Jack’s Blog

Since the beginning of time, there have been different types of leaders on athletics teams.  Let’s limit the discussion to only successful ones.  One type of leader might be the player who talks to each teammate individually on a daily basis and gains the trust of everyone.  His or her skill, however, must be such that the team respects it and is confident it will bring victory.  The result is the guys don’t want to let their leader down and will put out maximum effort.

Another type of leader is someone who’s the polar opposite of the above, i.e. is extremely quiet, instead allowing his or her actions speak in lieu of verbal direction.  Players see, not just the talent, but the dedication that is rare today.  This dedication, combined with the skills that translate into victories, are enough to make everyone on the team a believer.

Additional leaders are those individuals who fall in between the two categories mentioned above.  There might be a good player who also happens to be a fine communicator, with the combination of the two yielding positive results.  If he or she is the hardest worker on the team, although not necessarily as skilled as many on the squad, may possess a personality that lends to likability, which in turn becomes trust.  The team believes in this teammate and buys into the spoken word as gospel.  Respect translates to maximum effort and the result is what each team desires: synergy.

How effective a leader of a team is usually can be seen in the overall record, i.e. success, of the club.  Any of the above will be deemed successful if the team wins big.  Interestingly enough, it turned out that this year one of the greatest leaders was a guy who many (outside his organization) felt led through intimidation.  Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens has a well-documented history, much of which dealt with violence.  The negative aspect of Lewis’ life occurred long ago and since then, he’s been an inspiration to his teammates through his “pontificating” - especially after practices and before games.  The Ravens won the Super Bowl in the year Lewis announced his retirement, similar to a move to the charismatic Al McGuire.

When questioned about what he thought when Ray Lewis would “go off” during one of his rants sermons, quarterback - and offensive leader - Joe Flacco simply said:

“His speeches come from the heart.  There’s times where he says some stuff and you’re like, ‘Man I don’t know what that meant, but I like how he said it.’ “

Last night I had one of the four duties each teacher at Buchanan High School must serve during the school year.  Prior to joining the teaching staff at BHS, I spent three decades in the college basketball world.  A couple of my (nine) stops were at Tennessee and USC so seeing extremely talented female athletes isn’t uncommon for me.

Our softball team is, and has been, on an annual basis, one of the top programs in the Valley and even the state.  It’s obvious how skilled the girls are by just watching infield/outfield practice prior to the game.  The outfielders have rifle arms and are accurate.  Our shortstop fields the position like Cal Ripken, Jr.  Seriously.  When I was in high school in the ’60s, I recall the term “throwing like a girl.”  That phrase would never be uttered if anyone took in the action last night.

For an example of another athletic trait, our lead-off batter opened the bottom half of the first with a bunt and her foot touched first base just as the third baseman (is it third baseperson?) fielded the ball.  Her speed was evident again when she hit a relatively high chopper and easily beat the throw for another infield single.  But most evident was how much fun all the girls were having.

As I watched, I wondered if, way back when, girls were offered the same opportunities as boys what the athletic landscape would look like.  Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t believe for a minute that had everything started out equally, professional sports would be coed.  Men’s bodies have a distinct advantage over those of the distaff side - although not as much as women do when the subject of childbearing is discussed.  However, I do believe the women’s game, whatever game, is probably more advanced from the time it started to now in comparison to the men’s version during the same time period - because the women went to school on their male counterparts.  Men began with no plan.

There is no argument that the female gender was hindered by the lack of opportunity and, certainly, the women’s rights movement hastened justice in that area.  Now that women are afforded the chance to compete, whether it be in the athletic field, medical field or, simply, at the ballot box, there are some women who aren’t - and never will be - satisfied.  They are bound and determined to “make up for the past.”

I was in a coaches’ meeting once when the director of athletics posed the following question to a female coach, “Would you rather see the football team win so we make more money and everybody’s budget is increased or would you rather everybody’s budget be cut?”  Without hesitation, she chose the latter.  Later, when a foolish, vengeful proposal was brought up, one of the men coaches said, “That would screw the men’s sports.”  The same miserable female coach retorted, “Good.  We got it for 20 years; now it’s your turn.”

If you guessed the meeting took place at Fresno State, you wouldn’t be too far off.  Fighting for a just cause is noble.  Continuing to be - I coined the term, a contrarian - does nothing but cause ill will and becomes a divisive force helping no one but the ego of the contrarian.

It’s truly a shame women weren’t offered identical chances men were at the same time nor does it make sense.  As the popular Virginia Slims commercial told the world, though, women have come a long way, baby.  Unfortunately, there are those who feel they haven’t won unless someone else has lost.  Since we’re all members of the same “team,” it would behoove us to work together constructively rather than destructively.  Or as the late Al McGuire put it:

“There is an enemy, but it’s not in this locker room.”

Heading to LA to watch the Clippers and the Thunder.  Blog will return Monday.

The following is a reprint from 4/5/08 and is just as on point today as it was back then.

The Final Four is hours away from tipping off and the players have the game plans thoroughly digested.  Their worries aren’t about scoring points, but how many of their friends and family are offended they didn’t score them game tickets.  The NCAA policy is to allot each participating player six tickets to college basketball’s biggest event.

I spoke with an assistant coach from one of the Final Four teams yesterday and he told me how tough it was for every player to decide which six of his family members (keep in mind that with divorce so prevalent in our current society, today’s family is often composed of two sets of parents, which can lead to multiple siblings and half-siblings) to honor with tickets.  Many of today’s players were raised by grandparents or aunts and uncles; some are so indebted to their high school coach who may have had a greater effect as a father figure than that of a coach, etc., etc.  And there’s no way those left off the list can afford to see the game live and in person without taking out a second mortgage.

However, this “free lunch” program can also get out of hand because, as has been mentioned before in these blogs, as soon as the NCAA passes a rule, the first thing coaches do is try to figure a way to get around it.  And you can bet if players were allowed as many tickets as there were people in their immediate family, the national census numbers would dramatically increase.  Basically, it’s the dilemma the NCAA has to deal with on a constant basis.  It’s called: “You can’t legislate morality.”

The biggest problem most of the people who are legitimately hurt by the ticket-limit rule have is the gross amounts of money generated by the spectacle that is referred to as March Madness.  I’ve heard the Association makes in the neighborhood of $70 billion dollars (yeah, that’s a “b” at the beginning of “illion”).  That might be a highly exagerrated number, but even if it’s a hundred times too high a figure, then the NCAA is raking in $700 mil, which is still more than the GNP of about, what, 200 countries?

The Tournament is run in as first class a manner as any big-time event - the Super Bowl, World Series, Indy 500, Kentucky Derby, you name it - in that there are no frills left out, and maybe that’s as it should be.  But it’s when the digging goes deeper - like the sites of where the meetings in which such policies as ticket distribution and graduation rates are held - that is what irks the average Joe or Josephine.  The get-togethers always seem to find their way to resort cities, e.g. Destin, Fla or Palm Springs or San Diego where the attendees are just as likely to bring their golf clubs as their wives.  The late and straight-talking Al McGuire used to say that if the NCAA really and truly wanted to get to the heart of their problems and hash out answers, they’d hold their meetings in Montana - in February - so they wouldn’t have the added pressure of having to look at their watches to see how close to their tee time it was.

You hear that cutbacks in certain areas - eliminating sports, recruiting, printed materials, athletic dorms, training tables, etc. - are based on monetary considerations, but does anybody really believe that when the president of the NCAA travels somewhere, he flys coach?

In the past, the governing body of intercollegiate athletics, the NCAA, has invited coaches and even student-athletes to form groups (whom they feel certainly have a right to be heard) to present their opinions to the leaders to initiate change.  But as the late Hubert H. Humphrey said:

“The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.”

In case you haven’t heard, the latest out of Vikings’ training camp (as if Percy Harvin collapsing after suffering a migraine headache isn’t enough significant news) is “an unnamed” Minnesota player told Yahoo Sports that Brett Favre thinks head coach Brad Childress doesn’t have a clue about the offense, that the QB doesn’t trust the head man and that was the reason why Brett hesitated to come back.

First of all, did someone really say all that?  Yeah, I’d say so, because there’s so much out of their camp to report on, there’s no need to make stuff like that up.  However, with the zoo that is the Vikes’ training site, somebody could make it up and get away with it because the fans are at the point where nothing that is said about Favre won’t be taken seriously.  More likely, the squealer would be a friend of Yahoo Sports.  Having spent 30 years in intercollegiate athletics, I’ve known several reporters who had their “high ranking sources” within the athletics department or the team itself who’d gladly exchange inside information for a quid pro quo somewhere down the road.  Whatever the case, this “story” is one that, true or false, shouldn’t be given any space.  And yet, here I am doing just that.

Could the unnamed player be one of the “shunned” quarterbacks?  Who would feel more frustrated?  Nah, they’re too easy to point a finger at, and anybody who expects to lead a team would (probably) be smart enough not to do something that would derail a career before it started.

How about a friend of the jilted QB’s?  If so, the player would undoubtedly be someone waaaaaaay down on the depth chart.  A contributor would know they would be foolish, if not treasonous comments, should their author be exposed.

Certainly, whoever did pop off is someone who has an ax to grind with either Favre or Childress or both.  Such untimely and damaging remarks come from someone who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “team.”  Absolutely nothing good can come of these remarks and the culprit is exactly the type of teammate the late Al McGuire was talking to when he said:

“There is an enemy - but it’s not in this locker room.”

Just a couple days ago, the Boston Celtics stole home court advantage from the Los Angeles Lakers, prompting Paul Pierce to remark that he didn’t plan on the series returning to LA.  After last night, he might just be right. 

During Game Two, his teammate, Ray Allen, set a record knocking down eight (of nine) three-pointers.  Last night, except for a couple guys who missed one more shot than he did (on their way to an infamous, borrowing a term from the late Al McGuire, schneider), Allen would have set another record.  As it was, he wound up 0-13 (o-8 from three-point land) and scored no points.

The game doesn’t only deflate the losers’ egos.  After some godlike performances in the playoffs, including a sensational display in Game One, Kobe Bryant has struggled to find his (normal) shooting touch.  And if it wasn’t for a good Game Three, Lamar Odom might have acquired the reputation as the second Los Angeles superstar alleged to be hiding out at the Kardashians’.  Kevin Garnett, long thought of as one of the league’s best, is finding out that, sure enough, “anything is possible.”  Just not the way he’d imagined.

The amazing part of this story is that, in 48 hours, all roles could be reversed.  As far back as I can recall, I can still hear the admonition of many a coach, preaching to their teams:

“No one’s bigger than the game.”

Georgia Tech lost a heart-breaker yesterday when Maryland beat them twice with buzzer-beaters.  Down one, with seconds to play, the first game-winner, a shot by Greivis Vasquez, Maryland’s leading scorer, went in with 0.9 seconds to play.  However, . . . it was disallowed because, just prior to it, UM had called time out.

No prob.  The referees had the clock reset to 1.5 seconds and, after Terps’ coach, Gary Williams, diagrammed the play he wanted, Cliff Tucker nailed a three-pointer as the horn sounded.

When I saw the highlight, I had a flashback to one of the most depressing moments of my 30-year college coaching career as an assistant (of some sort) at nine Division I schools.  It was the second round of the 1992 NCAA Tournament.  Midwest region #2 seed (USC, my school) was playing the #7 seed (Georgia Tech) in Milwaukee.  Our team was playing great.  We’d swept UCLA and went 15-3 in the Pac-10 but didn’t win the league because, other than us, no one else in the league had beaten the Bruins.  To my knowledge, it’s the one and only time a team finished 15-3 in league play and didn’t at least share the Pac-10 title.

That didn’t matter to us.  We’d steamrolled NE Louisiana in the first round and felt confident we could beat the Yellow Jackets - even though talent-wise, they were far superior to us.  We had two guys, junior Harold Miner - who. months later, would be Miami’s first round pick at #13 and senior point guard Duane Cooper, who got drafted in the second round and made the Lakers’ roster.  Neither of them had much of a career at the next level.  Tech, meanwhile, had Jon Barry and Travis Best as their backcourt and Matt Geiger in the middle - all multi-year NBA guys.

Prior to our game, Memphis State, the #6 seed, upset #3 seed, Arkanasas, so going into our game, we knew the path to the Final Four had become considerably easier for the winner of our contest.  With seconds to go, we scored to go up two.  Ga Tech called their last time out.  Our head coach, George Raveling, told our guys to pick up full court (there were about eight seconds to go) and the strategy was not to let Barry or Best beat us.  Barry was guarded so tightly, that as he got to midcourt, he dribbled the ball off our guard’s foot - with 0.8 seconds left.  For those unfamiliar with 0.8, it stands for eight-tenths of a second.  We were less than a second away from advancing to the Sweet Sixteen (and, due to Arkansas getting upset, we felt, the Elite 8).

The ball was awarded to Tech across from their bench (the identical spot Maryland inbounded the ball in yesterday’s game.  Since they didn’t have a time out left, there was confusion as they lined up for the side-out-of-bounds play.  When the referee handed the ball to the Georgia Tech player, our two guards, remembering the instructions from the previous time out, i.e. “Don’t let Barry or Best beat us” went into all-out denial.  Their inbounder was having trouble finding someone to throw it to.  The five-second count was winding down and Al McGuire (who was doing the color commentary) was screaming, “Throw it at the basket, throw it at the basket!” 

Finally, their freshman, James Forrest, broke free, caught the pass and, as he was quoted after the game, “shot it without really looking at the rim.”  From our angle at the opposite end of the floor, we could see it was a rainbow - that was destined for the bottom of the basket.  We lost - on a prayer.

Yesterday, in the post-game press conference, Tucker said it was a play they’d run in practice - although he had never taken the shot.  Deja vu for Georgia Tech, only with the tables turned.

Another twist to this story is that George Raveling used to be an assistant coach at Maryland and Georgia Tech is coached by Paul Hewitt, a former Rav assistant.  So, as the quote goes:

“Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous.”   �

Each Wednesday night on The Jerry Tarkanian Show, our second segment is an interview with someone very prominent in the world of college basketball.  This past week’s interview was with St. Louis U’s head coach, Rick Majerus.  Rick is a throwback type coach, the guy who enjoys practices much more than games, someone who’d much rather talk hoops than endorsement deals.  He’s also a quick wit, a trait he seems to have inherited from his former boss, the late Al McGuire.  Rick admitted as much during the interview. 

After the segment, I asked Jerry to relate his favorite Al McGuire story - well aware of which one it would be.  Jerry told of the time he went to Milwaukee to exchange ideas with Al.  He was sitting in the coach’s office when Al’s secretary buzzed him and said, “Coach, Maurice Lucas (Marquette’s star forward) called and is coming over to see you.”

“Quick, let’s go,” Al said to his stunned visitor, and they quickly went out - the back door.  As they were walking across campus, they heard someone yell, “Hey, Al!”  Sure enough, it was Lucas.  When he came closer, he saw who was walking with his coach and said to Jerry, “Hi, Coach.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” Jerry said.  “He called his coach, Al, and called me ‘Coach.’  But that was how Al operated.  Just before Lucas could say anything else, Al said, ‘Hey, Mo, am I glad I saw you.  I have Coach Tark here and I want to take him to lunch but I don’t have any money.  Can you loan me 20 bucks?’ 

“Lucas looked at him and said, ‘Ah no, Al, I don’t have any money either.’  After he left, Al turned to me and said, ‘Tark, that’s the key.  You ask them for money before they ask you.’  He knew Lucas was about to hit him up for a ‘loan’ so he turned the tables on him.  Al was a quick thinker and was always one step ahead of everybody.”  This reminded me of the story when Majerus was an assistant for McGuire at Marquette. 

Everybody who is even a casual fan of college basketball knows Rick has had a life long weight problem.  It was during one of his many attempts to shed some excess baggage that he proudly went up to his boss before practice and said, “Hey, Al, I’m on a new diet.  I just dropped five pounds.”

Al took one look at Rick and said, “Five pounds!  That’s like throwing a deck chair off the Queen Mary.”       

No one was ever more authentic than Al McGuire.  The quote that described him perfectly is from Harriet Beecher Stowe:   

“Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.”

Another year of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee attempting to do the impossible and failing - which is why it’s called impossible.  There has yet to be a year where there’s not at least one team that feels it got the short of end the stick by being left out of the Big Dance.  Most years there are many, ranging from the big guys who don’t make it and claim an at large berth was given to a team from a lesser known conference who, “if they played in our league, wouldn’t win three conference games.”  On the flip side is the team from a non-BCS (just can’t seem to avoid those three letters - and football doesn’t even use them anymore) conference who claims, “no one in that league will play us, unless we go to their place - and some won’t play us even if we agree to go on the road,” so what do we need to do except play and beat every team on our schedule?” 

There is also the team who is sensational, one of the main topics of discussion for their stellar play (you’ve heard the talking heads: “I’ll tell you what, nobody wants to see these guys in either of the first two rounds”), and then, the star sustains an injury and misses a few games - which his team loses.  That’s it.  They’re done.  It’s a one-man show and if he’s not healthy, “they’re just a run-of-the-mill team.”  Or run-of-the-Mills team, as in Patty Mills, the ultra talented game changing guard from St. Mary’s (CA), who got hurt near the end of the (WCC) conference season and his team fell apart without him - which is to be expected.  He was a human highlight film and the team really depended on him. Plus, being a point guard, he had the ball in his hands on nearly every possession in the game.  And when he didn’t have it, he was guarding it!

He made a game attempt to come back, although it was apparent he wasn’t ready, and he played miserably, shooting 1-13 in each half (which was not unexpected in the physical condition he was in - but a condition he’d be over once the NCAA Tourney began).  Does the committee factor that into the equation?  Should they?  See yesterday’s blog concerning the 2000 tournament and the University of Arizona’s 7-foot center, Loren Woods.

For whatever reason, St. Mary’s was left out of the NCAA’s and grabbed a spot in the NIT, where Mr. Mills did work (27 points, 5-9 from 3 point range) against one of the best, and certainly the top three most fundamentally sound defensive teams in the country, Washington State.  Much is made by the committee that when a conference team is being discussed, whomever on the committee having ties to that school, e.g. its Director of Athletics or its conference commissioner, has to leave the room.  The reason for physically leaving is it’s thought that should person stay in the room, there might be an uncomfortable, intimidating presence - so they are banished from the room and the discussion.

My question is a simple one: Don’t they come back?  If they were intimidating when they were actually in the room, is there anyone who thinks for a moment they aren’t going to find out how the vote went and who cast which vote (for and against)?  You don’t get a job at that level without knowing payback’s a bitch.

Whatever the circumstances, the field was pared to 65 and those who felt they were deserving but were left out immediately were given the option of playing - or refusing - the NIT invitation (same option they have for the NCAA’s, but never since Al McGuire and Marquette’s accepting an NIT invite over the bid from the NCAA in 1970 because Al didn’t like the regional they were going to be sent to - further from Milwaukee than he thought was right, has anyone ever turned one down).  The NIT (actually the senior of the two tournaments) started with a bang and any of those sportscasters, e.g. talk show hosts, or sportswriters, who get off ridiculing it, e.g. the winner can claim, “”We’re #65!” ought to look inward before feeling like they are saying anything worthwhile.  I mean, get real - do you really think the winner of the NIT couldn’t give Alabama State a game?

Of those mocking the NIT, how many of those media members, if there were a nationwide media contest, would get “bids” for their overall “body of work?”  If it were for their overall body, their would be a dearth of contestants and, even for those who might be in decent physical shape, how many put out NCAA quality work?  I’d venture to say the trophy case at the radio station might have a three-year old softball championship for excellence in radio stations east of the Mississippi River and north of the Mason-Dixon line, broadcasting between 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm and having less than 50,000 watts (and they only got that because they had a former major leaguer as a guest host one day and used him as a ringer).  As far as columnists go, how many do you think are sporting last year’s Pulitzer on their shelf?  With what’s going on in the newspaper, radio and television business, there are undoubtedly writers and sportscasters (incluing talk show hosts) out of a job now.  Meanwhile the old NIT keeps truckin’ along. 

So far this post-season, watching Kentucky play a good UNLV team - in Memorial Coliseum - in front of wild Kentucky fans, who stood in line for hours, because they were not your regular Wildcat fans.  These were people who couldn’t afford season ducats at Rupp (who can?) and would do anything to see their beloved ‘Cats.  They created an atmosphere that won’t be duplicated in any game in the NCAA Tournament.

Or how about watching Stephon Curry, Davidson’s precocious point/shooting guard, who basketball fans couldn’t wait to see in the Big Dance?  You don’t think it was an exciting game in Columbia, SC with Curry going for 32 against the Gamecocks, winning and setting up a showdown between Curry and Mills?  I heard a poll was taken between which  game people couldn’t wait to see, the St. Mary’s vs. Davidson contest or the Louisville-Morehead State fray?  The results were: 82% the former, 5% the latter, 13% undecided.  And the poll was taken among only Kentucky residents!

Before any disparaging remarks are made regarding the NIT, remember, over half of the college football teams go to bowl games while about a third of basketball teams, i.e. around 126 teams (the NCAA Tournament, the NIT and the newly created CBI - on why that was needed, I’d have to do a little more research, although I do know the guys running it, and they’re true visionaries, guys who are quite capable of running a tournament) out of about 350 institutions supporting men’s basketball (it seems the number changes every year and, even with the country in the economic downturn it is, there always a few more added to the number each year).

Although it’s a tough time for people who’ve lost their jobs, maybe a couple of the writers and radio and television personalities who thought themselves so quick and had the ability to really turn a phrase, but who are out of work now can take a little time out to think deeply about Oscar Wilde’s line:

“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.”   �

After watching the argument between the Arizona Cardinals’ wideout Anquan Boldin and their “O” coordinator, Todd Haley - while the game was going on - I was amazed.  Neither man made much out of it later, Boldin saying he just wanted to play a greater role in the offense (because he sincerely felt that strategy would be in the team’s best interest if they wanted to win), while Haley saying he has no problem with guys speaking their mind, but he’s going to express his opinion right back. 

Haley mentioned that “I coach hard,” a statement I’ve heard other coaches use, e.g. coaches on the hot seat after suffering a defeat, who proclaim, “Sure we lost, but as a coaching staff we’re just going to get out there at practice and coach ‘em hard this week and see if we can’t get this thing turned around.”  What in the world is coaching hard?  Does it mean you’re going to yell more, dole out more punishments (running, push ups, other activities players don’t enjoy), get in people’s faces, not smile? 

Some of the most successful coaches in history would never be thought of as guys who “coached hard,” yet they were big-time winners.  Guys like John Wooden, Dean Smith, Tom Landry and Tony Dungy come to mind.  Wasn’t there ever a game that got under their skin, a game they lost they knew they should have won, where after the game, the thought of coaching hard entered their mind as a means of restoring winning ways? 

To be honest, I’ve studied coaches for a long time; at first it was to see if there were any hints I could pick up to make me better so when I got my opportunity, I’d be ready for whatever situation came along.  Although that experience never came, I continue to observe coaches to this day, probably out of sheer force of habit, and have not, to this day, seen what coaching hard means.  On a local level, if I were forced to describe someone who coaches hard, I would have to say Fresno City College’s Ed Madec, the men’s basketball coach there, would be a prime example, especially if it means “imposing your will on your team,” because he does that as well as anybody I’ve ever seen.  Quite possibly it’s because he doesn’t have high caliber talent, but still manages to squeeze every drop out of the guys he has.  However, I tend to think if he coached the Celtics, he’d coach the same way - although maybe not for long.  Does that mean coaching hard only works on some levels?  Or do different guys just happen to have different styles?

As far as the players yelling at the coach, some coaches handled it quite differently than others.  Al McGuire, the legendary head coach (and color commentator), actually encouraged players to yell at him.  This was undoubtedly due to his upbringing as a tough Irish New Yorker who felt if you had a problem with him, let’s settle it - by rolling up the ol’ sleeves and getting it on.  The story, people who knew Al swear it’s not apocryphal, about the time Al challenged one of his players to a fight under the bleachers and the two of them duked it out.  After it ended, Al had no hard feelings, respected the kid and was ready to get on with whatever was next up on the practice plan (except Al never had a practice plan, just coached by gut feel).  That day, his gut told him the best way to get his message across was to fight his own player.  How can anyone argue with that logic?

Bob Knight was asked by his cohorts at ESPN about the Boldin-Haley incident and he more or less blew it off.  He said the media was making entirely too much out of it and it ought to be a non-issue.  The winningest men’s Divsion I coach of all-time continued, “I didn’t mind if a kid yelled at me - as long as he was right.”  My guess would be that, throughout Knight’s coaching career there were a number of players who, at the time, he felt were right.  And that number would be zero. 

To others in the business, “coaching hard” might mean working hard, e.g. staying a little later to break down one more game video to see if there’s anything you missed - on the first six games you charted.  Or maybe it meant “paying closer attention to details.”  I’ve heard coaches say, “We’ve gotten away from it,” meaning they slacked off on what had made them successful in the past.

One method of coaching (whether it’s hard or soft I don’t know) which is used by some very successful coaches (and I imagine by some not so successful ones), is something players absolutely hate, and that’s speaking to the individual players on the team through the media.  Two championship winning coaches have been accused of that on numerous occasions, but make up for it in other areas, because I simply don’t believe it’s a proper way to communicate.  Those two coaches are Pat Riley and Phil Jackson. 

Players have long complained about Riles saying, “We’re a team and what goes on here stays here.”  Then, players read the papers or are confronted by journalists who say, “Pat said this, do you think he was referring to you?” (which he obviously was to anyone who had seen the previous game).  Players disliked it when Jackson would use similar psychological tactics, mainly because Phil was the master motivator and he had so many other inspirational tools he could have used.  Then, again, many of the players who complained used the exact same tactic.

Hard or soft?  Which works?  In coaching, one thing every coach learns in due time (some not before it’s too late and they’re no longer employed), is be yourself.  As far as the arguing, consider the fact (and it takes a hell of a man - and coach to admit this) you might be wrong.  In that case, take a page out of Dr. David Burns’ book:

“Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life.” �