Explore an Uncommon
Approach to Leadership!
Process and Results
Can you stand behind a decision you made, even if you don't get the right result? It might be the toughest challenge for a head coach.
I've learned over my years as a head coach - and I'm 100% convinced - that the best way to get the results is to distance yourself from them. But we are surrounded by pressure and our scoreboard is public. It's not easy. But once your decisions are made based on the outcome, your team will come to understand that as well. The process will suffer, and your team will be convinced that the result is key, no matter how they get there.
We often put so much pressure on ourselves to win that we lose sight of the process. When we win a game we see things a little bit differently, and we evaluate the process with a positive spin to justify what we did because we won. It's natural to feel good when you win, but it's easy to lose a clear view of your approach and send the wrong message to your team.
Most head coaches give off a clear signal after a win or a loss. Tone, approach, demeanor is all affected. Remember, your players don't have to hear it to know it. What you do is so loud, they can't hear what you say. If you are joking, laughing and clearly loose after a win, it sends a certain message. If you are pissed off and short with them after a loss, the message is just as clear. The result is what matters. They will know that getting a win is all that matters, and they'll try and take short cuts to get there if they can.
Be aware of your demeanor and approach after wins and losses. Recognize the message you send with tone, and the impact of that message. If you made a change in the lineup and you played pretty well, but you took a loss, evaluate the way you played. If you get a W but the changes you made didn't really click, do the same. Don't jump to conclusions about the decisions you made and the result you got. Evaluate how you played and how your team responded.
We are often a different person after a win than we are after a loss, whether we know it or not. Evaluating the process is hard, because your mind almost always gets influenced by the result. But to get your team to perform consistently at a high level, you have to separate the two. Study the process and build confidence in what it should look like. Your team will see how you operate, and they will follow suit.
Entitled To Nothing - Book Introduction
The introduction to my new book Entitled To Nothing, which you can find soon at entitledtonothingbook.com
INTRODUCTION
ENTITLED TO NOTHING: AN UNCOMMON APPROACH TO LEADERSHIP
On the day I was introduced as the head basketball coach at Rhode Island College in September of 2005, I walked up the steps of the Murray Center headed toward my press conference. I was stopped by a student who introduced himself as Kevin Payette, a senior on the basketball team. School had already been in session for two weeks when I was hired, so the team had returned to school without a head coach.
KP handed me a calendar and said “This is our schedule for work‐ outs, lifting and conditioning. Good luck at the press conference, I look forward to talking to you afterwards.” I thanked him and walked into the building pretty impressed. The players had been running the program on their own in the absence of a head coach. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had just met my first captain.
That day, when I became a head coach for the first time, was also the day I started a master class in leadership development. Like most assistant coaches I had prepared diligently for that moment. I had all the ideas about how we were going to play, what we were going to run on offense, how we would attack on defense and all of the tactical moves I would use to win basketball games. What I didn’t know was that all of it would add up to maybe 25% of my job as a head coach. The majority of my focus would be leadership. It would be learning how to get a group of people aligned to critical behaviors that led to successful outcomes. Coaching was more about leadership than I had realized.
I knew that leadership was important. I had grown up as the captain of most of the teams I played on and I started coaching when I was a junior in college. All good teams needed effective leadership. But I had never actually studied leadership, I just figured you either had it or you didn’t. I took it for granted, as if it was this organic mindset that took over within a team. I never recognized the impact it had on success, or the fact that it could be taught and developed. I would learn to see leadership as a skill and not a rank.
Every day I spent building the program at Rhode Island College was a day in a leadership classroom. I learned that culture – the behavior that resulted from a shared set of beliefs – was the key to success, and the environment I created was the most important part of my job. Our culture was built entirely on our process, the commitment we made to what we did each day, independent of the result. While I originally provided the direction as the head coach, as we learned what it took to sustain success, I understood our players needed to own the process and the results. The culture had to be theirs, not mine.
When I became a head coach, I thought my job was basketball. I learned quickly it was actually to lead, and basketball was simply the teaching tool. My arena happened to have two baskets and a score‐ board. Your arena may be an executive boardroom, a classroom, a conference center or a factory. While the context of our situations might be different, the lessons learned are universal and can be applied to any organization. It is a foundation for success in any walk of life.
This is the story of an uncommon approach to leadership.
The Will To Compete
One thing I think we often overlook as a coach - talent has an impact on our ability to compete at a high level. When we don't play well, we tend to look internally for the reasons, and that makes sense. We want to figure out what we have to do differently to get better. But in a lot of cases the other team has a lot to do with it. A really talented team that competes really hard can take the will to compete out of your team.
In my second year at RIC, we went to the Elite Eight and lost to Amherst, who would go on to win the national championship. I wrote about the game in my upcoming book Entitled To Nothing, which will be published in the next week (EntitledToNothingBook.com).
The Elite Eight (March 10, 2007 – At Amherst)
The next night, I stood just outside the gym as our guys were warming up, listening to the crowd and the music. It felt like the building was going to explode. It gave me a minute to think about what we had accomplished, and how proud I was to be a part of that team. The environment was incredible, and I made sure to remind our guys that they had earned the right to be there. Mentally, we were ready to go; there wasn’t a doubt in my mind.
The only issue was that Amherst was a great team, and they were ready to go as well. They came out and threw the first punch in the first half, playing with a level of toughness and intensity we hadn’t really seen out of them before. We were a bit shell-shocked. We fully expected to go toe to toe with them, but they were all over us. Their talent and size knocked us back a little bit, and they controlled the edge of the game.
As leaders, we are almost exclusively focused on our own group, and rightfully so. But it’s easy to lose sight of external factors that can impact your team. We hadn’t been ourselves, and I was upset about that. But there was a big reason why – it wasn’t that we weren’t ready to play or focused. It was because Amherst was really good. They were affecting our approach, and deserved credit for that. We had to figure out how to handle it.
At halftime we were down by 11 and I wasn’t happy because we hadn’t been ourselves. We let Amherst dictate how the game was being played, and it had affected our compete level. We were playing hard, we always did, but we didn’t have our usual competitive edge. Amherst was controlling that edge. We had defined ourselves with that edge and now we were losing that battle. I needed to snap our guys out of it.
The Way You Deliver the Message
The way you deliver the message – especially when things aren’t going well for your organization – is often more important than the message itself. I’m not really a screamer by nature, and I tend to keep my composure as a coach because I want my team to do the same. Usually when I got after my guys it was a calculated decision, because I felt we needed a spark.
I thought a lot about my tone when I was delivering the message. If I’m always using the same tone, especially a loud one, the message turns into noise. The team will turn it off. There are times when you have to deliver a stern, sharp message and it might be a little louder than normal. That’s okay. But if you aren’t careful about how often you play that card, you can quickly lose your team. Remember, leadership isn’t so much about what you say as it is about what they hear. The message they receive is on you. Be intentional about your tone to make sure your team can hear you.
I knew I had to get to my guys at halftime, so I walked in the locker room right behind them with a forceful tone. “They’re good, fellas! What do you want me to do??? They’re really good. They might beat us. But I’ll be damned if they are going to beat us because we are afraid to compete. That’s not who we are. If they are better than us, we’ll live with that. But there is no way we are going to back down!” My tone was pretty intense, and the delivery was purposely loud. I walked out of the room.
That team was the best team I have ever coached, and we were built on our competitive edge and our toughness. Competing every day was the foundation of our program. Yet, in the biggest game of the year, we didn't have that edge in the first half.
It was pretty clear our guys were trying. And we were playing hard. But there is a difference between trying, playing hard and competing with an edge. We didn't have that edge, not because we didn't bring it, but because Amherst was really good. They were taking the game to us, and they controlled the competitive edge. It wasn't like we backed down, we were just shell-shocked. Their talent knocked us back on our heels.
I can live with the fact that the other team might be better than us. I can't live with the fact that we were afraid to compete. That's why I took that approach at halftime. I needed to wake our guys up, to get us back to being ourselves. Although we ended up losing the game, we came back hard in the second half and played great. We had a chance to win the game late, but ended up losing to a better team.
Laying it all on the line, without fear of failure, is challenging, even for the best competitors. There is no safety net. If you give everything you have, and you lose, you have no excuse. You aren't good enough. You have to get your team willing to accept that. Sometimes the other team is better than you. Sometimes your best isn't good enough. And that's okay. But losing your will to compete is not.
Create a safe place within your program where your team can compete without compromise. Separate from the results, and make sure they know it's okay to fail. Competing at a high level isn't as simple as committing to doing it. It takes a lot of mental toughness. Make it safe for your team to do so and you'll find competitive excellence.
What He Does Vs. What He Can Do
There are some players who, when we talk about them, we are always talking about what they do. He's a great rebounder. He makes shots. He's a great finisher on the break. He guards four positions. They are the producers. They get things done, and those are the guys you can win with. Every time we talk about them we are saying "he does" this.
There are other players who, when we talk about them, we are always talking about what they can do. Not what they actually do, but what they can do. He can really run the floor. I like that he can make a shot. He can play above the rim. We don't refer to what they actually do, but what they are capable of doing. These are the potential guys, and they are tough to win with.
When we use the word "can" a lot with a player, I'm afraid he's not good enough. We are excited about his potential, and he fits the mold of a guy who has "what we can't teach." But if we are constantly talking about what he can do, and not what he does, we probably aren't getting much out of him.
Be careful of the guys who you use the word "can" with. If you keep describing what they are capable of doing, they probably aren't doing enough for you.
Eric Musselman - Dynamic Leadership Podcast
Coach Muss has won over 500 games as a professional head coach and 130 in 5 years as college coach. One of the best out there in sharing his leadership approach with young coaches.
Charisma
With much respect to The Geto Boys, our minds play tricks on us. I read an interesting article recently that talked about the Brooklyn Nets, and how they did a deep dive into the "misses" they had in the draft. The biggest factor in the draft mistakes that they made was they they fell in love with the person they were drafting, and inflated his value.
Charisma. That is what charmed them, and it made them think more highly of the player. Because they liked him. And it led to their biggest mistakes.
So often when we are evaluating we see what we want to see. The mind literally does play tricks on us. Confirmation bias is a real thing.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. People tend to unconsciously select information that supports their views, but ignoring non-supportive information.
We look for, favor and recall the information that supports our already existing views, and we ignore the information that we don't agree with. I was fascinated to see that the Nets discovered this and admitted it. They were overvaluing charisma, character and the stuff the liked about the people the drafted. And it affected what they saw on the court.
It's so easy as coaches to put the players we coach and recruit into a box. We create a narrative about them based upon what we think we see, and then we look for the information to support it. If we go watch a recruit we really like on film, we pick out the things that he does well and ignore the other stuff. If he went 3-13 we ignore it because he defended, he was vocal, and he helped the team in other ways. If he turned the ball over too much we say he was trying to make plays for his teammates. I've caught myself doing it a number of times on the road.
We have to be aware of the way our mind works, and the way it affects our ability to evaluate, as coaches. It's more important when watching our own team. If we label a kid as a lazy, immature freshman who we don't think is good enough, he'll have a hard time getting out of that box. We'll magnify the things he does wrong and continue to reinforce them in our own mind. He won't be able to get away with any mistakes, but we'll label the same mistakes by the kid we like as "aggressive."
The Nets were making mistakes because they were taking kids they liked. They put them in a high character box, and it influenced what they thought about them as players. That is fascinating to me. We all see what we want to see, and we have to check ourselves on that as a coach.
Matt Campbell, Iowa State Football
"You can take the coach from Division III, but you can’t take the Division III from the coach."
https://sports.yahoo.com/matt-campbell-ended-generations-of-futility-at-iowa-state-053103504.html
Entitled to Nothing - Book Excerpt
A brief excerpt from my upcoming book Entitled to Nothing: An Uncommon Approach to Leadership, due out in December.
Ready to Adapt
When we first got together as a team in September of 2006, we had a lot of talent and experience. This was my first recruiting class as a head coach – I got the job in September of 2005 – so it was the first time I had to bring together newcomers with returning players. We had one newcomer that year – Bobby Bailey, who would go on to be the Little East Player of the Year as a senior – who I knew was going to be very good. But we also had most of our production back from the year before. My challenge that year was to bring the talent together and get the most out of them.
I learned starting with that meeting that I was really building a new team. Every year is different. Sure, some years are easier than others when you have a lot of returning players, but the dynamics are new. Even if you have most or all of your key people back. We had experienced some success as a group, but we fell short of our championship goal. Four of our key contributors were now sophomores, having contributed while figuring out life as freshmen in college. Six of our veteran players were now seniors, facing their last year in college. They had all experienced different levels of individual success – from playing time to individual awards, starting games to coming off the bench. Coming back in 2006, things were different for all of them. They had different expectations for themselves with the experience of that year under their belt. We also had a very talented newcomer who figured to play a lot. And things were different for me as well. I was no longer a rookie head coach, trying to figure out what might work and what didn’t. I was confident in my approach with a better understanding of how my team would respond to my leadership.
This is true for every organization, and something that is easy to overlook. Everyone gets older, everyone experiences different levels of success, and everyone sets different goals. The organization evolves as well, adding new pieces or new processes, and along with that come new expectations. A new year brings with it a new team, even if it’s the same faces. No matter how much success you are having the beginning of every year is a fresh challenge. If you aren’t ready to adapt you will fall behind the curve. Your personnel will grow every year, as will you. Maintaining the status quo is not a path to consistent, elite achievement. Expect things to be different and embrace the changes you need to make, even if you are experiencing success. You will never lead the same team twice.
In The Gym
If you are spending time talking to others in your gym during practice, no question your kids notice. From an Athletic article about Dan Hurley:
When Fr. Leahy would walk over to the gym, he quickly learned Dan wouldn’t speak with him during practice. Instead, he’d send an assistant over to deal with the headmaster and that was just fine by Fr. Leahy. “You knew real fast that he was a great coach,” Fr. Leahy says. “If you’re the boss and they’re working for you, when you go and visit a classroom, if the teacher wants to talk to you in the middle of class, you better start looking for another teacher. If you go into a great teacher’s classroom, even if you’re the boss, they’ll ignore you because what’s important to them is teaching these kids.”
Entitled to Nothing - Book Excerpt
A brief excerpt from my upcoming book Entitled to Nothing: An Uncommon Approach to Leadership, due out in December.
Chapter VI – September 2006 (The Start of Year Two)
The Pressure of Leadership
As we headed into the fall to start our second year, we continued to work on our championship mentality. We would have most of the team coming back (we only lost KP to graduation) and we added a couple of talented newcomers, but the core was still intact. It was time to put it all together, and a lot of pressure came with that.
Values in Behavioral Terms
Our meritocracy was in place - What have you done for the program today? That is what really mattered. Compete, produce and be a great teammate. That was RIC basketball.
Those standards were our core values, and we continued to define them as behavior. Our values needed to be more than talk. I had to make it clear to my team what the actions were that defined our values and show the behaviors we expected. Values are more than signs on the wall or phrases on the back of your shooting shirts. They have to be behaviors that your team can understand and perform.
Competing was the foundation of what we did on and off the court every day. But it had to be more than me yelling at them to compete when I didn’t like what was going on – it needed to be connected to action. When someone dove on the floor for a loose ball, we celebrated it. That’s competing. When someone sprinted back in transition to get a deflection and stop a fast break, we celebrated it. Competing. When you got up early to get extra study hall hours in because you have a big test that day, that’s competing. Giving your best effort at all times was competing to us and we made those behaviors clear.
It was important to me to emphasize production as one of our standards, even though you may think it goes without saying. Production matters. If all we talked about was who competed the hardest and did the right thing, we could end up with a really hard-working group that isn’t very good. Effort and commitment are really important, and they are the things we can control. But it’s not enough. In any organization, the ability to produce should be celebrated. I’d never say that I’m going to start my five hardest workers, or my five best competitors, because it’s just not true. You will coach guys who compete their ass off on every possession but struggle to score or get rebounds. And you’ll coach guys who play smooth and casual but can get you 15 and 8. Believe it or not, production is actually something that is often undervalued. We have an idea in our head as a coach what a good player looks like and we get caught up in stuff like length and athleticism that represents potential, yet we often overlook production. Everything you like about your personnel should add up to production for your organization. If it doesn’t you probably shouldn’t like it so much.
Finally, we wanted great teammates. This value was very general, and that was on purpose. Being a great teammate encapsulates so many different things, on and off the court. If you show up every day and sacrifice your personal goals for the team, that’s being a great teammate. It involves being a good player, but also being a good person. It’s a broad way of making sure your guys are doing the right thing. But again, you have to define the behaviors for them. Reminding guys to get their study hall hours in. Calling guys to make sure they are awake before an early morning practice. Walking guys away from a party if a fight is about to go down. There are a lot of ways to define for your team what it means to be a great teammate.
Compete, produce, and be a great teammate. That was how you earned merit in our program.
Defining values as behaviors is an effective way to turn talk into action. Make sure everyone in your organization knows not only what your core values are, but what they look like as behavior. Terms like work ethic, commitment and loyalty are pretty hollow if they aren’t attached to something real. Define and celebrate the behaviors connected to your core values and they become essential elements of your culture.
Frank Gore
"He's a Hall of Fame running back who approaches every day like he was on the cusp of being cut."
Entitled to Nothing - Book Excerpt
A short excerpt from my upcoming book Entitled to Nothing: An Uncommon Approach to Leadership, due out in December.
Accountability Everywhere
That off-season gave me a lot of time to reflect, and I learned another important leadership lesson. Unfortunately, it came out of a difficult situation.
When I left the Big East to take the RIC job different people told me how challenging roster management was at the D3 level. There really wasn’t much you could do about it, they said, because the kids aren’t on scholarship. Kids are going to come and go a lot, and you can’t really hold them accountable. Especially when it came to academics. Kids were going to fail off and your roster was going to be different after Christmas every year – that’s just the way it worked.
I didn’t want to accept that. When I took over, I made sure our guys knew we were going to go to class. That is where the accountability in our program started, with your 8 AM class on Monday morning. I would be out there a couple of times each week in the morning to make sure they were on time for class. That was the deal.
I was going to hold them accountable academically simply because it was the right thing to do. I wanted them to be successful in the classroom and to get a degree, and I also wanted our roster to remain stable. What I didn’t realize was how much the academic accountability would make me a much better coach. By delivering that message early and following through on it, the guys knew I wasn’t sincere. I meant what I said. It helped establish (eventually) that the message was not negotiable.
As we got further along into the season, and certainly year after year, I could actually see the impact it on the court. By January and February our guys realized that when I delivered a message, I was going to follow through on it. There was no indecision. When we talked about basketball decisions, how we were going to practice, or game plans, there were no questions in their mind. If this is how we said we were going to play a ball screen, there was no indecision. I could literally see and feel the trust our guys had on the court. It all started with the accountability that came with the academics in the fall. Our trust as a team started off the court.
Accountability was a big part of our championship culture, and a big part of any long-term, sustained success. Again, for us it was about a responsibility to the behaviors that upheld our core values. But it’s so much more than the decisions you make in games or in practice. It’s something your team needs to see everywhere. In fact, it’s probably more impactful when it’s away from the gym. Getting to class, getting your work in, study hall, just simply being on time – accountability is everywhere. Your team needs to see that is how you live your life – and when they do, they’ll start to believe in your decisions.
Accountability should be present everywhere in your organization. It’s not just a discipline you find when things get reallyimportant. Don’t ever take short cuts with accountability. If you do, the foundation of your program will never be strong enough.
Evaluating Pace
The pace that somebody plays at is one of the first things I notice. Guys who are comfortable at a fast pace, and seem to be able to slow things down for themselves, stick out. If the game speeds up and they are still comfortable and productive, they have a natural level of talent that could make them special.
Players that are comfortable and productive at different speeds are really effective. It also shows a natural level of ability you need to be a great player. When you see someone who is comfortable playing at any pace, that's a guy you can win with. They can make adjustments and handle the ebb and flow of different games.
There are certain guys you see play and it looks like they have to be playing at 100 miles per hour to be effective. They go hard all of the time and always play at a fast pace. But do they have to be going full speed to be good? If they do, those guys might struggle as they try and play at a higher level.
When I see a recruit who goes hard all of the time and rarely changes pace, it gives me pause. You can't always control the pace of a game, and as you get to play at a higher level, almost everyone can adjust to different speeds. When we prepare to play against those guys, we feel like we can take away the pace that he needs to be effective. They tend to be one dimensional, and they have trouble adjusting when things are a bit different.
Pay close attention to pace when you are evaluating players, whether they be recruits or the guys on your own team. The ones who can adjust to different levels of pace have a chance to be a lot more productive as the level increases. If a player needs a certain pace to be effective, he might not be as good as you think.
Changing Offenses in College Basketball
Jordan Sperber with a very interesting look at the best offensive teams in college basketball. Is the prevalence of the 3-pointer making offenses more diverse or less?
https://hoopvision.substack.com/p/game-done-changed-hv-weekly-11620
A Leadership Guide For Players
- Leadership is a skill, not a rank. Being a good player gives you more influence, but it doesn't make you a better leader.
- Make sure your side of the street is clean.
- Being curious about your teammates goes along way towards getting the most out of them.
- Leadership isn't the right to tell other people what to do.
- Admit your mistakes. Showing vulnerability leads to respect and buy-in.
- Be a direct truth teller. Just be aware of your tone.
- Your teammates know if you're full of it. You are never fooling them.
- Leadership is more than being loud.
- The ability to listen is a huge part of leadership.
- If you don't bring it every day, you won't have their respect, no matter what you say.
- Your approach has a bigger impact on your team than you realize.
- There is no ego in leadership.
- You'll get the most out of your team if you get everyone to lead.
- You can make up for a lot by simply competing your ass off.
- If you are willing to overlook something, it will become the norm sooner than you think.
- "Selfish" and "great leader" don't go together.
- Sometimes great leadership is staying out of the way.
- Don't be so quick to inject your intensity into an already intense situation.
- If they see you showing up early or staying late, they'll do the same.
- Help the young players learn the plays. Don't yell at them. It was hard for you too.
- Try and win every sprint. And make sure you always touch the line.
- You have the ability to help your teammates gain confidence.
- Embrace the hard stuff in practice. Don't complain about it. Your teammates will mimic you.
- Understand the concepts and purpose of what you are trying to do. If you can't explain it, you can't hold others accountable for it.
- Enjoy practice every day. Everyone will notice if you are having fun.
- Keep things light. It's okay to joke around. Just make sure you understand when.
- Run the extra sprints with the guys who were late for class.
- Don't turn the locker room into a lounge. Get in and get out. You are there to get better.
- It's okay to take a day off.
- Leadership is influence, and it's with you wherever you go.
- What you do is so loud, they can't hear what you say.
- There is no need to draw attention to yourself. You are trying to make your teammates better, not running for office.
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.”