St.Francis Red Flash Picks a Winner

I just received a phone call from one of my former students to share with me that he had has just been elevated from assistant coach to head women’s basketball coach at St. Francis College of Pennsylvania.  What makes this news so exciting is that Joe Haigh had a dream and vision and never let anything get in the way of his dream.  Coach Haigh did not have a high-powered advocate who opened doors and paved the way for him. He suffered through hard times leaving a profitable business career and paid the price making major personal sacrifices.  With a supportive wife and 5 children, Coach Haigh figured out a way to barely support his family while learning the profession as a volunteer assistant at D-3 Randolph Macon (under a great coach Mike Rhoades), an assistant at a top notch private high school (Benedictine) and Director of Basketball Operations on Coach Beth Cunningham”s staff at VCU.

Joe Haigh has demonstrated a characteristic that all great leaders have----perseverance.  He was willing to start from ground zero and build a career through hard work and commitment to his dream.  As you can imagine the 1995 graduate of Notre Dame had to build a coaching network starting from scratch.  The new leader of the Red Flash Women’s BBall program sacrificed financial rewards to position himself while gaining the necessary experience to build a portfolio that would ultimately result in becoming a Head Basketball Coach at the Division 1 level.  Fortunately for Joe Haigh he had something that helps every leader become more successful---an understanding spouse that is supporting and encouraging.

Almost all leaders have paid the price early in their careers and have overcome disappointment.  Successful leaders have the toughness to fight discouragement and maintain the drive and determination to make their vision a reality.  Coach Joe Haigh is a great example of being relentless in his pursuit of his dream.  For me, this is a great lesson for every leader.   The naming of Joe Haigh as Head Coach of the St. Francis Red Flash of the Northeast Conference may not be the lead story on ESPN, but maybe it should be.   It is a story of what is great in sports, work hard, be loyal and be smart, and good things will happen.  Congratulations St. Francis, you have a leader who has done it “ the right way” through sacrifice and perseverance.

Is Larry Brown The Answer For SMU?

Steve Orsini the Athletic Director at SMU who has orchestrated the move by the Mustangs to the Big East Conference is now faced with the tall challenge of elevating a men’s basketball program to a competitive level in the home of Georgetown, St. John’s, Villanova, Marquette, etc. Over the years the Dallas-based University has never been recognized as a basketball power. With no tradition and no culture of basketball success, how does Orsini find a way for SMU to compete in the super tough Big East?

The answer is easy, find a talented coach who can build a foundation for both the present and the future. While the answer is easy, the implementation is extremely challenging. Yet it appears that he has a plan to hire a coach that most high-level coaches would consider to be as good a basketball coach as there is. It appears that the much travelled Larry Brown, who has grabbed the golden ring as both a college and NBA coach, will be the guy on the bench in Highland Park.

Some may question the wisdom of hiring a 71 year old who has bounced around and had some personal baggage. Yet Brown’s technical basketball knowledge, his ability to teach and his history of getting the most of his players are unquestioned. While many may see negatives with Brown, he is an extremely talented basketball coach and like noted in the leadership book FIRST BREAK ALL THE RULES by Buckingham and Coffman, “Selecting for talent is the leader’s first and most important responsibility. If he fails to find people with talents he needs, then everything else he does to help them (his organization)grow will be wasted as sunshine on barren ground.”

A few years ago I asked many college basketball coaches who in your opinion is the best roundball coach in the country. I was shocked to hear that it was not Coach K, or Roy Williams or Jim Calhoun or Rick Pitino. It was Brown and across the board the responses were that no one was better at getting a team ready to play to its maximum ability than the former UNC Tarheel. Apparently his technical knowledge capacity along with his implementation capability is unparalleled. So for SMU's hiring logic, it comes down to one thing that all leaders have to always keep in mind----talent. As the Wizard of Westwood John Wooden said, “No matter how you total success in the coaching profession, it all comes down to a single factor---talent.”

Additionally Orsini understands continuity is important, so he is also working to hire a top assistant to be the head coach in waiting so he can learn at the feet of the master. It will be interesting to see if SMU can put all the pieces together and make this happen. As all leaders know, there are no absolute certainties but by relying on established talent, your chances for success are greatly enhanced. While this might viewed by some as a big investment by SMU, it gives them the best chance for success. Sounds like a strategic plan that has been looked at from all angles.

Petrino and Guillen---What are you thinking?

What do the names Ozzie Guillen, Bobby Petrino, Stan Van Gundy, Jim Tressel and Sean Peyton have in common? If you guessed these are all guys who have multi-million dollar contracts to coach a simple kids’ game then you are on target. The question becomes how do these coaches make decisions that clear thinking rational people would have no difficulty in knowing that these behaviors range from totally inappropriate to border line criminal?

The answer to this question is they lose perspective. Some blame can go to the American sports system that kisses the feet of winning coaches and athletes while castigating those coaches who do not lead their teams to the promise land. Additionally, generating huge sums of revenue for their teams magnifies the coach’s perceived value to those who hire and fire while providing leverage to their “representatives” when contract time rolls around. Tack on the constant adulation of the media and the desire of the press to have the ‘inside story” and big time coaches quickly can develop a nasty case of self-importance.

But also realize that what this all comes down to is power and how leaders deal with the unique situation where they have an abundance of power. While these coaches grab the current headlines in USA Today and Sporting News, many non- sports leaders have abused their position in many different ways that were much more egregious. Remember President Clinton, John Edwards, Bernie Madoff and Kenneth Lay (Enron), all of whom demonstrated a serious abuse of the leadership responsibility that accompanied their positions of power. Realistically many individuals, who have no intent on abusing power and have all the right motivations when they move into a leadership role, lose perspective and forget that they got to where they are because they were able to secure the trust of all their followers.

Sports leaders, because of the nature of athletics and the fact that their success is measured every time one of their team crosses the boundary line for competition by having that scoreboard indicate success or failure, may be more vulnerable to rationalizing unacceptable behaviors based on misdirected focus on winning games. Unbelievably coaches break rules, alienate segments of the community, engage in criminal offenses, lie to their bosses and their teams, denigrate individuals (players, opposing coaches and programs) and ruin their families because their sole purpose is to put a W on the scorecard. They lose perspective on their own importance and the importance of a kid's game.

For all the entire headline making coaches who lose perspective there are tons of others who do great things and help a multitude of individuals in many different ways. Many do not fall into the pitfalls of ego driven leadership and become great models for the right way to do things. All of us in sports need to accept our leadership responsibilities and remember why we chose to be coaches or sports administrators. I believe that Guillen, Petrino, Van Gundy, Tressel and Peyton all entered the coaching profession for the right reasons; unfortunately the bright lights blinded them along the way. Remember as your career develops: don’t let the bright lights interfere with your values and principles that have you headed down the right path. Follow your principles and in the long run, you will be a much bigger winner.

Coach Calipari and UK---The Perfect Match

With the UK Wildcats cutting down the nets in NOLA Monday night, both the critics and the advocates of John Calipari had plenty of fuel for discussion. Basketball fans across the country complained loud and hard that the Lexington campus had just turned into a prep school for the NBA. Players would come and spend a year in limbo to get them ready for the “pot of gold” awaiting them after they passed the NBA final exam with Professor Calipari. Many of the naysayers wondered if UK would have to vacate this national championship just like Coach C’s previous two college employers (Memphis and UMass) had to vacate Final Four appearances. Would major violations surface like those surrounding Marcus Camby (UMass) or Derrick Rose (Memphis) and raise their ugly head resulting in the forfeiture of games and Final Four appearances?

Fans from the Bluegrass state scoffed at the critics. After all this is the same program that gave you Adolph Rupp and the forced cancellation of the 1952-53 season for point shaving and paying players. Rupp who won 861 games was reprimanded along with the UK in the point shaving criminal case by judge Saul Streit for creating an environment where violations were accepted as part of the business and for “failing in his duty to observe amateur rules, to build character, and to protect the morals and health of his charges.” Interestingly the Baron of the Bluegrass bounced back after the cancelled 52-53 year with a 25-0 record and told the NCAA thanks but no thanks for their invitation to the 53-54 NCAA Tournament. Clearly the University looked at the de facto “death penalty” as a cost of doing business. The University administration understood that its constituency and the proud citizens of the Commonwealth placed a tremendous value on having the Big Blue win and dominate the hardwood.

The Cats were back at in 1989 when coach Eddie Sutton’s program was found to have multiple violations ranging from sending recruit Chris Mills an Emory package with $1,000 to academic fraud to a systematic pay for play program. Already on probation for providing illegal inducements to players, UK basketball was sanctioned for three years including bans on television and NCAA Tournament appearances. However the real problem was the Cats went 13-19 and University of Kentucky president David Roselle forced Athletic Director Cliff Hagan and Coach Eddie Sutton to pack their bags and find a different home.

So while many critics question Coach Calipari’s methods, the reality is that he took a bunch of big ego high school superstars and was able to blend them into a cohesive team that was willing to sacrifice their personal statistics for the good of the group. If the Cats main competition had been the Toronto Raptors and Charlotte Bobcats, et al, the season would have been an unbelievable success. The only problem was that these student-athletes are attending an institution of higher learning where most folks would say one of the purposes of attending is getting a degree. To be fair to Calipari, he was hired to win games and apparently graduating players has minimal importance to the leadership of the institution. The University leadership has made a decision that by having a brand that demonstrates a total commitment to men’s basketball, the University of Kentucky is better able to fulfill its mission.

The leadership knew what they were getting when they chose the former UNCW Seahawk letterman to coach the Wildcats; a coach who could win games and compete for a national championship. They were willing to accept the previous issues and the noise from many college basketball insiders such as Bob Knight. In a public speech the always opinionated Knight stated, “You see we’ve got a coach at Kentucky who put two schools on probation and he’s still coaching. I really don’t understand that.” For the leadership at UK a paraphrasing of their leadership philosophy might be, “Winning's not the only thing, winning the national championship is.”
One of the important principles of leadership is having everyone in the leadership inner circle be on the same page. Clearly the UK administration is committed to the winning in basketball at all cost and Coach Calipari is just following that philosophy.