Jeff is no longer with Trinity. He can be reached via email at jmoore8606@gmail.com via phone at (512) 658-2327 or you can continue to follow his blog at:
Randy Snow, former Wheelchair Tennis World Champion, made this statement during a motivational talk that he delivered in 2000 to a group of athletes at UT. He was frustrated by a disturbing trend that he was seeing develop in young people.........a constant, almost obsessive need to know how they stack up against others. Randy's comment resonated with me. More than ever before recruiting had become a question of exactly how many times do I have to tell this kid (and more importantly his parents) how awesome he is? For a team to win an NCAA Championship, the athletes have to want it more than the coaches. It has become increasingly difficult for college coaches to find recruits who inspired them..........the drive to compete just oozing out of their pores!
I decided to develop a Competitive Personality Profile to help me evaluate prospects. I listed negative characteristics in the left column and the corresponding positive characteristics in the right column. I then constructed questions designed to help me determine whether a recruit was a "left sider" or a "right sider.". For instance, questions about experiences they had with their coaches while growing up provided me with insight into traits 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9. In many cases their answers revealed attitudes and trends in behavior that were likely to be repeated in college.
A similar method of screening, called behavior-based interviewing (see Feb. 18th post), has become increasingly popular with corporations as an integral part of the hiring process. It has proven to be a more reliable predictor of future excellence than conventional screening protocols because it is more difficult to simply tell the interviewer what he or she wants to hear. Will our young students be prepared for this gauntlet? Will they be Left Siders or Right Siders? Will they be Comparors or Competitors?
Trinity is a member of the Austin Inter Parochial League (AIPL) a group of 18 independent middle schools from all over the Austin area. It is superbly well organized, offering hundreds of students opportunities to compete in a variety of sports throughout the school year. Our basketball teams just finished competing in 10 different season-ending AIPL tournaments, a sort of February Madness......which spilled into March because of a "snow" day.
I am very pleased with the improvement demonstrated by our young basketball players this season particularly in two important areas:
1. Learning what it truly means to play within the team concept.
2. Learning the fundamentals crucial to playing within the team concept.....man defense, moving without the ball, spacing, looking, and passing.
We have stressed these areas of development in our PE Sports units as well. They are skill sets that set the stage for future athletic development and yet they are some of the most ignored fundamentals in our how-do-I-get-my-child-ahead youth sports culture. Too many of our young athletes have spent a disproportionate amount of time focussing on individual skills like dribbling and shooting. When they reach a level.....usually HS JV, HS Varsity, or (for a select few) college.....where everyone around them is as good or better, they do cannot function within the team concept.
Personally, there is nothing more gratifying than watching our athletes execute together. The parents at Trinity generate lots of positive energy at games, spurring our athletes on to dive for loose balls, lockdown on defense, and share the ball on offense.......characteristics of a true competitor. Our kids are being taught seminal life lessons and everyone is part of the process!
As General Manager of the Lone Star Soccer Club, Tony Capasso had grown accustomed to working in a high pressure environment. He was used to dealing with prepubescent phenoms and their omnipresent handlers. One day though he became particularly agitated when a certain father continued to pressure him to put his son on a higher team. "This is critically important to my son's career!" he insisted. Tony lost his customary cool with a response that unveiled his true feelings about the situation: "Your son does not have a career........he's 12!!!"
I have thought about Tony's comment often while coaching the 5th and 6th grade AA Boys basketball team at Trinity this season. Recently, the team had what I considered to be one of its best practices of the year. The boys had maintained a high level of focus and attention to detail for the entire 1 hour and 20 minutes! As we huddled at the end of practice, I was pumped........and they were too! As we brought our fists together I looked at them intently and asked, "OK, what's it going to be?" Of course I was anticipating that they would want to end this particularly inspiring practice session with a cheer of "team!" or "defense!" or "hard work!" Instead they looked up almost in unison and said, "Coach, can we say happy birthday Isaac?" I was momentarily stunned then broke into a smile and said, "Absolutely!"
I'm not sure that I would have reacted that way at the beginning of the season. It's been a long time since I last coached this age. As a coach it is crucial for me to understand how 11 and 12 year olds think. Deep down what they play for is a love of the game..........then it's on to the birthday party!
In an era of political correctness, Rick Barnes is a throwback. Instead of engaging in coachspeak or carefully crafted soundbites, he tells it like it is. Like so many other coaches and teachers working with college students today, he is dealing with entitled kids who have been told how great they are their whole lives. Asked how J'Covan Brown could restore himself to a more prominent role after sitting out much of the Texas Tech game on Monday night, Barnes said: "One word: consistency in all areas of the game. That's what we've looked for all year. People wonder why we go back and forth. It's consistency. It's preparation. It's the details. It's accountability. He knows what we need from him. He needs to prepare every day, not just when it's convenient."
Monday's speaker, Corey Ciochetti expressed similar dismay about how so many of his students at Denver University avoid any endeavor that might take perseverence. "They do not want to compete!", he says. Dr. Patricia Somers, a professor in UT's College of Education, voices the same concern about UT students. "If you're scratching your head at this point and wondering how a 22 year old who's not able to address her setbacks, disappointments, goals, and progress at the university level is ever going to adjust to a complex job situation and an independent adult life then you've been paying attention."
The same problem exists in college athletics today. Self motivated, tough minded young athletes are still out there, but it has become increasingly difficult for college coaches to find them. Kids do not want to deal with adversity. They are constantly looking to others for direction and, without it, they're lost. One UT coach calls them "robokids." Often the challenge in college recruiting is trying to determine which entitled recruit will be willing to adjust and respond when they are faced with others of equal ability in practice everyday..........not just when it's covenient.
On Monday morning Corey Ciocchetti, a Denver University professor and motivational speaker delivered an impassioned speech to Trinity parents and 8th graders. He stressed the importance of striving for authentic success......a life filled with genuine contentment, strong personal relationships, and a solid character. His definition of character, "doing good things for other people when no one is looking," is a refreshing perspective at a time when it seems like so many people are focussed on branding themselves. I thought that branding was done to sell cars, cereal, software and other things........not people!
This is a distressing trend. Too often it is not about what a person truly believes in........it's about creating a perception that leads to a favorable impression. Legendary coach John Wooden once said "be more concerned about your character than your reputation because your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what people think you are." This line of thinking seems almost quaint today's world where marketing rules!
In future posts I will share my views on how marketing has destroyed youth sports.
In November of 2007 my son Andy's prep school team, Northfield Mount Hermon, played in the National Prep Showcase in Lowell, Massachusetts. Some of the top recruits in the country performed in the tournament before dozens of college recruiters. John Caliperi made the trip to get face time with his future star Tyreke Evans who played for American Christian, a school that ceased to exist after he "graduated."
Andy played particularly well in one of the tournament games. I was excited when a certain college coach called me to express interest in him. I had my "dad hat" on so I was expecting to hear him comment on the 3's that Andy had made. Instead he said: " I like the way that he advances the ball and feeds the post. He makes good decisions." I was dazed by recruiting hype. This coach was looking for talented players who understood the game and could play within the team concept.
This story came back to me as I watched one of our Trinity boys perform recently. His game was not flashy, but the way he played made his teammates better. In the space of one 6 minute quarter I saw him pitch the ball ahead to a teammate for an easy lay up, thread a bounce pass to a teammate in the short corner, loft a pass into the post from the top of the key, replace the wing so that he could enter the post from the wing position, and dribble penetrate into a gap in the defense before kicking a pass back out to a teammate. His head was always up, his eyes scanning the court looking for open teammates. Sometimes he made a pass that led to the pass to an open teammate. It was a treat to witness!
Sometimes we get so caught up oogling at athletic plays that we miss elements of the game which are absolutely crucial to the success of the team. This was just one example of outstanding team play that all 10 of our basketball teams have exhibited this season. And it's not over yet! We're in the middle of tournament week. Go Tornado!
At UT I designed a Competitive Personality Profile as a basis for developing questions to ask recruits. A growing number of employers are using similar methods of behavior-based interviewing to screen job candidates. The premise behind this type of interviewing is that the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in similar situations. In a traditional job interview, the candidate can get away with telling the interviewer what he or she wants to hear. In a behavioral interview, any story that is not totally honest will fail to hold up under a seige of probing questions designed to get at specific behaviors.
In an interview with the New York Times, Accenture CEO William Green, described how his company uses this method of screening candidates. "Essentially what we're looking for is, have you faced any adversity and what did you do about it? Have you shown intuition? Have you shown the ability to synthesize and act? Have you shown the ability to step up and make a choice? Have you dealt with the hand in front of you and played it out?" He told a story about hiring a college graduate who had worked most of the time that he was not attending classes over others who brought with them the usual padded portfolios. " I mean you sacrifice and you're a victim or you sacrifice because it's the right thing to do and have pride in it. Simple thing. Huge difference."
As an educator it helps me to focus on the qualities that our students will need to thrive in their first job. Most of them will be fortunate enough to receive ample outside support with test prep, resume building, and key contacts to gain admission to an outstanding secondary school and a prestigious college. The same network can be used to land a plum job after college. At this point the moment of truth arrives. The advantage of an external support system disappears. Does our former student possess the character traits necessary to compete?
Important life lessons can be learned through athletics that complement what students are learning in the classroom. In a world where increasingly the only constant is exponential change, qualities like adaptability, resilience, and collaboration are crucial to success in the workplace. Middle School students are at a sensitive age for developing these characteristics. In athletics and in physical education classes at Trinity, we conduct frequent discussions revolving around our 3 pillars.....Respect, Teamwork, and Perseverence. We also work to cultivate four key relationships: player to school, player to team, player to coach, and player to self. If we want our students to charge into the world hungry to take on challenges, they will have to be equipped with a strong sense of self and the ability to collaborate with others. The Uncomfort Zone awaits them. Will it be viewed as a land of opportunity?
So many professional athletes seem absorbed in branding (or incorporating!) themselves. With native West Austinite Drew Brees, what you see is what you get. I hope kids are taking it in!
Coach Robertson and I were invited to participate in a discussion group with Joe Ehrmann at St. Stephens yesterday. Joe played for 13 years with the Baltimore Colts and is the subject of the best selling book, Season of Life, by Jeffrey Marx. Since retiring from the NFL, he has dedicated his life to helping others. Among many other endeavors he is a football coach at the Gilman School, a prestigious all boys independent school in Baltimore. His approach to coaching departs from conventional thinking in a big way. He contends that our society conditions boys to establish their manhood in 3 ways: through competitive sports, sexual conquest, and making money which results in an a lack of concern for others particularly women. Because sports are the "secular religion of America" with coaches presiding as "high priests", he feels that coaches have a powerful platform to influence young people to become socially responsible individuals.
Joe stated that an emphasis on winning in America is eroding our values. He believes that winning is a byproduct of developing people. And oh, by the way, Gilman is a football powerhouse. They have been ranked as high as 12th in the USA Today national poll! It's all about process!
Click on this link to find out more about Joe Ehrmann.
