How Did UCLA Win All Those Championships?

My Personal Best
- John Wooden 

I’m probably no better at self analysis than anyone else, but when I’m asked how players under my supervision won ten national championships in twelve years, here’s the best answer I can give. I don’t rate myself too high as a “game” coach, but I was among the best when it came to conducting practice. And practice is where a championship is won.

Also, I did have a sizable knack for recognizing talent and knowing how to use talented athletes – whether tall or short – within a system I was very good at teaching. (Few people besides coaches and sportswriters recognize that the only constant in our championship teams was quickness – some players were tall, some were short, but all were quick.)

If I had a “technique,” it was my ability to get players to share my belief that a player is a success only when he does his best in service to the team; this is only possible with extreme effort in all areas. I defined many of those areas in the Pyramid of Success.

Importantly, J.D. Morgan’s assumption of budgeting and scheduling duties let me coach full-time. And when he facilitated the construction of Pauley Pavilion – completed in June of 1965  just before Lewis arrived on campus – it not only made practices extremely productive, but also made UCLA more appealing to potential student-athletes.

J.D. Morgan’s contribution was significant.

However, those first two national championships  - 1964 and 1965 made it all possible. Because they were achieved (1) under the near hardship practice conditions of the men’s gym, (2) with comparatively short teams who had no “home court,” and (3) at a time when UCLA had no reputation for winning an NCAA basketball competition, I can honestly say they were more difficult to achieve than the next eight NCAA championships combined. There is no question in my mind about that.

What is Leadership?

Leadership is an Art
- Max Depree 

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.

Concepts of leadership, ideas about leadership, and leadership practices are the subject of much thought, discussion, writing, teaching, and learning. True leaders are sought after and cultivated. Leadership is not an easy subject to explain. A friend of mine characterizes leaders simply like this: “Leaders don’t inflict pain; they bear pain.”

The goal of thinking hard about leadership is not to produce great or charismatic or well-known leaders. The measure of leadership is not the quality of the head, but the tone of the body. The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among followers. Are the followers reaching their potential? Are they learning? Serving? Do they achieve the required results? Do they change with grace? Manage conflict?

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Even The Best Get Stuck Sometimes

Failing Forward
- John C. Maxwell

Many unsuccessful people get stuck in the fear cycle. But the same thing happens to high achievers. For example, when you look at the life of the composer George Frederick Handel, you see a successful person who found himself in a rut that he needed desperately to break out of.

Handel was a musical prodigy. Though his father wanted him to study law, he gravitated to music at an early age. By age seventeen, he held the post of church organist at the cathedral in Halle, his hometown. A year later, he became a violinist and harpsichordist at the Kaiser’s opera house in Hamburg. By age twenty-one, he was a keyboard virtuoso. When he turned to composing, he gained immediate fame and soon was appointed Kapellmeister conductor to the elector of Hanover (later King George I of England). When he moved to England, his renown grew. By the time he was forty, he was world famous.

Despite Handel’s talent and fame, he faced considerable adversity. Competition with rival English composers was fierce. Audiences were fickle and sometimes didn’t turn out for his performances. And he was frequently the victim of the changing political winds of times. Several times he found himself penniless and on the verge of bankruptcy. The pain of rejection and failure was difficult to bear, especially following his previous success.

Then his problem were compounded by failing health. He suffered a seizure or stroke, which left his right arm limp and caused him to lose the use of four fingers on his right hand. Although he recovered, he remained despondent. In 1741, Handel decided that it was time to retire, even though he was only fifty six. He was discouraged, miserable, and consumed with debt. He felt certain he would land in debtors’ prison. On April 8, he gave what he considered his farewell concert. disappointed and filled with self-pity, he gave up.

But in August of that year, something incredible happened. A wealthy friend named Charles Jennings visited Handel and gave him a libretto based on the life of Christ. The work intrigued Handel – enough to stir him to action. He began writing. And immediately the floodgates of inspiration opened in him. His cycle of inactivity was broken. For twenty-one days, he wrote almost nonstop. Then he spent another two days creating the orchestrations. In twenty-four days, he had completed the 260-page manuscript. He called the piece Messiah.

Today, Handel’s Messiah is considered a masterpiece and the culmination of the composer’s work. In fact, Sir Newman Flower, one of Handel’s biographers, said of the writing of Messiah, “Considering the immensity of the work, and the short time involved, it will remain, perhaps forever, the greatest feat in the whole history of music composition.”

When it comes to getting over the emotional hurts of failure, it really doesn’t matter how good or bad your personal history is. The only thing that matters is that you face your fear and get moving. Do that, and you give yourself the opportunity to learn how to fail forward.

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In Honor of Super Bowl Sunday…

Quotes from this morning’s reading… 
 John Wooden’s - My Personal Best 

• The star of the team is the team.
• Anger prevents proper thinking and makes you vulnerable.
• The purpose of criticism or discipline is not to punish, embarrass, or ridicule, but to correct and improve. It is very difficult to antagonize and teach at the same time.
• I grew to love seeing little things done well, and I believe it is probably the greatest secret to success.
• If you do enough small things right, big things can happen.
• I tolerated no horseplay during a practice, because the way you practice is the way you play. It wastes precious time, distracts others, and creates a lackadaisical environment.
• Planning the practice took longer than the practice itself.
• The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack.
• It takes ten hands to make a basket.
• I also started to recognize that the five best players don’t necessarily make the best team. Of course I’d prefer to have my five most talented student athletes starting a game, but to become a starter the player needed to combine talent with teamwork. Talent alone would not get you on the starting team.
• Character is at the center of what I consider necessary for an individual to be a team player. A person of good character tends to be more considerate of other people – of teammates, for example. A person with character tends to be more giving and sharing with others – with teammates during a game, for example.
• Learning should be a lifelong process.
• The final score can never make you a loser when you’ve done your best.
• Scoring is the by-product of something much more important: EFFORT

Be Extraordinary

The Confident Woman Devotional
- Joyce Meyer

Celebrate the fact that you’re not exactly like everyone else. You are special! You are unique! You are the product of twenty-three-chromosomes from your father and twenty-three from your mother. Scientists say there is only one chance in 10/2,000,000,000 of your parents having another child just like you. The combination of attributes that you have cannot be duplicated. You need to explore the development of your uniqueness and make it a matter of high priority.

It does not increase your value when you find that you can do something that nobody else you know can do, nor does it diminish your value when you are with people who can do things that you cannot do. Our worth is not found in being different or the same as others, it is found in God.

Thousands of years ago the Greek philosopher Aristotle suggested that each human being is bred with a unique set of potentials that yearn to be fulfilled. Don’t settle for “average” or “getting by.” You may have some limitations, but you can be extraordinary if you decide to be.

Lord, it’s a joy to know that my worth is found in You and that I don’t have to compare myself with others. I celebrate the fact that I am unique, one of a kind, and that You have something special for my life. Amen

“God, Give Us Men”

In God We Still Trust
- Dr. Richard G. Lee 

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819-1881), a poet and the founder and editor of the popular Scribner’s Monthly (afterward the Century Magazine), penned these famous words:

God, give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private
thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting
Justice sleeps.