Explore an Uncommon
Approach to Leadership!
Stan Van Gundy on Culture
"Culture has very little to do with what you say, and it has everything to do with what you do on an everyday basis.”
Changing a Losing Mentality - Book Excerpt
I'm excited to be publishing my book "Entitled To Nothing - An Uncommon Approach to Leadership," in December. Here is a short excerpt from the book:
Changing a Losing Mentality
One thing that gnawed at me that first season was the way we played on the road. We looked like a different team in someone else’s gym, and I attributed it to our mentality. It was a glaring example of the need for improvement in our mental approach.
When we went up to Keene State to play our first league game that year, they really impressed me. We were down by 1 point at halftime, 49-48, and we had played really well. We couldn’t sustain it in the second half, and we lost the game by 15. They one of the best teams in the league and they’d end up winning it. We had given them our best shot, and they handled us pretty well.
Fast forward six weeks when Keene came to RIC for the re-match. I was worried about the game, even though we were playing well at the time. I thought Keene was better than us. But the ball went up and we handled them pretty easily, controlling the game from start to finish. We played well, but the game didn’t have near the same level of intensity as our first meeting up at Keene. They were a different team on the road then they were at home.
I realized after that game our team was very similar. We were a different team on the road. We just didn’t have the same edge. We traveled the day of the game, and for league games we rode with the women’s team. That meant leaving in the morning on a Saturday, spending somewhere between 1-3 hours on a bus, and arriving around 11:30 (the women would play at 1:00) for a game that didn’t start until 3:00. It could be a long day, especially for the longer trips in the league (although trust me I’m not complaining – try the bus trips at the University of Maine on for size).
What I realized was that most teams – the Anchormen included – were different on the road. And I didn’t think the bus rides had much to do with it. It was a mentality. It felt like we were supposed to lose on the road, because we thought it was really hard. Losing on the road felt acceptable in our league, and in our program. I hated that mentality. It was a concrete example of the mentality change I wanted to see in that first off-season.
Luckily, I had the perfect scenario to use to try and change it. That spring I had talked to a good friend, Jeff Ruland, who was the head coach at Iona College in New York, about playing them in an exhibition game. I thought it would be a great opportunity for our program to play a division I team, and it would force us to prepare at a high level. It was also a road game to start our season, one that I could use to help change our mentality.
After we signed to play the game, I talked to our team about opening with an exhibition game at Iona the next year. They were naturally excited to play a division I team. But I made sure to tell them very clearly something they would hear in some version quite often that spring. We weren’t going down there to play an exhibition. We were going down there to win the game.
My basic message that day was this: I would not have scheduled the game if I didn’t think we were good enough to win it. But our mentality when we get on the bus has to change. We aren’t going down there to give them a good fight or help them get a workout in before their season starts. We are going down there to win the game. We have to establish a new mentality in this program. When we get on the bus, no matter where we go, we get on the bus expecting to win the game. Everything we do in practice every day prepares us to win tough games against good teams on the road. We are going to prepare that way, and when we get on the bus we expect to win. No other mentality is acceptable.
From that moment on, I never used the term “on the road” with my team again. We often made too big of a deal out of playing on the road, to the point where it became self-fulfilling. We talked a lot about how hard it was to win on the road, and we started to believe it. I never used phrases like “especially on the road” in a scouting report. If we are doing our job as a program, the way we practice every day is preparing us to handle tough crowds, great teams and bad breaks from the officials. We are preparing to win on the road. We didn’t need to talk about it. It’s not like when we played at home, I showed up feeling like the game would be easy. Winning is hard anywhere. Convincing your guys that winning on the road is harder just gives them a subconscious excuse to use as a crutch. I wanted to eliminate that in our mentality.
As a leader I wanted to be honest, but I also had to be careful about giving my team a convenient excuse. The more you talk about how hard something is going to be, the more they come to believe it. We are all preparing for the difficult challenges we will face as a team every day. Your team needs to hear how prepared they are, not how difficult things will be. Avoid planting the seeds of defeatist mentality. It can be very subtle, but also very powerful.
All spring we talked about going to Iona and winning. The way we prepared would create a mentality that when we got on the bus, we expected to win. That was going to be the new standard in our program.
In my 9 years at RIC we were 84-38 on the road. My first year we were 6-8. After that first off-season, and our intentional change in mentality, we were 78-30.
An Environment Where Excellence is Expected
Regis High School is a small catholic high school located on 84th street on the Upper East Side in New York City. It is the only all scholarship catholic high school in the country. It serves about 500 students and all of them attend for free.
Regis has a reputation as an excellent academic school (Dr. Fauci whaddup???) The workload is pretty heavy. They also really emphasized extracurricular activities. Play a sport. Join the debate team or the Spanish club. There was always a lot going on after school to get involved with, and you were supposed to get involved.
I commuted to Regis for high school, about an hour each way. That was about average for my classmates. Some people traveled close to 2 hours each way. Given the travel and the workload, there wasn't a lot of free time. You had to figure out how to get it all done. I spent plenty of time reading a history book on the 4 train to 125th street after a practice or a game.
My point is, the school really didn't care. They expected you to be involved with everything going on at the school, they knew most people had to commute home, but the workload was still relentless. Interestingly, we probably had more free time at Regis than most other high schools. We had a lot of days off. We rarely, if ever, had more than two classes in a row without a free period. There were resource centers for each subject - small libraries where the teachers of that subject had their desks - where you could go and study during your free time.
Regis didn't have a ton of rules. There was no strict dress code (shirt with a collar, shoes, no jeans). There were limited restrictions on your free time - freshmen could not use the gym or the cafeteria during their free periods, but everyone else were free to do so. School started at 8:50 and ended at 2:50 with at least a 40 minute lunch period and plenty of free blocks.
Regis was the first place where I was introduced to a high-expectations environment. Excellence was just expected there. The structure wasn't something that was talked about or explained. The standards were very high and you were expected to handle all of it. You were given the freedom to handle your free time and make it work, but there were no excuses (other than the phantom subway delay when you showed up late for advisement). There were high standards, you were given a lot of free time and a ton of academic work. You were expected to get it all done, with the guidance of the teachers along the way. There was plenty of help and support if needed.
When I went to college, with a lot more freedom and less structure than I was used to, I realized that I was prepared. I started to look back at my high school experience and recognize the value of it. I was fortunate to be in an environment where excellence was expected and the demands were high. It wasn't unforgiving or necessarily cutthroat. It was safe and comfortable, but only if you were driven to succeed. As I got further away from my high school I realized even more how impactful the environment was for me.
The impact has stayed with me throughout my coaching career. Our job is to create an environment where excellence is expected, and demand that our players meet that standard - however we choose to define it. I've always felt uncomfortable in a low-expectations environment (Hello, UMaine, and I think most driven people feel the same. I want to seek out high-achieving environments because I know they will make me better. I want the standards to be high and the challenge to be great. A coach yelling and screaming isn't going to drive me to a new level. The environment set up for success with significant challenges and support - that is what gets the best out of us.
I've learned over the years that most players - and most all of us - seek out competency and high expectations. Most players want to be great. Sure, we've all coached players who don't want that, but high-performing teams weed those people out. They won't survive because they can't take it. But the majority of players I have coached are attracted to the right environment and the coaches that provide the game plan and support to make them better.
Our job as coaches is to create that environment where excellence is expected. We have to set and define high standards with specific behaviors in mind, so the kids know exactly what to expect. The first thing you have to do is live in that environment yourself each day, demanding the best in your own approach. It's hard to show up late to practice and demand that your kids are on time. It's not that hard to ask them to put the balls back on the rack or keep the locker room clean. Creating an environment where excellence is the norm is perhaps the biggest key to individual and team success.
I learned that lesson in high school. I was put in an environment with high standards, great support and an expectation of achievement. Over time, I not only realized the impact it had on my success, but I started to seek out these environments. I want to be around high-achieving people who are relentless about getting better, and I think most people do. Create that environment for your team to maximize personal and team growth.
Process vs. Outcome
Kevin Cash's decision to pull is starting pitcher in game 6 of the World Series will be debated for a long time. Interesting article on his thoughts, and the thoughts of his GM after the decision.
You have to make the best decision for your team at the time. A bad result doesn't always mean it was a bad decision.
“Was it a mistake? No, I don’t think it was a mistake. And I’m not trying to be hardheaded,” he said. “I was committed and felt good about the decision. I just hate the outcome.”
“Kevin is an incredible leader, and he’s fully empowered to manage the game as he sees fit. His preparation and guidance is second to none, and speaking on behalf of the entire organization, there’s no one we trust more to make these decisions,”
“He’s true to himself and his methods. Over time, he’s consistently prioritized the best interest of the team, no matter the risk for second-guessing. So many of the challenging decisions he’s made during this incredible season have worked out for the best and led us to the World Series, but (Tuesday) night came with a more heartbreaking outcome.”
Credibility
Think of your credibility as a coach like a bank account. You make small deposits each day and your credibility starts to build over time. As your time in front of your team increases, the buy-in to your approach grows. Eventually you have a lot of money in the bank, and the ability to afford more opportunities. With a lot of credibility built up, you can push your kids a little bit more, change your tone when necessary to make a point, and take some risks with regards to team decisions with more confidence.
The flip side is when you take out a big withdrawal, all of the savings you have built up are gone. And when your bank account is depleted it takes a long time to build it back up again.
As a coach or leader in any field you should be thinking about your level of credibility every day. This is an area many coaches don't spend enough time thinking about. There's an element of "I'm the head coach, everyone does what I say" when you are in charge. But you credibility is really what allows you to get buy-in from your players and push them as hard as you want.
Any sign of inconsistency is a small withdrawal on your credibility of a leader. You have to recognize that. Any time you say one thing and do another or just don't follow through on what you say, your credibility takes a hit. Your players start to wonder if they can trust you, and that's a road you don't want to go down.
Having clearly defined standards and holding everyone accountable to those standards - including yourself - is the best way to make deposits into your account and build credibility. If you set a standard for your team, everyone has to know you are going to follow through.
If everyone has to run a 6:00 mile before they get a practice jersey, then you better make sure the guys that don't make it reach that standard before they show up on the practice floor. If the team has to make 3 straight 1 and 1s before the end of practice, then you better make sure you stay there until your guys make those free throws. I've been at many practices where a time is put up on the clock for a sprint, and half the team doesn't make it. And no one says anything about it and they just move on. If you are going to have a standard, make them live up to it. If they don't, you are simply losing credibility with your team. You are telling them that standards don't really matter, and neither does the message you are delivering.
Your credibility as a coach is what allows for long term, sustained success. But it's not just about delivering in the big picture. It's about how you communicate each day, and making sure you follow up on everything you say. Leadership moves fast, and it's easy to want to just move forward and get on to the next important thing. Don't take your credibility for granted. You are making deposits and withdrawals every day, and they have a huge impact on your ability to lead.
Recruiting Jae Crowder
Buzz Williams spent the early part of his career writing letters on a weekly basis to coaches in an attempt to develop relationships with people he respected. One of the coaches he wrote, over and over again, was Mark Adams, who is now on Chris Beard's staff at Texas Tech. But in the 2009-2010 season, he was the head coach at Howard College. And one day, back then, he phoned Williams to tell him about Crowder.
"Coach Adams called and said, 'Buzz, I'm coaching the best player I've ever coached,'" Williams recalled. "And I go, 'Coach, thanks for calling me. But that statement can't be true because when I was writing you letters, I used to look at the Dallas Morning News, and you were coaching the leading scorer in Division 1.' ... And he said, 'No, I have a kid who's better. I'd like for you to come watch him.'
So Williams went to watch him.
"And Jae had five points, five rebounds and five fouls," Williams said. "So the game's over, they're playing at South Plains [College], and I went over to talk to Coach Adams before they went into the locker room. ... And he goes, 'Buzz, man, I'm really sorry. This is the worst he's played.' And I go, 'Coach, I didn't come to see him play. I came because you asked me to come. That's how much I respect you.' And I said, 'If you're telling me he's the best player you've ever coached, I wanna sign him.' And he goes, 'After what you just saw?' And I go, 'Coach, he spent more time next to you than he did in the game. And the entire time he's on the bench, he's the most vocal coach on the staff. I mean, he's waving a towel. He's cheering. … He's running out, giving guys dap, giving them high-fives.' I'm like, 'We need that. That's who we are. And you know a player better than I do.' I guess, at that time, I was 37. So I said, 'I trust you.'"
Chaka Daley - Dynamic Leadership Podcast
"Don't think less of yourself, think of yourself less..."
Presence
"As soon as you walk out of that office and see your team, you are making a presentation. You had better be prepared every single day."
- Buck Showalter
Not everyone is a head coach. Not everyone can be the President or CEO. Just simply putting in the time and paying your dues doesn't mean you are ready to take over. There are plenty of different leadership styles you can use to be successful, and no one specific path to becoming a leader. There is no formula.
There is one thing that I think every successful head coach or leader has: Presence. When I heard Buck Showalter speak a few years back about characteristics of leadership and he gave the above quote, I thought about presence. As a leader, you have to have a presence about you. You have to be able to command a room and deliver a succinct message. You have to look, act and speak like the person in charge, and get others to believe in your message. It's obviously important to know your craft, but you also have to be able to present it.
I know many excellent coaches who probably won't be head coaches. They don't have a presence about them. That doesn't mean they can't coach or they don't know the game. But the combination of their personality and their delivery just doesn't inspire those around them to buy-in to what they are selling. Your presence is important if you are going to get a group to believe in you.
You can work on your presence as a coach. It starts with being prepared. You have to know the information inside and out so you can deliver it in a simple, understandable message. There's a saying that if you can't explain it simply enough, you don't know it well enough. Any time you spend stumbling over the delivery of your message chips away at your credibility as a leader.
You can also pay attention to how you physically present yourself. "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have." There is a lot of value in the assistant coach who falls asleep on his laptop in the office at night and wakes up in the same old t-shirt he had on the day before. While the grinder assistant is an important part of a good staff, most people probably don't look at him as a head coach in the future.
It's important to carry yourself like a head coach so that everyone looks at you that way. Not with arrogance, but with confidence and a preparedness that makes people aware you can handle being in charge.
Your temperament is also an important part of your presence. Calm is a superpower. If you can't handle your emotions it's hard to be seen as a leader. Work hard to stay even-keeled and process information before making quick decisions. Don't add emotion to an already emotional situation. Poise and composure are necessary characteristics of successful long-term leaders.
It's also important to work on how you deliver your message as a leader. You want to be able to project your voice so that everyone can hear you, understand you and knows who is in control. That goes a long way towards commanding a room. A timid voice or presentation projects insecurity. It's not the way to get a team to believe in you.
There's more to being in charge than just knowing what you are talking about. People look at leaders a certain way, and you don't have a lot of time to convince them you know what you are doing. We all know people who are smart, experienced and committed to their craft who aren't going to make it as the man or woman in charge. Your presence is important and it's something you should pay attention to as you prepare yourself to be a head coach.
Your Relationship With The Truth
Your relationship with the truth is essential to your ability to lead. How aggressively do you seek out the truth about you and your team? How comfortable are you with the truth? How willing are you to recognize it and process it? Are you strong enough to deal with the truth every day?
One thing I've found to be most common amongst the kids I've coached - they want the truth, and they appreciate hearing the truth. Are there some who avoid the truth and don't want to hear it? Absolutely. But those are kids who you won't want on your team to begin with. You can spot those kids pretty early (if you are willing to see the truth) and either address it with them or remove them from the situation. I've never come across a kid who wanted to win, who was willing to commit to excellence, who didn't appreciate the truth.
I have seen a number of coaches at all levels who don't like to deal with the truth. That may surprise you, and it surprised me at first. You'd think any coach or leader is going to say they want to deal in reality. But in practice for many that is not the case. So many coaches want to deal with what makes them feel better or what will get them past a difficult moment. They don't want to recognize or deal with the truth.
Insecurity is pretty common amongst leadership, probably more common than you would think. There's a lot of pressure on the leader of any organization at any level. Even just to stand in front of a small group and deliver a message, to have them counting on you for direction, comes with pressure. There is such a dynamic nature to leadership as well, with variables and constant change always a factor. You never really know what to expect so you have to be prepared for change. This can lead to a lack of preparation. So much can change and if things are going to be different tomorrow, I'll just deal with it when I see what happens. But not knowing what to expect isn't a good excuse for a lack of preparation - it's actually a strong argument for better preparation.
If you aren't dealing with the truth you are losing credibility with your team every day. And once trust starts to erode, it's really hard to get it back. If you screw something up, admit it to your team and tell them you'll do better. If you get a technical foul and you tell your guys "I was just fighting for you guys" when the reality of you just lost control of your emotions, they'll see right through it. If guys finish a couple of seconds short in a sprint at the end of practice and you just clap and yell "bring it in" to keep things moving, they'll see right through it. If one of your players wants to play more, and you keep avoiding the real conversation and just tell him "keep working, you'll get your chance," he's going to see right though it. If it makes you feel better to say "we just missed so many open shots" when the reality is you got outplayed by a team that was better prepared, your entire staff and team will see right through it. If you say "we are 3-4 possessions out of second place" because you've lost a few close games, the reality is you are 3-5 in the league because you aren't good enough.
It's easy and somewhat common as a leader to choose a narrative that makes us feel comfortable but isn't necessarily rooted in reality. If you want to be effective and really command buy-in from your team, you have to fight this. You aren't fooling your players, not one bit. Get comfortable with the truth. Surround yourself with people who will give it to you, regardless if it makes you feel good. Get comfortable with the idea of raw truth, good or bad, after a game, after watching film, in a team meeting. Learn to expect people to give you differing opinions and take the time to process them. Develop a relationship with the truth and embrace it.
It's still surprising to me to see how many leaders aren't comfortable with the truth. They don't want to hear it directly if it doesn't fit their own narrative, and they control it to the point where the people around them aren't comfortable speaking the truth. They also impose the opinions that make them feel better on their players, thinking they can communicate to them what they should believe. Leaders need to hear the truth and deal in the truth, always. Yet they often don't because they create an environment around them that controls the message to make themselves comfortable.
Take a hard look at your relationship with the truth. Ask the people you trust the most for direct thoughts on how you deal with it. The right relationship with the truth is essential to effective leadership.
Gary Parrish On Bully Coaching
"But far too many coaches, even Hall of Fame coaches, have spent their careers yelling and screaming, constantly demeaning and ridiculing their players in ways that should be unacceptable, and would be unacceptable, if not for the weird power dynamic that exists on many campuses.
No college professor would ever be allowed to talk to a student the way so many college coaches talk to student-athletes. It's crazy. But it's also very common, mostly because, I guess, it's just always been that way. There's a line between motivating and humiliating, and coaches cross that line all the time -- usually behind closed doors in practices shielded from the public, but sometimes even on national television during games. Things you rarely see NBA coaches do or say college coaches do and say all the time to the point where it's normalized, rationalized and excused. As a result, even in the year 2020, fans are still more likely to laugh than be offended when a college coach absolutely loses his mind on a college player.
Is that really OK?"
- Gary Parrish
Jimmy Butler
“Don’t be easy on them. Don’t be easy on them. You made me what I am. You turned me into who I am. You’re turning somebody else into something like that, too. Just don’t be easy on them. You changed my life.”
- Text Jimmy Butler sent to Buzz Williams after he left Marquette
Bob Gibson
A terrific profile on the great Bob Gibson - one of the most intense competitors of all time - from the New Yorker back in 1980.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1980/09/22/distance
“He was tough and uncompromising,” White told me. “Koufax and Don Drysdale were just the same, with variations for their personalities—they had that same hard state of mind. But I think a great black athlete is sometimes tougher in a game, because every black has had it tough on the way up. Any black player who has a sense of himself, who wants to make something of himself, has something of Bob Gibson’s attitude. Gibson had a chip on his shoulder out there—which was good. He was mean enough. He had no remorse. I remember when he hit Jim Ray Hart on the shoulder—he was bending away from a pitch—and broke his collarbone. Bob didn’t say anything to him. I’d been his roomie for a while on the Cards, but the first time I batted against him, when I went over to the Phillies, he hit me in the arm. It didn’t surprise me at all.”
I had been wondering how to bring up the business of his knocking down his old roommate Bill White, but now Gibson offered the story of his own accord. “Even before Bill was traded, I used to tell him that if he ever dived across the plate to swing at an outside pitch, the way he liked to, I’d have to hit him,” he said. “And then, the very first time, he went for a pitch that was this far outside and swung at it, and so I hit him on the elbow with the next pitch. [Some years earlier, Gibson hit Duke Snider after similar provocation, and broke his elbow.] Bill saw it coming, and he yelled ‘Yaah!’ even before it got him. And I yelled over to him, ‘You son of a bitch, you went for that outside ball! That pitch, that part of the plate, belongs to me! If I make a mistake inside, all right, but the outside is mine and don’t you forget it.’ He said, ‘You’re crazy,’ but he understood me.”
Cannot Be Misunderstood
"Don't write so that you can be understood. Write so that you cannot be misunderstood." - William Howard Taft
I think about this quote a lot when I think about coaching. Don't coach so that your players understand you. Coach so that your players cannot misunderstand you.
One of the most common mistakes I made when I first became a head coach - and one I still see a lot from different coaches - was in the way I delivered the message. Of course I wanted to be clear and make sure our guys understood the message. But I didn't take enough time to make sure it was impossible for them not to understand the message.
The challenge as a head coach - especially when you are new - is you know exactly what point you are trying to make and what you want it to look like. You've thought through the point you want to make and how you want to say it. But it makes a lot more sense to you because you know exactly what you are trying to say, and you understand the concepts completely. So in your mind it processes quickly, and it makes sense no matter how you are saying it.
You've probably head the saying "The slower you teach, the faster they learn." It's a great point. As coaches, if we are thinking about the way our guys will process the message, we are trying to slow it down and make sure they get it. But the pace of delivery is only one aspect of it. It's also crucial to think about the terminology you used, the order in which you provide the information, and the tone you use as you emphasize your point. There's a lot more that goes into them receiving the message than just the pace of your delivery.
There are a lot of situations in coaching where we aren't as specific as we need to be and we give our guys a lot of grey area. We speak in generalities a lot more than we probably realize.
"Rebound the ball!"
"We have to get tougher!"
"Sprint back in transition!"
We give our guys orders, but we don't necessarily give them a plan to execute. We assume they know what it means to block out or to sprint back and match up in transition. We raise the volume of our message, but we don't necessarily get more specific with our direction. We leave room for the message to be misunderstood.
As the head coach at Maine, one of the major issues we had defensively was in transition. For the first two years we were just awful at it. We would practice it every day, we would emphasize it, we would watch it on film - we'd do all the standard things to make our guys better. But we weren't getting better.
I finally got smart enough to realize I had to change the way I was delivering the message. I was emphasizing the effort - how committed we had to be and how hard we had to run every single time we went from offense to defense. So our guys knew as soon as there was a change of possession, they had to bust their ass to sprint back and try and get in front of the ball. But that message was so overwhelming and constant that it was really the only message they were getting. They weren't really getting an understanding of how we wanted them to guard in transition.
I had to learn that they were misunderstanding the message because I was leaving them room to do so. They thought that a great effort to get ahead of the ball was what was expected out of them in transition defense. They weren't processing anything after that, and our transition was still a mess. It didn't start getting better until I started delivering the message differently - and being very intentional about the direction and purpose when we were guarding in transition. We implemented specific rules about how we processed transition defense and what our responsibilities were - get ahead of the ball, talk to the ball, take away the biggest threat, positioning. We told them how we were going to understand our transition defense on the run, and tried to make it impossible for them not to understand it.
I learned as a head coach I had to spend a lot more time on the specifics of my messaging to make sure there was no grey area. No area where they could possibly misunderstand me. It took some intentional practice and a lot of preparation. You have to really know exactly what message you are trying to send, and then you have to work on the best way to deliver it. To do this, you really better know your craft and show a willingness to be definitive. Nothing allows for misunderstanding more than your own lack of specifics.
You also have to consider the timing of your message and how you want to reinforce it. When you have a minute in practice to stop everything and explain yourself slowly, you can deliver the message a certain way. When you have a 30 second time out late in a game and you need a specific coverage on defense, you have to be concise, quick and clear. You should consider a process for how you want to deliver your message in pressure situations - make sure you are the only one talking, ask them for confirmation, finish with a reminder of the basics.
Do not coach them so they understand you, coach them so they cannot misunderstand you. This takes a lot of time and effort on your part, to know the message and work on the best delivery.
Leadership is so much more than knowing what you are talking about. It's knowing how to deliver it in a way that your team absolutely understands.
Recruiting Jimmy Butler
The story of how Buzz Williams signed Jimmy Butler. A reminder that recruiting is an art, not a science.
"The connection between Butler and Williams is actually a man named Joe Fulce, who had committed to go to New Orleans and play for Williams in advance of the 2007-08 season. But when Williams resigned at UNO after one year to join Tom Crean's staff at Marquette, Fulce instead enrolled at Tyler Community College, where his roommate just happened to be Butler. After the 2007-08 season, Crean left Marquette for Indiana, at which point Williams was promoted to head coach of the Big East program. Because Fulce had already committed to Marquette, Williams called him to relay the news.
"So I called Joe to let him know I'd been named the head coach, and Joe says, 'Coach, you wanna sign Jimmy?' And I was like, 'I don't know. What do you think?'" Williams recalled. "And he's like, 'Coach, I think he's good.' And, of course, we need to sign like seven players. … So I said, 'OK, well, tell him we want to sign him.' And he said, 'Well do you wanna talk to him?' I said, 'Yeah, I'll talk to him. Put him on the phone.' And so I said, 'Hey Jimmy, do you wanna come to Marquette?' And he said, 'Yessir. I wanna come.' And I said, 'OK, I'll send the papers to you.' Signing Day was one week later -- April 15th ... So Jimmy went to the McDonald's and faxed the [national letter of intent]."
Ed Orgeron - Locker Room
What he said to his team the night before they won the national title:
“Early for curfews. Early for meetings. Relentless work ethic. You’ve kept this hotel clean. I’ve asked you to do it, and you did. No bullshit. Character. Character wins,” he says, his deep, unmistakeably halting voice booming throughout the room.
“Poise. No matter what happens, we go to the next play. Poise on the sideline. Poise on the headsets. Poise at halftime. Discipline. You just don’t wake up and say, ‘I’m gonna be disciplined.’ That shit don’t happen! You’re early. You work your ass off. You don’t go do the things that you’re not supposed to do. We set the LSU standard of performance, and up to now, there’s nobody that came close to you when you’re playing up to the LSU standard of performance.
“Your best will be good enough, and you will play your best tomorrow night. Why wouldn’t you? You’ve done it 14 times in a row. I think we’re gonna play our best game tomorrow night.”
Getting Duncan Robinson Wrong
Recruiting is an art, not a science. There's no right way to do it, no formula to make sure you are evaluating correctly. Even with the advent of analytics, and some schools using statistical data to evaluate recruits, there are still plenty of misses. As college coaches we spend an incredible amount of time evaluating talent, and most would agree it is one of if not the most important parts of the job. Yet we still get it wrong plenty.
In some ways it makes sense. We are limited in the number of times we can watch kids play, and often we don't get to see them at their best or against the best competition. We are taking a snapshot and trying to determine long-term productivity. Throw in how hard it is to measure what's inside a player - his willingness to work, his desire to get better, his mental toughness - and evaluating talent is not an easy job. The nature of evaluating physical talent is such that there are going to be mistakes.
But some misses are hard to explain. Duncan Robinson was a good high school player in Massachusetts who went to prep school, and got hurt the spring and summer before his prep year. He was known as a good player but was a borderline scholarship player. A tall, lanky kid who could shoot it, he was a smart kid and an elite division 3 recruit. He committed to Williams early in the fall, after a summer where he wasn't on the circuit due to injury. So he certainly fell under the radar due to injury, and in fairness when he was healthy during his prep year he did generate some lower level D1 interest. He honored his commitment to Williams, and if he hadn't he likely would have gotten a lower D1 offer.
Right now Duncan Robinson is starting for an NBA playoff team that is 2 wins away from playing in the NBA finals. He had the highest catch-and-shoot 3-point field goal percentage in the history of the NBA this year, and he's likely going to sign a pretty lucrative contract in the near future. He'll play in the NBA for ten years at least.
I understand why we all make mistakes in recruiting, but it's hard to explain how big of a mistake we can make on a guy like Duncan Robinson. Robinson was a great player as a freshmen at Williams, averaging 17 points per game on a team that lost at the buzzer in the national championship game. His coach, Mike Maker, left to take the Marist job, and Robinson transferred to Michigan where he had a solid career, but still went undrafted by the NBA.
So how do we miss that big? How does a guy who's capable of (likely) playing in the NBA for 10 years go end up as a borderline division 1 player? Keep in mind, Williams and all of the elite D3 schools are as good as many bad lower level D1 teams, so going to Williams is no sign that he wasn't good enough. But at the time, it wasn't like people were saying, "man, that kid has a chance to play in the league." He was a good get for Williams, and good gets for Williams were generally guys who could play D1, chose Williams for the education, maybe had a chance to play a few years in a lower level league in Europe, and then would go on to make a ton of money on Wall Street. As good as the NESCAC is, it's not like there is an NBA player in the league every couple of years.
Our ability to evaluate, and the mistakes we make, especially when that ability is essentially the #1 key to success in our business, is really intriguing to me. Trust me, I've recruited plenty of guys who I was sure would be great, who ended up barely making an impact, and I've also had some great players who I literally tried to talk out of coming to play for me because I didn't think they were good enough. It would seem that our ability to minimize the mistake-gap in recruiting is crucial to sustaining success.
I've always looked for natural ability first on the recruiting trail. I want to see how much a kid reacts naturally, and how much of what he does is forced. Can he switch to his off hand and make a play under pressure? How quickly does he change directions? Does he know where his second and third looks are on a set play, reading the defense and making the right play?Is he productive even when he doesn't play well? I've always felt that kids who have natural ability have the chance to come in and play right away, and also have a high ceiling for improvement.
I've also worked hard to try and eliminate bias when I'm evaluating talent. If you read up on how the brain and the mind operate, you realize how much bias and stereotypes play a role in what you see. There's no doubt there is a racial element to evaluating recruits, and probably played a role in Duncan Robinson being under-evaluated. We see potential in athletic black players, and we don't necessarily see the same in white players. That no doubt affects the way we evaluate. We tend to see what we expect to see. If we think a white kid is too slow or not athletic enough, we are likely going to confirm that when we watch him play. Confirmation bias is real, and it's something to be aware of. There is no doubt Duncan Robinson looked like a kid who belonged at Williams, and certainly didn't look like an NBA starter.
Daryl Morey has a rule with his staff with the Rockets where if they are going to compare a player they have seen to another player, he won't let them use a player of the same color for comparison. He forces his staff to compare him to a player who doesn't look like him, to keep them from putting players in a specific box. We expect to see certain things out of players because of what they look like, and it affects our ability to evaluate properly.
It also makes sense to keep statistical data on players when you evaluate them. These days at the highest level, many of the best events keep reliable statistics. Sometimes you'll be amazed at how productive a player is (or isn't) if you keep his stats when you watch him play. Your mind can get tricked by the one big-time rebound or athletic play in transition that a kid makes. I've always felt like production is underrated in recruiting, as crazy as that sounds. We don't focus enough on how consistently productive a player is - we look for potential, athletic ability and other things we think may translate into production down the road.
One year when I was recruiting at Maine I was watching Brewster Academy play, and I talked with Jason Smith of Brewster after the game. He had a 6-6 white kid who had played really well, could really shoot it and knocked in a bunch of 3s in a big-time game. He was pretty similar to Duncan Robinson when he was in prep school. I asked him who was recruiting the kid, and he said he was an elite student but he was only being recruited by the D3s. He didn't have any D1 offers, or legitimate looks (unfortunately, it was made clear to me that he was too good of a student to consider Maine). Coach Smith said to me "we have all these big-time recruits, but that kid is my second leading scorer. He brings it every night. But everyone is recruiting all of my other players, and only the D3s are recruiting him."
The kids name was Joe Sherburne, and he ended up getting a late scholarship to UMBC. He ended up as their 6th all-time leading scorer with over 1,500 3s, and he made over 250 3s. He's the only player at UMBC to ever score 1,500 points, grab 600 rebounds and record 200 assists. He scored 14 points in UMBCs win over #1 Virginia in the NCAA Tournament - and I had to coach against him at the University of Maine. He was very productive on one of the best prep school teams in the country, and still barely got any D1 interest.
There is no easy answer, the truth is trying to evaluate the physical and mental abilities of 18-year-olds isn't easy. I always look at NFL quarterbacks - the one position in the world we spend the most money trying to evaluate - and realize even the best in the business get it wrong. But there are certainly things we can do to eliminate mistakes. The fact that we can be so far off on guys like Duncan Robinson is pretty amazing.
Make Or Miss
"It's a make or miss league."
It's a common cliche' used to describe the NBA. You hear a lot of coaches at all levels going to something similar - "We got the shots we wanted, we just couldn't make any," or "We just gotta make some shots."
I'm not really a fan of that mentality. I guess technically it is true - if you make shots, you are going to be pretty good, and if you don't make any you are going to struggle. But it's sort of a given isn't it? It's like saying "We've got to score more points than our opponent if we want to win." We all understand it, and we all try and coach our teams to get the shots we can make, and keep our opponents from getting the shots they can make.
The reason I don't like the phrase, or the approach it represents, is I think it's a cop-out for coaches to make themselves feel better. The inference by saying we "just needed to make some more shots," is that the game plan was good, the guys were ready to go, we executed what we wanted, we just didn't make enough shots. There's a little bit of the I-coached-good-they-played-bad mentality in that approach. It's comfort food for coaches. There's really nothing else we could have done, right? We got good shots, they just didn't go in, and sometimes that happens. It's a make or miss league, right?
Going to the "we didn't make enough shots" approach to evaluating your team makes you feel better and takes the responsibility off of you as a coach. It's not like it's mean-spirited or you are attacking your players. It's just a way of rationalizing your approach and feeling comfortable with what you did as a coach. It's a lot harder to say "man, we didn't get good looks at all, our offense is really bad." That approach requires some self-reflection and a lot of work.
Of course make or miss matters. But it's not something you can really control. As a coach, you need to focus on the things you can control. There are times where you execute well and get great looks, and the ball just won't go in. There are other times when you make a lot of tough shots. I happens, although I would submit it doesn't happen very often. Rarely do we execute really well on offense and struggle to score. Likewise, when we play great defense and force tough shots, we usually don't give up a lot of points. I would ay that 90% of the time, the team that gets the better looks at the basket wins the game.
My job as a coach is to take make or miss out of the equation. We want to work on executing as a team on both offense and defense, but we have to be good enough to overcome those nights when we can't hit the side of a barn. That is what we prepare for every day. We've all had those nights where everything goes in, we knock down 15 3s and we win by 25. On those nights, you don't really need to do much as a coach. The nights you need to really prepare for are the nights where you can't make shots and you have to find a way to win.
Our teams always used the phrase "Win Anyway" to define our no excuses mentality. We can't get a shot to go down? Win anyway. We are struggling to finish inside? Win anyway. At RIC we beat Iona in an exhibition game with 30 turnovers. We won the Little East Championship game one year on the road with 25 turnovers. We won an NCAA Tournament game scoring 1 point in the final 13 minuets of the game to get to the Sweet 16. We won another LEC title shooting 34% from the field. My job as a head coach wasn't to prepare my team to win when they were playing really well. That was easy. My job was to prepare my team to win no matter what happened.
I'd never go to the make or miss excuse for winning or losing a game. To me, that was something you couldn't really control as a coach. That was basketball. Sometimes the ball goes in, other times it doesn't. Every league, every level, every game is a make or miss deal. your job as a coach is to handle what you can control, and prepare your team to win regardless of whether the ball is going in or not
Vulnerability
Admitting your mistakes and showing vulnerability is such an important part of coaching and leadership.