“It’s not just about working hard, it’s about working together. You have to care more about the team than you do about yourself.” – John Callipari
I watch a lot of sports. I talk to a lot of coaches. The truly successful teams have a common denominator that transcends sport. I see this common theme throughout professional, college and high school sports, but it is not easy to spot if you are only watching the game-day competition.
Imagine that you are a high school senior and a really good kid, but you are an average athlete with average skills. You work hard or harder than anyone else on your team. You are known off the court/field as honest and kind, and you seem to get along with everyone…students, teachers, administrators, etc.
Nevertheless, you get frustrated when that perception of doing the right things all the time and being the “good” kid all the time does not equate to playing time. Your coaches love having you on the team, but the team performs better when you are not in the game for long stretches, so as the season progresses, you end up playing less and less and the team begins winning more and more.
You truly believe that you have earned the right to play and play a lot, so you go to your coaches and ask what you can do to play more. They tell you that you are doing well, and they really like you in the role that you are presently in. You tell them that you have dedicated so much time and energy to the program, and you don’t understand why they are playing underclassmen ahead of you when this is your last opportunity to be a major part of a team championship, and the underclassmen have next year to have their opportunity.
The next step this coach takes is often what separates championship coaches from average coaches.
The average coach relents and puts the “good kid” senior back into the starting line-up because they are convinced by this “good kid” that their career resume should be rewarded more than ability and results.
The championship coach reminds the “good kid” that the goal of the team is to win and reminds them that the entire team agreed in the pre-season to sacrifice individual desires for the betterment of the whole. The coach also reminds the senior how important their positive leadership and role modeling is to the team whether they are playing or not. They make it clear to the senior that when this team wins a championship, the senior will have been a huge part of the team’s achievement if they continue to model the leadership that has gotten them to this point in their life and career.
The average coach begins seeing the rest of team play with less and less effort in practice and games. The team seems irritable with each other and less positive with the coaches. The team begins to falter and the average coach begins to see that by putting the individual ahead of the team, they have lost the respect of the team, and the senior has lost the respect of their peers.
The championship coach sees a rise in effort, energy and joy from the rest of the team. The senior makes an increased effort to mentor and celebrate the success of the young players. The rest of the team begins playing with an air of vindication. Their coach truly believes in them and their collective mission, and is not backing down from the goals and expectations they agreed upon together at the beginning of the season.
There is nothing easy about coaching. There is rarely a clear right/wrong or good/bad answer. You simply make decisions that you feel are best for the team in the moment, and you hope your players have been trained well enough to execute what they’ve been given. However, when that decision is only best for one individual, then that coach is no longer teaching their players how to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They are now a group of individuals stuck on an island wondering why they got on that sunken ship in the first place.
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