BLOG OCTOBER 01. 2013

I have followed University of Southern California football since the days of Frank Gifford and Lindon Crow. Both of these fine athletes grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California as did I.

They were both key performers for the New York Giants in the classic playoff game between the Giants and the Baltimore Colts. You know, Y.A. and Johnny U. (If you don’t know these two shame on you, you are seriously retarded as a sports historian).

However, I am a little off-track. Saturday Pat Hayden, Director of Athletics, fired USC Head Football Coach, Lane Kiffin. Mr. Hayden was a great player for USC. I think firing a coach in the middle of the season is ineffective and is an attempt at “looking good” by Mr. Hayden. But what do I know. Be that as it may, it still isn’t my point.

My point is young thirty-something Head Coaches are arrogant. They think because they have been around the sport their whole life that they know how to coach. Arrogance isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is just a narrow way of thinking and as such a limitation.
I can say something about this with authority since, to use and old cliché, “been there done that” in my coaching career. I was the first head coach of the expansion Portland Trail Blazers. I was 35 years old.

I knew the game of basketball as well as any coach in the NBA. I could make game adjustments with anyone. It isn’t what I knew or what I knew I didn’t know. It was what I didn’t know I didn’t know.

I assumed that the community, our organization and my team wanted what I wanted. No disrespect to anyone. I didn’t bother to find out. I was a poor manager of details away from the court. I didn’t offer a powerful context for what we were up to.

The great John Wooden told me that he didn’t really learn to coach until he was 50 years old. I have dedicated 27 years of my life in a commitment to reducing that learning curve for coaches.

“Some lessons can’t be taught, they need to be lived to understand.”
Character in the movie, Elektra

Get your copy of Coach Todd’s book, “The Art of Losing, Coaching and Thriving in a Made-for-TV World” on lulu.com