‘Rather Lose With You Than Win With Anyone Else!’

Who has won more basketball games as a NCAA coach? Tara VanDerveer at Stanford will pass Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K) at Duke, as the college basketball coach — man or woman — with the most wins of all time! WOW! She is 70 years old and continues to invest in her growth as a coach and person. Most chief executives are lucky to have five years at the helm. How can a leader be so successful for almost half a century, with a winning record at Stanford for every season after her inaugural one in 1985? What’s her winning formula??

The following are summary comments from a recent 纽约时报 article. It is not intended to be inclusive regarding all her leader ingredients, however it is instructive:?

1. “Have a vision for your players, and give them the tools. Maximize people’s strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
2. Don’t be the center of attention.(Put your players, assistant coaches, and other staff at the center).?
3. Don’t micromanage, and seek input.
4. Outwork the players on your team. Take care of yourself — eat and sleep right, and exercise — so you can take care of one another. If you can’t swim, you can’t rescue the other swimmer, and you’ll both go down.
5. You can’t have 15 personalities, one for each player. But you can recognize everyone’s different, and get to know them and understand where they’re at.
6. Every behavior is communication — not just words but also eye contact and body language.
7. Know that if your senior leaders are unhappy, your whole team will be.
8. Learn the art of the controlled meltdown (be even-keeled and respectful).
9. Be yourself, but do not fight change. Young people are the only ones who have grown up with technology — they live on their phones — and with a pandemic. Understand where they’re coming from.
10. I am a lifelong learner — from professors, assistants, players. I watch other Stanford teams practice and ask coaches about their training methods. And I watch so much basketball. I’m a copier who gets ideas from other basketball coaches.
11. I am also not afraid to take risks and experiment. We ran one kind of offense for at least 12 years very successfully. When our team personnel changed, I studied the ‘Princeton offense’ and thought it fit our team better. We won the NCAA in 2021 running that offense.”

There you go, 11 guidelines that are accessible to all of us. Of course you need great players too.?

Perhaps the best way of capturing the spirit and culture of VanDerveer’s teams is the following story:?

“Jamila Wideman told her teammates to pick their heads up after we were upset by Old Dominion in the semifinals, and they were lying on the floor crying. I couldn’t get their attention, but Jamila got them to rise with: ‘I’d rather lose with you, than win with anyone else.’”

When you create that kind of feeling amongst teammates, you really know you’ve been a COACH!?

Think Big, Start Small, Act Now,?

- Lorne?

One Millennial View: Thanks to the inside glimpse of a coach’s life due to sports themed reality tv, the public has a better idea of how meticulously obsessed these winningest coaches can be. It’s relentless studying, improvising, and improving from pre-season camp til the season is over. Not unlike a weathered detective on a high profile case, if there is a game to be played, there is simply no “clocking off” for these individuals. There is always another detail to note, another piece of film to analyze, a new clue to uncover. While coaches like VanDerveer are a special breed, we too can “copy” some of their ideas and learn from their wins.?

- Garrett?

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis