IMPORTANT
BRUSH
by Kyle Macy
Two years ago Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson did an excellent column
on the vital importance of leadership. His expose was much
talked about among coaches. But Kelvin had a luxury that many
coaches do not have. He had Hollis Price.
As has been pointed out over the years, the qualities of a
leader supersede statistical accomplishments. How he or she
leads by example and becomes a coach's third arm are what being
a leader is all about.
Players like Hollis Price take that to another level because
they were also All-American players.
Ask Kelvin what life without Price would have been like or ask
Mike Krzyzewski how successful his Duke teams would have been
without Shane Battier's leadership.
The statistical contributions of Price and Battier certainly
would have been enough to make their respective teams threats in
March, but they probably would not have been Final Four teams
without their leadership.
Those are the ultimate rewards of great leadership, but now let
me paint another picture, one without leadership found on the
canvas.
It's not the type of artwork that you would find hanging in a
gallery. To borrow an artsy term, it can be flat out ugly.
I am not going to name names here. Within this feature we will
protect the names of the innocent, but I do want to point out
the points made by numerous coaches that I have spoken with
about this very subject and their team's lack of leadership.
And ugly was a word used, but it was highlighted by some less
than flattering verbiage.
While the present records vary, the one thing that each of the
coaches I spoke to had in common was lack of leadership, among
their upper-classman.
For some that has resulted in abysmal starts and for others it
has been the difference between currently being .500 rather than
a viable factor within their own conference.
A quick glance at the standings will tell you 'only' where a
team currently stands. And that is all they tell you. Unless you
have been around that team every day you cannot draw any other
conclusions.
Unfortunately, most people would just assume that a team with a
1-6 or 2-8 record is simply just a bad team. Some may look at
who was on the schedule and conclude that maybe they are a
decent team, which has just played a tough non-league schedule,
but ordinarily that is where the analysis ends.
Did it ever dawn on anyone that perhaps they are lacking
something, beyond talent?
By no means is it an indictment on those making such judgments,
but I do believe you need to have a point of reference in order
to truly understand and appreciate this concept. And that point
of reference can only be -- having participated in organized
sport.
Pick a coach -- any coach -- and he or she will be able to suck
the oxygen out of a room, when addressing this subject.
Likewise, those who played any organized sport would also be
able to speak at length about the key ingredient that is
leadership.
Here is a perfect example?
We began the season with two losses in our first three games. My
coaching staff and I saw the writing on the wall before the
season began, but had a difficult time in getting the team's
attention.
My message was simple, "We did it your way and we are 1-2 now we
are going to do it my way."
That got their attention. And each of the coaches I spoke with
also 'got it' and could relate, as they are dealing with similar
situations. But people outside the circle will -- more often
than not -- come to a conclusion that Morehead State was just
not very good.
In our case, we still have a ways to go, in terms of replacing
some pieces lost to graduation, but we had a void in the
leadership role, which needed to be filled.
Now does that mean that we are NCAA tournament bound, not by a
long shot, but had we not addressed it our season could have
gone south quicker than you could run your paint brush across
the canvas.
Many coaches are labeled as being great leaders, but each of
those coaches will tell you that the success of their teams
really hinges on that third arm. Without an on-the-floor leader
you will never reach your potential.
It is that simple.
One common factor among 'all' teams that have great seasons is
leadership. You can talk about the team's talent all you want,
but a room without a nice coat of paint is just a room with
potential.
Leadership is the brush that brings it all together.
None of the coaches that I spoke with believed their teams had
the makings of being ranked in the AP's Top Ten, but they all
felt that they had a team that could be a major factor within
their conference race.
But lack of player leadership has kept them from being better
teams.
Excluding those teams that are forced to play daunting
non-league schedules (they normally enter league play with
unattractive records) and you will find that a great many of the
teams with unimpressive records are in every game.
It's that one three or four-minute span, those two bad
possessions or that final five minutes that are often the
difference between competing for a league title and finishing
near the bottom of the conference.
A great many of the latter find themselves in the low-rent
district painting on cardboard because they lack the brush of
leadership.
You really do need that third arm to paint the best outcome and
if still don't get it then you probably don't have that
all-important point of reference.
This column
originally appeared on CollegeInsider.com |
