Even The Wall Street Journal is into March Madness. It had an interesting article on Saturday entitled Good Coach, Bad Mentor. The author, Darren Everson, focused on successful college basketball coaches who are the best and worst mentors. Mr. Everson equates success in developing future head coaches with mentoring success.
He makes a good point. The ability to develop future leaders is one of the hallmarks of great leadership. Mr. Everson identifies Rick Pitino of Louisville, Herb Sendek of Arizona State, Jim Calhoun of Connecticut, Jim Boeheim of Syracuse and Tom Izzo of Michigan State as the best mentors in college basketball. Tubby Smith of Kentucky and Billy Donovan of Florida are former Pitino assistants. Both have won National Championships. Jim Boeheim gave Pitino his first college assistant coaching job. Thad Matta of Ohio State, the 2007 Big Ten champions and a number one seed in this year’s tournament coached for Herb Sendek.
Mr. Everson says that Roy Williams of North Carolina, Tubby Smith of Kentucky, Lute Olson of Arizona, Mike Kryzewski of Duke and Bobby Knight of Texas Tech are the worst mentors among big time college coaches. All have won the National Championship. Mssrs. Kryzewski and Knight have won more than one National Championship. In fairness to Mr. Knight, Coach K played and coached for him at Army. Mr. Everson notes that his former players have done better as head coaches than his assistant. Tommy Amaker, a former Duke assistant was fired by Michigan over the weekend. Quin Snyder, another former Duke assistant, was asked to leave Missouri at the end of the 2006 season. No former Williams, Smith or Olson assistant has had significant success as a head coach.
Mr. Everson hypothesizes that college assistant basketball coaches don’t get the depth of training that their counterparts in other sports get. He cites Mr. Sendek who says, “in (college) basketball, assistant are more apt to get pigeonholed into narrow roles.”
Mr. Pitino seems to be the exception to this rule. Jeff Van Gundy, the current coach of the NBA Houston Rockets was an assistant for Mr. Pitino. He says that even though he was the fourth of four assistants, he was expected to devise game strategies for each opponent and help coach on the floor in practice. He also says that Mr. Pitino held coaches accountable for their mistakes in front of the entire team – “a practice that made the assistants uncomfortable, but is invaluable to their development.
One more thing about Rick Pitino. He broke the gender barrier by hiring Bernadette Mattox as the first female assistant coach in Division 1 men’s basketball.
The common sense point here? Great leaders develop other leaders. They do this by giving them a broad set of experiences, holding them accountable and taking risks on people who don’t fit the traditional mode. This applies in business as well as in basketball.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense. Check out my other blog: www.SuccessCommonSense.com for common sense advice on life and career success.
I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
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