need to be things that are worth fighting for. If they are really going to be willing to fight for it, it has to be theirs. It can't just be something you are telling them about every day. It has to be something they own.

Creating ownership is a huge key to advancing your culture to an elite level, and progressively sustaining success. You are the leader, and you certainly have to guide the process. But let your players own it. Ask a lot of questions, and listen as much as you can. Ask them what they think the core values should be, and ask them how they would define them. When something doesn't meet your standards, don't declare that what they did isn't good enough, ask a question - Is that good enough for us? Does that meet our standard?

Don't just get them to buy into what you believe in. Get them to tell you what they believe in. Ask questions, and be willing to listen. Ownership of your culture helps create an environment where you can sustain success.

Talent Matters

Sometimes with all of the talk you hear about culture, it's to forget about the importance of talent. Getting buy-in to the difficult stuff you need to do to win big is certainly easier if it is easier for them to do what you ask of them. Talented players find it a lot easier to do some of the stuff you want them to do - and when they realize they can do it, they'll buy into it quicker.

This is a lesson I learned first-hand when I took over the Maine job. At RIC, I took over the best team in the league. At Maine, I took over the worst. It was certainly easier to get guys to buy-in to our culture given that we saw some success at RIC, and that they found it easier. At Maine, everything I was asking them to do was hard.

It seems obvious that to sustain a high level of success, you need to have talent. But it gets overlooked more than you think. Not every kid you recruit is going to be a foot soldier for your values or a great culture guy. But they might be able to get you 15 and 10 night in and night out.

You can't get too caught up in just recruiting guys that fit your culture. You have to make sure you get the talent you can win with. If your culture is right and your players take ownership of it, you can absorb some guys within that culture that aren't quite as bought-in. The strength of your culture and the leadership of your team will give you a feel for who you can take and how they'll fit in. But you certainly need talent to sustain success, so don't take that for granted.

Be Flexible

One thing I learned about our culture is that it was always fluid. My approach was constantly evolving. Of course there are basic core values that you always believe in, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try new approaches. If you aren't adapting, you aren't getting better. You are likely getting worse.

In my 7th year at RIC the dynamics of our roster had changed. We lost the best point guard in the league who was also the best leader I had ever coached, and he had led us to back-to-back Sweet 16s and four straight NCAA Tournaments. While we still had talent in the program, our two beset players were big guys and my junior point guard was more of a tough, physical player than he was the jet point guard we had been used to.

We were a fast team that liked to play in transition and go off the dribble, but our personnel didn't fit that style anymore. Our 3 best players all were physical players who got their work done inside. So instead of our wide open, dribble-drive attack we went to a flex offense. I was never a big fan of the flex because I didn't like the spacing, and I wanted our guards to have room to create. But it fit our personnel better that year, so in year 7 as a head coach we made a major change. We went on to advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament that year, running an offense I really didn't like.

My point is this - don't get stuck doing things the same way, just because you have been successful. Your basketball decisions, the way you advance your culture, everything about your approach should constantly be evolving.

Be Consistent

The reason why your culture has to be clearly defined and explained, and aligned with everything you believe in, is because your players need to see you living it every day. They have to see it in your behavior. When they see that, they'll know how much it really means to you, and it will mean more to them.

You must be consistent. Your culture has to be who you are, and you have to live it on and off the court, in season and out. The Program has a great saying that "whatever you walk past, that is your new standard." So if you walk past the gym and guys are going half-speed, and you don't say anything, that is your new standard. If one of your players comes out of the game bitching and moaning and it isn't addressed, that is your new standard.

Be consistent and live your culture every day. The strength of your culture will give you the chance to sustain an elite level of success.

Kamari Williams

Kamari Williams was the Rookie of the Year in the Little East in 2004 on a team that won 11 games. He was first-team all league as a sophomore in 2005. As a senior he came off the bench, playing 13 minutes per game for a team that won 27 games.

I was Kamari's third coach in three years when I took over Rhode Island College in 2005. Kamari was first-team all league the year before I arrived. While Rhode Island College had never been past the Little East semifinals, I was lucky enough to take over a very talented team. I didn't know it at the time, but I took over the best team in the league that first year.

One of the first decisions I made when practice started was to switch up the backcourt. Kamari had been the point guard and was used to having the ball in his hands, but to me he was more of a natural scorer than a point guard. We had another really talented guard, Kinsey Durgin, who was jet quick and more of a distributor than Kamari. I felt like Kinsey was a better fit at the point, so I made the change. That first year, Kinsey was our point guard and Kamari was our two guard.

We had a pretty good first year, winning 19 games as I tried to figure out what the heck I was doing. Kamari started that year and was a good player, but didn't have an all-league type year. Kinsey Durgin was named first team all-league that year.

I'll never forget my first loss ever as a head coach. It was our second game of the year, and we were playing Wheaton in the finals of their tournament. We had a 7-point lead in the last two minutes, a game we absolutely should have closed out. We blew the lead. And I had Kamari on the bench in those last two minutes, playing Kinsey and another guard who I thought were playing better.

Kyle Smith (a college teammate of mine and now the head coach at Washington State) came to the game while on a recruiting trip in New England. We talked after the game, and we went over the final minutes. I told him we worked on time and score every day. I couldn't believe we blew that lead. He said our guards didn't look comfortable with the ball, and I told him that Kamari had been the point guard the year before, but I had him on the bench. I told him Kamari hadn't been playing great so I wasn't comfortable with him having the ball. And he said, "Yeah, but your team is. They are used to him having the ball. When he's in control, they feel like they are going to win."

When he's in control, they feel like they are going to win. That was one of the first lessons I learned as a head coach. It didn't really matter what I thought, as much as it mattered what the team thought. Kamari made his teammates feel like they were going to win. There was a comfort level within the team when Kamari had the ball. Kamari was a closer. The players knew that. I didn't. Lesson learned.

At the start of Kamari's senior year we knew we had a chance to be really good. We had almost the entire team back from the year before, and we added one big-time newcomer in Bobby Bailey. As we prepared for the start of the season, which would be an exhibition game at Iona College, Kamari got hurt. It was a brutal break for Kamari, as we went down to Iona and won that exhibition game, a huge moment in what would go on to be the greatest season in RIC basketball history. Kamari had to watch from the bench, cheering his teammates on instead of playing.

With Kamari hurt, a sophomore guard from the Bronx, Tirrell Hill, stepped up. He took Kamari's spot in the starting line-up for our first few games, and we got off to a great start. That team was loaded with great guards. Kinsey Durgin was back as our point guard, and he'd go on to be first-team all league for a second year in a row. Kamari had already been first team all-league. Tirrell would go on to be first team all-league as a junior and a senior. Bobby Bailey would be all-league three years in a row, and as a senior he would be the league player of the year. And Cam Stewart would never win an all-league award (probably because there weren't any left), but he would score 950 points in his career. So we had 6 first-team all league seasons, and 8 all-league seasons overall, in one backcourt. Our guards were pretty damn good.

So as the season moved on and we were playing well, Kamari continued to come off the bench. We played a lot of guys and Kamari was still playing a key role, but only for 10-15 minutes per game. Kamari wanted to play more, which was fine with me - all my guys wanted to play more, and I wanted it that way. We had many one on one conversations that year in the office, usually initiated by Kamari - in my second year, I still didn't realize the importance of one on one communication with my players. Kamari always handled himself properly, even if we disagreed. He never complained, we would talk about what he could do better, and talk about what the team needed to win. And he'd always say the same thing before he left. "I'm with you, Coach. You don't have to worry about me. I just want to win."

I knew it hurt him that he wasn't starting and playing a larger role. Of course it was. But he refused to put himself ahead of the team. And it was funny, because the narrative was such that people thought there was an issue between us. Former first-team all league player, now a back-up coming off the bench, not putting up the same numbers - they must not be getting along. I can see how people thought that, but it wasn't the case. And the reason we were cool, and it didn't impact our team, wasn't because of me. It was because of Kamari Williams. He used to come to me. I was still young as a head coach, and I hadn't really learned how much time I needed to spend off the court with my players, to really get to know them and how to coach them. I was just coaching my team, and we were rolling. But Kamari would come to me, and we'd have those conversations. "I'm with you, Coach. I just want to win."

I've always said one thing that made that team so special was that we had six seniors, but only two of them started. And all six of them were good enough to play - probably to start - on almost every team we played. Kinsey Durgin and Tony Pierlioni started most of the year. Brian Stanko, Amde Tegbaru, John Weir and Kamari Williams all came off the bench. Kamari was such a big part of why that team was special. A future hall-of-famer, a first-team all league player, a 1,200 point scorer was willing to sacrifice and come off the bench because it was best for the team. Even though he clearly wanted more, and probably deserved more based on his production and ability. It's pretty easy for everyone else to fall in line behind that.

Kamari was still a big factor for that team despite the fact that I was playing him less. He was a natural scorer, a playmaker with the ball in his hands, and someone who brought a sense of calm to the court. He wasn't perfect, for sure, and I probably focused too much on those things - he wasn't a great defender, and at times he'd pull up from Seekonk. But his teammates knew they could count on him. And what better connection is there to your teammates than that?

I can only imagine what other coaches in the league thought about him coming off the bench as a back-up when he had been first team all-league as a sophomore - like damn, how good is that team? I always tell my teams I don't really care who starts, but I care who finishes. It was pretty rare when our 5 starters were on the floor together to finish a game. And Kamari was a finisher. I'll never forget him draining deep 3s in front of the student section at Amherst in the Elite 8 as we mounted a furious comeback, in what would be his last college game. Our guys wanted Kamari on the floor with the game in the balance. When he's in control, we feel like we are going to win.

Kamari Williams taught me so much about the value of selflessness on any high-performing team. He taught me the about sacrifice, and the willingness to put your teammates first. We use that word, sacrifice, all the time, don't we? But what does it really look like? It looks like Kamari Williams as a senior. He taught me the importance of having people who you enjoy being around, the way his eyes lit up every time he walked into a gym. His approach never changed, his confidence never wavered. He taught me about the one on one time you need to spend with your players to truly get to know what they are all about, so you can coach them the right way. He taught me never to trust the popular narrative, to dig deeper and get to know the truth. He taught me so much about what being fully invested in your teammates really looks like.

I love the fact that Kamari went on to coach high school and AAU ball back in his hometown of Springfield. He was a kid who just wanted to ball, a natural who could light up a gym with his talent and his charisma. He never really came across like he was going to coach. But he belonged in a gym. I'm sure when he got home after he graduated he just walked into a gym somewhere in the fall because it was a part of him. And started making the kids better.

I'd see him at a summer event and we'd talk about some of his frustration with his players, saying "Coach, these kids just don't get it. They don't want to guard anyone, all they want to do is shoot." And I'd look at him funny, and we would just laugh out loud together. He'd talk to me about some of the lessons he learned from our program, and how it took a long time for them to have an impact, even on him. How he was fighting every day to teach his own lessons to the kids he was coaching, to try and get through to them sooner. We'd talk about his journey, and he'd thank me for not giving up on him. And I'd thank him for the exact same thing.

I'm not sure I coached Kamari Williams the right way to be honest. It was my first two years as a head coach, I made some tough decisions, but I don't know that I understood empathy or how to connect with each individual player. But Kamari bought in to what we were trying to do, even though personally he wasn't getting everything he wanted. He bought in because his teammates mattered to him, more than anything else. He believed in me when believing in me wasn't easy. He taught me what sacrifice actually looks like.

Kamari Williams was the Rookie of the Year, and a first-team all-league player in his first two years in college. As a senior, he came off the bench to help his team have the greatest season in school history. How many players could handle that situation, let alone thrive in it? I know Kamari Williams was so much more than a basketball player. But who Kamari Williams was as a person came through so much when you got to see him as a player.

I can only think how lucky those kids he coached from Springfield were to have Kamari in their lives. When he's in control, we feel like we are going to win. I know how lucky I am to have had him in mine.