WHAT BILL BELICHICK LEARNED FROM HIS FATHER

The following came from an ESPN article on the most important lessons learn by Bill Belichick from his father:

"Keep your head down, work hard, keep your mouth shut. Actions speak louder than words. That's basically what he did. Do what you can to help the team. The team is bigger than you."

ANOTHER KOBE WORK EHTIC STORY

Kobe's professional trainer was fast asleep. Could you blame him? It was 3:30 am in the morning. All a sudden his phone starts ringing. It's Kobe. He must be in trouble, or in some kind of emergency. His trainer is freaking out, and nervously picks up the phone.

Kobe says that he's doing some conditioning work and could use his trainer's help. The trainer then proceeds to get ready and head over to the gym. He arrives around 4:30 am. 

What did he see? He saw Kobe by himself practicing. Drenched in sweat, it looked like he just jumped in a pool. It wasn't even 5am in the morning yet.

From "4 Stories About Work Ethic" written by A. J. Agrawal for INC.com

KYLE KORVER ON THE WORK ETHIC OF LEBRON JAMES

The following comes from Stack.com in which Kyle Korver talks about the work ethic of Lebron James.  You can see the entire article here which also includes some video of Lebron and the Cavs workout out on VersaClimbers.

Here is what Korver had to say:

"Behind the scenes, just how hard he works. He's a machine. You don't see guys this late in their careers, guys who've had this much success, be the first guy in the gym. He's still there," Korver said. "I was blown away." Korver would know—this is his 14th season in the NBA.

As an example of LeBron's unparalleled work ethic, Korver pointed to the morning after a regular-season game against the Utah Jazz. The night before, the Cavs had defeated the Jazz on the back of a Herculean 33-point, 10-rebound, 6-assist effort from LeBron. The next morning, LeBron was in the gym before anyone else.

"He played [38] minutes, he played hard. And the next morning, he was on the VersaClimber when everybody else got there, in full sweat doing a massive strength and cardio workout," Korver said. "He was like, 'The playoffs are coming! I've got to be ready! I've got to be able to play big minutes and play at a high level!'"

COACH K ON THE USE OF EMOTION TO COACH AND TEACH

Here are a few excerpts of an article written by Barry Jacobs for the New-Observer who does a good job of speaking to wide range of emotions a coach goes through and they can actually be used to mold a team.  He pinpoints Coach Mike Krzyzewski on his thoughts.  The article is well written and can be in its entirety here.

These are a few of my take aways:

Anger can be as much a part of a coach’s repertoire as the ability to reconfigure an offense to exploit the capabilities of different collections of players. But Mike Krzyzewski is the rare coach who explicitly cites the volatile emotion as a preferred tool in leading his teams. The attribute is part of a mix that’s fueled a Hall of Fame career, helped his Duke program maintain its heading in choppy waters while players come and go in waves, and, to be honest, earned him a reputation for snarling on the sidelines.

“I’ve been blessed over the years to have passion, anger and adrenaline,” a pleased Krzyzewski enumerated after the Blue Devils defeated Pittsburgh. “All three of those things kind of kick in; I’ll see how I handle it now after this.”

Adrenaline and passion are easy traits to understand in a competitor who’s won more games (1,071) than any man in major-college history. Anger, however, is more difficult to see as a constant. Not in Krzyzewski’s firmament. “If you’re a competitor, I think you have to be angry at times,” Krzyzewski noted last week during a break from his duties as head man at the K Academy, his five-day, Duke-based basketball fantasy camp for adult men. For him, those angry times may be episodic, but they are also routine.

He concedes there’s a “fine line” between passionate and angry, and that anger may not be exactly the word he wants. But it’s the word he uses, the word that fits.

“I think anger is emotion,” the former U.S. Military Academy cadet and army artillery captain says in an otherwise quiet coaches’ meeting room at Cameron Indoor Stadium. “If anger is used to destroy bad things, anger is huge. We’ve won wars with anger.”

“I can get angry at selfishness, stupidity, like if it’s repeated stupidity,” he says, perhaps attested by the gray finally tinging the edges of his black hair. “Just something that goes below your standards, whether it be how the locker room looks or how we dress.”

5TH ANNUAL GARY BLAIR COACHING ACADEMY

We wanted to take this opportunity to invite you to the 5^th Annual Gary Blair Coaching Academy.

This August our team will be playing 4 games in Spain which means the NCAA will allow us 10 practices….we will utilize this as part of our Coaching Academy which means you will see how we teach and prepare and get an inside look at several facets of the Aggie program.

The Academy will be held at Texas A&M on August 5-6 and will include the following:

     ◄4 Complete Clinic Sessions featuring the entire Aggie Basketball staff and team.

     ◄A guest speaker (to be announced next week)

     ◄Breakfast and Lunch (Dinner will be on your own)

     ◄Jump Drive that will include:

   •Segments from the Academy

   •Aggie Defensive Drill Notebook

   •Aggie Offensive Playbook

   •Clinic Notes & Book Notes

   •And much more!

All attending the Academy will received an autographed hardback copy of Coach Blair's new book, "A Coaching Life."

The cost for the Gary Blair Academy is only $50!

In our announcement regarding our Guest Speaker next week, we will also give you a list of hotels that will be providing reduced rates for coaches attending the Academy.

We are attaching a flier with detailed information and a form should you want to pay by check.  For those coaches wanting to pay by credit card, simply click on this link: http://tinyurl.com/z3kdggl

If you have any additional question, please don’t hesitate to contact me at rstarkey@athletics.tamu.edu

We look forward to seeing you!

RON ADAMS - TEACHER

I'm a big fan of Ron Adams -- have been for over 30 years.  Back in the mid 1980's as a men's assistant coach at West Virginia State College, we began putting together a 2-3 match-up that we wanted to play to accompany our man defense.  I reached out to several people but no one responded to the level of Ron who at the time was at Fresno State.  I wrote Ron and told him what we were looking to do and he returned with a three page letter accompanied by 6 pages of diagrams and explanations.  We exchanged several more letters and diagrams before we settled on how we wanted to defend out the match-up.  It was highly successful for us in large part because Ron cared enough to help a coach he'd never met.

The follow are a few take aways from a lengthy article written about Ron -- please take the time to read the entire article as it does a tremendous job of portraying the type of coach Ron is and the impact he has had at every one of his coaching stops.

“You have to like people,” Adams said. “I think that's at the forefront. And it's more than like—you have to really enjoy diversity, enjoy the relationships that you have to have to be successful at this level.”

“Coaching is, at the core, teaching,” Adams said. “Then when you're discussing, when you're looking at this whole aspect of teaching with younger peo– people younger than you, then the whole relational aspect comes into play. I still have a lot of college, or college coaching in me, or college mentality in me simply because at the core, the guys know no matter how great they are, or what they do at this level, they're people. They're just like you and me. And they're fun and they have their idiosyncrasies and they have their various paranoia, paranoias about different things and so on. I'm just kind of like now an old uncle trying to, to direct people and teach them and help them. I really love that. I think that's a very enjoyable part of what I do.”

“I think a lot of people don't really have a philosophy of play,” Adams said. “I think they copy people and so on and then you have other people who are, perhaps, more nuanced in that way, who have real philosophies of play that they have thought through. We all borrow from everyone. It's not like anyone comes up with some original plan on how to play or whatever but I think you have to be really open-minded but have a real philosophy of operation, which any successful person in any area has to have.”

“Well, if you're a teacher like I have been, a teacher of movement—you know, you teach movement, you teach balance, you teach rhythm, it's the really small things that contribute to success,” Adams said. “Everyone does not look at it that way anymore. It's kinda more of a general, general way of looking at movement. And then others are still quite precise in terms of the small things. It's just this building block. I could watch the game film last, with you, last night, and I would say every critical juncture in that game in which we kind of frittered away a lead, let's say, and when we built leads, were all fundamental more than schematically based.”

“Defensively, obviously we're all connected,” Adams said. “What one person does, everyone else has to adjust to. When one person moves, in the best of worlds everyone moves. It doesn't always happen. It's what we strive for. I think defensively, through this, this aspect of connectedness, this concept of connectedness, it's very altruistic. We do something for someone else that's not glamorous. Offense is glamorous. Offense is—except to the purists—offense is notable, to the public. Defense is kind of what all of us have to do in life to not only live good lives, but to make other people's lives better. I think it's a giving thing. Coach Grant—it came back to Coach Grant at Fresno State use to have a saying that he'd tell the guys that there are two kinds of people in the world. There are givers and there are takers. So we had a really strong defensive program then. And defense is giving. So, like, if you want to take it to the next step, it's kind of how we have to live, you know? The thing that I've always liked about basketball, and this whole aspect of connectedness is—I've loved coaching the international athletes. And I've loved my international experiences and I've had quite a few. I think I love it because of the freshness of the people. Their mindset. It's different from mine. I learn from them. Their healthy, I think in many ways, their healthy naiveté of how they look at life from a different culture – and I've lived internationally for a bit, not for very long but I sensed that there and it was a great—I learned a lot from it, I'll say it that way. But I loved the connectedness on these teams. Not talking defense now, just these strange, these different people who come together. Yes, basketball is the thread that runs through everyone. The reason they're there, obviously. But it's more than that. It's the, it's the rubbing shoulders with people who are different from you. And many times, for the international athlete it's rubbing shoulders with someone who is very different from them, and it's a two-way street. It's just adjustment. That, to me, has been really gratifying to see and to be a part of. Which, again, transcends sport and is a lesson for all of us in terms of how I think we're gonna have to live. We're going through a bit of a tough time in that regard in our country but we're – that's how we're gonna have to live. We're all the same. Might look a little different. Might be a different color. Might have a different accent. Might be different socio-economically. But it doesn't make us better than anyone else and I think that's, you know, we have this commonality that we have to develop. I think sport is so great for that.”

“The goal I set for myself at this age is to not, as I age, to not become a negative, bitter old man,” Adams said. “And to have joy in my heart. I made a—especially this year, I made a vow to myself that every day I wanted to go to work with joy in my heart.”

THE VALUE OF "GLUE GUYS"

The following is a few excerpts from an article on ESPN.com about "glue guys" and how they can have such a huge impact on a team. The story, written by Jackie McMullen spends some time on Channing Frye and the Cleveland Cavaliers but also speaks to other glue guys.  The entire article can be found here and is worth the read.  It will be something we'll share with our team but here are a few of my take aways:

The Cavaliers group text chain is aptly named BORED. Channing Frye's nimble mind requires constant stimulation, so he instituted BORED shortly after he joined Cleveland in February 2016, contacting the entire roster and encouraging all of his new teammates to share random thoughts.

Last week's BORED text chain, on the eve of the NBA Finals, tackled the burning question of which muscle man is the most iconic.

"The Rock or Arnold Schwarzenegger?" Frye texted. "I'll take The Rock."

The rebukes were fast and furious. LeBron James and Kevin Love, fervent Schwarzenegger backers, immediately fired back with a slew of insults directed at Frye.

"They were killing me," Frye said, grinning. "So let them have a little fun at my expense. It gives them common ground.

"And that's good."

Just days before the NBA trade deadline in February 2016, James got word that the Cavaliers planned to swap one of his favorite teammates, Anderson Varejao, to acquire Frye. Though Varejao had played sparingly that season, James had concerns about losing such a positive locker room presence.

"Hey, RJ," James asked Jefferson. "What about Channing Frye? How's he going to fit with us?"

"Man, you are gonna love him," Jefferson said. "He will bring us all closer. You'll see."

"That," James says now, "was all I needed to hear."

McMullen makes an excellent point on the variety of glue guys:

Glue guys take on many forms. Sometimes they are the best players, redoubtable both in performance and preparation (see: Tim Duncan). Sometimes, more than one player cements team chemistry. The 2015 Warriors, for instance, relied on the whimsical lightness of Leandro Barbosa to infuse the team with energy and play the role of the Draymond Green whisperer. Golden State also leaned on the experience of Andre Iguodala, who, when situations called for a little more gravity, exhibited an invaluable edge.

More often, though, glue guys are the veterans who have been there and done that, imparting their wisdom, toughness or positivity to a team.

James Posey cemented his status as the glue guy of the 2008 Celtics when, during the team's preseason trip to Rome, the players were scrimmaging in a tiny gym and the second unit scored a string of baskets. Kevin Garnett, Posey says, cheated the second-teamers out of a point and declared the starting five the winners. Posey called him out and wound up chest to chest with Garnett. "I don't care how good you are," Posey growled, "you have to be accountable like the rest of us."

"It was the moment," says former Celtics coach Doc Rivers, "that set the tone for the entire season."