Winning is a Culture

[Haha EIGHT days later ...]

I feel really terrible writing this because it's linked up to at least two other posts that I haven't written yet, but I just have so many thoughts that I have to start somewhere, otherwise these posts will never get written at all. The two posts I have planned so far are about why college sports are my life's passion [or, if you follow my other blog, "just a dream: for me this is heaven (part two of two)"] and how I feel about college athletes (this post may or may not include stories from what should be a hit reality-television show, "Joann Wong and Sarah Rosenwinkel: The Legit a Giant Story").

To keep this bit short, I love college sports. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the most boring days of the week for me because those are my "lull" days. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are when all (or most of) the action happens, Thursdays are about getting psyched for those days, and Mondays are about reading all the news stories and looking at all the photos that result from the weekend. While I am an avid fan of several professional sports teams, I have to say that college sports remains my all-time favorite. There's something about the college level that just seems more innocent, more pure. For the most part (again, post coming on this in the future), it hasn't been tainted by money yet and there's just so much raw emotion involved. To me, college sports just feels more personal.

I think that's why I'm one of those "we" people. Whenever I talk about a team that I follow (read: love), it's never "UConn" or "Illinois", it's "we". So when something happens to the team or someone on the team, I take it personally. You can think that's unhealthy or obsessive, but again, that's coming in a later post. Stories of athletes being suspended or dismissed for things like team violations or even breaking the law are increasingly -- and frighteningly -- common. One has to look no further than my own Fighting Illini when talking about these incidents. In the past few weeks, our football team has gone through one hell of a face-lift, and not due to graduation. Michael Buchanan, the starting bandit for our defense, was arrested for a DUI and has been indefinitely suspended from the team. Walt Aikens, someone who was competing for a starting safety spot, was arrested, jailed, and eventually kicked off the team and expelled from the university for burglary (and if I recall correctly, the attempted re-sale of stolen items). And of course, I don't think you can get away with talking about Fighting Illini incidents/embarrassments of recent years without talking about the Jamar Smith/Brian Carlwell car accident. This happened during my freshman year of college, and I remember that it kind of hit home because I heard about the news personally -- it wasn't something I read in the newspaper or on the internet. Brian lived in the dorm next to mine, and I saw him quite frequently around the dorm or in the dining hall. He was very good friends with some casual friends of mine, and so even if it was only in some very small way, I knew what he was like off the basketball court. With the exception of Buchanan, who is "technically" still with the team although suspended from it, none of these players I've mentioned are wearing the Orange and Blue anymore. I won't speak for football, since I don't know that much about it and rating its players, but the sad part about the Smith/Carlwell accident is that Jamar Smith was a long-bomb shooting former-Big Ten freshman of the year who was on the verge of breaking out, and Brian Carlwell was a four-star recruit out of high school who looked to have a lot of potential for a great career.

As I've mentioned about a hundred times before this, I have another post coming about the stuff I've just detailed and how I feel about college athletes, but I'll get to that. Just know that until that post comes out (and probably even after I've published it), my thoughts are still pretty incomplete. In any case.

I'm a fan of "Do the Right Thing", and I'm also a big believer in doing the right thing. How does that quote go? Something about integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching? Something of that nature? Anyway, my parents were HUGE on that. They were all about doing things the right way, every time, no matter who was watching and who or what you were doing it for. Everything I ever did in my young life had a lesson to it. Ever since I learned how to talk, my dad had me memorizing entire books of Chinese proverbs and maxims and things about living life the right way -- you know, studying hard, working hard, honoring your parents, etc. The moment I was old enough to "know better" -- probably about four or five -- my parents made me personally responsible for everything I did. My parents are also very ... critical and severe people. My dad is a lot like Red Foreman from "That 70's Show". I can't even begin to tell you how many times throughout my life (and even now, still) I've been told I'm gonna get a foot up my ass or a backhand 'cross the face. He's the type of parent who won't hesitate to tell me that I'm stupid or being a little asshole or whatever. So with my dad, I always had to be in line. Be respectful, never cut corners, that kind of thing. My mom's the perfectionist. I always felt like nothing I ever did would live up to her standards of how I should be or how I should live my life. She doesn't really give out praise or approval very lightly, so getting A's on my report card as a kid really wasn't enough -- I was expected to do that, so that shouldn't really be rewarded or acknowledged. I always have to do my best and then do even better than that. You don't get pats on the back for a mediocre job or for doing something you were supposed to do.

Now don't go calling DCFS quite yet, all of that isn't to say that my parents didn't love me or they didn't support me, it's just that they're not exactly the kind of parents who make it out to all of your sporting events and tell you what a winner you are even if you get last place or how smart you are or how hard you tried even if you get a 'D' in class. They both have really high expectations for me, they don't let me get away with anything, and they are always my harshest critics. I get that stubbornness and that drive and that fire from them. Sometimes it makes me resent the hell out of them, but I wouldn't be this determined without them.

So it's not surprising that I like college teams and coaches that teach their teams the way my parents taught me. What I like about high school and college sports (AGAIN, I'm writing another post on this, so this is a little underdeveloped) is the developmental factor it has to it. I'm not saying people don't grow in professional leagues, I'm just saying it's different. Kobe Bryant continually adds things to his game, but he also may or may not have raped a girl. LeBron James continually adds things to his game, but if he did to, say, a high school or college team what he did to the city of Cleveland (that is, shit all over them and break their hearts on national television), I have a basketball coach or two who would slap the shit out of him and make him run sprints every second of every practice for the rest of the next two seasons. I like high school and college sports because it's about developing young people not just as athletes, but as people too. It's my opinion that teams that invest the most in developing good, well-rounded people in addition to good, well-rounded athletes and teams that invest the most into doing the right thing are always the most successful programs. (After a very lengthy set-up, this is what I was getting at. My "thesis statement", if you will.)

The thing about coaching and teaching this way is that it's not easy -- it's not easy for the players and it's not easy for the coaches. As a coach, you might forsake wins in order to teach or do the right thing sometimes. As players, sometimes it's more physically and mentally taxing, because it's about working harder and not cutting corners. It's like they say, sometimes the hard thing to do is the right thing to do. You might get players who don't buy into what you're trying to teach them. You might get coaches who'd rather win than teach. At times this way is frustrating and it's difficult, and it may take a while but I think it always pays off in the end. I believe you build a program by establishing a culture of winning the right way -- working hard, paying your dues, and staying hungry and humble.

One great example of this is one of my favorite movies of all time, "Hoosiers". In case you're the most ridiculous person alive and have never seen or heard of the movie, Coach Norman Dale takes over a pretty good basketball with a couple of pretty good shooters that the team relies on. But they don't focus on what they're good at. They work on passing and defense. Up until their first game, everyone is doubting what Coach Dale is doing, and after a couple losses, everyone is clamoring to get rid of him, saying that the style of basketball he teaches doesn't win games. It sucks for the boys and for Coach, because they're not winning, but Coach sticks to his guns and continues teaching them the right things. He wants the boys to play good defense, and he wants them to move the ball around for easy, high percentage shots instead of just jacking the ball from wherever and whenever they feel like it. He wants the boys to work hard, work together, and play as a team. Hickory basketball's not just about scoring and winning, it's about ball movement, playing good defense, taking smart shots, working as a team, and winning that way. It's not just about Jimmy Chitwood, it's about Buddy and Ollie and all the other guys on the team, too.

For Coach Dale, it was about standing his ground and always choosing to do the right thing no matter what people said about it or what people did to him. That's what kids follow. They follow someone strong, setting a good example for them, someone who isn't afraid to stand up to the persecution, someone who knows that what they're teaching is good and true. If you can stand behind what you're teaching, wholeheartedly and without wavering, I think kids will be willing to stand behind it too. For the players, it was about buying into what Coach Dale was teaching. As a competitor, it SUCKS to lose. Especially when you think you know everything there is to winning, when you think your way is better. But they had to believe in what Coach Dale believed in, and once they did, they started to slowly build a foundation to winning. They didn't win games right away at first, that came with time. But by practicing basic, fundamental skills like footwork and passing and running sprints, they were putting together the tools to winning for a long time to come. Your shot might be off one night, I mean you're really just shooting cold and you're not feeling it -- and that happens -- but nothing can ever change your defensive footwork and positioning if you've practiced it. Nothing can disrupt your fitness level or your box out form or your decision-making and patience. That discipline and that patience are HUGE to create a culture of winning.

Guys like John Wooden and Ed Thomas ... those are coaches that I really look up to. No frills kind of guys who demanded the most from their players. Guys who wanted their players to be good people and well-rounded athletes. That's why they're also two of the most successful coaches in their respective sports. Their unwavering commitment to excellence, integrity, discipline, and hard work, and their passion for the game. I'd like to think that the programs and players I support the most are much the same way.

Even if you're just a casual reader of this blog, you probably know what I feel about the UConn Huskies. They're my favorite basketball team of all time and I love them, obviously. I love that team for a variety of reasons. First of all, I love the way they play. I love their emphasis on defense -- one thing that all Huskies teams have in common is stifling defense. You hear about great scorers like Dee or Maya, but what makes the teams so great is that they play exceptional defense. The Huskies are very much a "team effort" kind of team. Sure, we've had tons of great players over the years, but great players alone don't win championships. When we graduated Swin Cash, Sue Bird, Asjha Jones, and Tamika Williams in '02, who expected us to win another championship? Sure, we had Diana Taurasi, but the rest of the team was a bunch of untested, inexperienced players and a couple of freshmen. That team went on to win the 2003 National Championship. Dee put the team on her shoulders countless times, but her teammates stepped up too. Ashley Battle became a lockdown defender who did all the little things. Jess Moore became a post-presence. Barbara Turner and Ann Strother put on their big girl britches. Maria Conlon stepped into Sue Bird's role and played wonderfully at point. UConn basketball is about always being ready to play, stepping up, and doing your part. You get kids like Stacey Marron and Jacquie Fernandes who probably would have been able to get scholarships playing at other schools, but chose to walk-on at Connecticut. Kids like Heather Buck, Kaili McLaren, Lorin Dixon ... the list goes on -- these are kids who probably could be playing a lot more minutes if not starring at other schools, but they chose to come to Connecticut to become better basketball players. At UConn, they all check their flash, their egos, and all that "me first" stuff at the door. It's about the team once you step foot into Gampel. I love when people ask why UConn jerseys never have the players' names on the back -- because it's about the name across your chest, not the one across your back. Geno gets the most out of his players, from his star player to the girl who's last on the bench. You get kids griping about how they don't get playing time even when they're definitely gonna be NBA stars one day (*cough*Alex Legion*cough*), so they just up and transfer. I wish I had the stats on how many minutes Jacquie Fernandes played in her entire career. She goes to the same practices as the team starters, and she works just as hard as the team starters, she just doesn't get the same minutes. I don't know what that exact number is, but I can guess that she doesn't regret her decision to go to UConn at all, because not only is she a National Champion, but she's probably become a much better basketball player in the last four years. One thing UConn teams are never short of is effort. You can measure it however you want -- measure it in tipped balls, floor burns, bruises, whatever. You've got kids like Tina Charles working hard to box out for rebounds, kids like Mel Thomas and Shea Ralph diving all over the court for loose balls, kids like Maya Moore BUSTING up the court after an offensive turnover or score to play D -- and those are things that don't necessarily show up in the box score.

More than that though, I like that Geno, CD, and the entire coaching staff makes it a point not just to teach these kids how to be good basketball players, but how to be good people, too. You never really hear about UConn kids getting in trouble. (the men's team is a different story ...) I'm sure they go out and have a good time just like me and you, but you never read stuff like, "UConn Lady Husky Knocked Up" or "UConn Huskies Involved in Frat Scuffle". They carry themselves very well, and are great ambassadors for their team, their athletic department, and their university. There's just something about UConn kids, and their heart and fight on the court and their humility and levelheadedness off the court. In all the times I've interacted with the team (many, many times -- I've traveled far and wide to attend UConn games, and I've always made it a point to talk to them after the games), every single girl has always been very patient, gracious with their time, and extremely friendly. When I met Brittany Hunter in '07, she was super cool and was totally chatting it up with me as she signed my shirt. Renee Montgomery, who I've always been a little afraid of (she looks intense as hell on television!), was also really warm and welcoming. I have a picture with Renee and we look like BEST BUDS! Not even kidding! I look like a tool in that photo so I won't post it, but I swear we look tight as hell! I remember thinking that meeting Mel Thomas was going to be sooooo nerve-wracking. She's one of my favorite players, so I was definitely a little geek about it. The first time I met her I think it was her junior season, and the team was playing at Marquette. Her family was there and chatting with her, but she noticed me standing behind the bench waiting to talk to her (didn't want to interrupt). She very graciously put her conversation on hold, and told me that it wasn't a problem at all when I started apologizing profusely like a little girl. She signed my shirt (hanging in my room), and posed for a photo with me and was just extremely friendly. I've met almost everyone on teams from about '06-'08, and she's still one of my most favorite Huskies. But that's what they're about, you know. They're good kids. I don't think Geno would sign someone who he didn't think was a quality kid.

The Huskies have always been my sports comparison team of choice. Whenever I used to talk about things with my ultimate team, I'd compare it to a UConn Husky situation or scenario. Whenever I think about what kind of player I want to be, I think about how a UConn Husky would play or carry themselves in a given situation. But even before that, I had that attitude and that culture of discipline and hard work drilled into me. From the moment I picked up a basketball at Saturday open gym with my dad when I was four or five to right now with ultimate, I have loved everything about sports. I've learned and I've grown from every single team I've played on, from every coach and every teammate I've had the pleasure to have, and from every season I've ever played, but a few coaches and a few teams stand out to me for different reasons.

Of course, I have to draw from my basketball background. Despite the fact that I've played basketball for so long, I was never really the best, and never even really that good. But I LOVED playing, so how good or bad I was didn't really matter to me. I pretty much sucked at all the drills we did and except for the time that me, Millie, and I forget who else won the three-on-three tournament (with yours truly threading a rocket between two defenders from the top of the key to Millie streaking from the three-point line to the basket for the game- and tournament-winning layup WHAT UP!) I feel like I was always the bad luck charm that led my scrimmage team to losing. But basketball continues to be the love of my life, and my memories of high school basketball are still among some of my favorites from that time.

When I played basketball in high school, I had two coaches -- Coach Clarke and Coach Carter. Both were total badasses. They didn't accept bullshit, and they demanded everything you had and more. Coach Clarke and Coach Carter never wanted to hear that you were "sick" or "tired" or just having an "off day". They didn't care if you had just broken up with your boyfriend or maybe you had an exam and a group project due in the same week and you were stressing. When you were in the gym, you were in the gym to work. Nothing else.

The drills we did in practice were always designed to break us mentally and physically. The goal was to make it out of the drills and scrimmages as a team. They made you better individual players, but stronger as a team. We had three drills that I loved the most. We had a box out drill, a Steal the Bacon type drill, and a conditioning drill. Box Out was cut throat. It was impossible to end that drill without getting banged up as hell! Coach didn't care who was boxing out who, so I could very well be boxing out Millie, who was 6'0, and I was expected to win every time. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn't. But you better believe that both of us were fighting like hell for the ball. And we had our version of Steal the Bacon, but with a basketball, and in order to win you had to take the ball to the hoop for a layup. Those battles were INTENSE. They were legit just straight out dives to the ground for the ball. It was during this very drill that I flew into a gym door and dented it forever -- also my worst concussion of all time. Shit was brutal, and girls held nothing back. I'm sure that on more than one occasion, we all walked away from Box Out or Steal the Bacon just hating someone else and wanting to get into a real fight.

But probably the best (worst?) drill of all was our end of practice conditioning drill. Everyone on the team would line up and shoot free throws. We'd find a way to squeeze everyone around the paint, and we'd just rotate. Each person had five shots. For every missed shot, we did one stair repetition (start at the bottom of a set of stairs, run up the stairs, sprint one gym building hallway, run down the stairs at the opposite end of the building, sprint down another hallway towards the original set of stairs, and that's one set) and one minute of a wall sit. All the stairs happened first, and the wallsits were all saved for the end. If we did well (which rarely ever happened), we got to end practice "early". With about 15 girls on the team, you can imagine what happened when we weren't shooting well. I don't think we've ever had to do a whole hour of wallsits, but I do recall many times when we've missed 20-30 free throws. It's a real blower, and you kind of want to hate your teammates and yourself for missing, but if you don't push each other and encourage each other, you'll never get through the conditioning. Those hallways would be ECHOING we'd be shouting for each other so loudly. I never would have gotten through those wallsits without my teammates. The drills break you down physically. They challenge you mentally. They set you up in difficult situations that you might not think you can overcome. But the way you get through those drills is by working as a team, and leaning on and drawing strength from each other.

My coaches were sly that way, teaching lessons the hard way. I think to a lot of outsiders who heard about the practices or saw the way our coaches carried themselves, they'd have a lot of negative thoughts. One of the more notorious stories about them is the infamous Running Practice. One night, we lost in a particularly horrible way at home. We lost big. Because we didn't play as a team. We threw our fundamentals out the window. We didn't play defense. We were out-hustled. It had nothing to do with being less talented than the other team, it was about us not working hard and not playing the way we were taught. Even if a team is more talented than you, it doesn't mean you can't still play the way you know how to play. Talent doesn't just make you shit your pants and forget how to play. It was in the beginning of the season and we lost to a perennial state championship contender, but that didn't mean shit to our coaches. When we went to practice that Wednesday (? I wanna say?) night, there were no balls. We all got our shoes on, and all we did that practice was sprint. For about four solid hours. Suicides. Full court sprints. And none of that "touch the line with your toe" type shit. Get to one sideline, get LOW and TOUCH the line, run back and do the same thing. Sprints from one basket to the other. And after that, we sprinted some more. Literally, we did nothing but sprint. Timed sprints. The whole team didn't finish in the allotted amount of time? Oh well, do it again. Even after we made the time limit, welp, do it again. The few times we got to touch a ball was when when we had to dribble from one end of the court to the other making layups and running back to the other end and doing the same thing, and when we played Steal the Bacon. Four girls got sick and three went to the hospital that night. No one quit the next day. Our Thursday night game, I'm pretty sure we beat the shit out of the other team, and we never played sloppy or lazy again.

I don't care what anyone has to say about them, that they were bitches or they were hardasses or whatever, but those coaches invested a lot of their energy into who we were as people, too. I know a lot of teams did grade checks as a sort of formality, but they took grade checks very seriously. You had to maintain at least B's in order to start and play in games. If you got a C, you weren't starting. If you got a D or an F, your ass was on the bench. Didn't matter who the player was, that's the way it was. You did not miss study hall after class. You did not skip class or show up late to classes either. Showing up late to practices, meetings, or games was also strictly forbidden, it didn't matter who you were and how much of a star you were. You always wore your practice jersey at practice, and we never even got our game day jerseys until the night before the game. On game day, everyone on the team had to be dressed up, and everyone had matching gear come game time. No different shoes, no flair. Don't match that dress code and you weren't playing. After the games, win or lose, we had to stay behind to help clean up the gym. You could be a five star recruit, but you still had to fold and stack folding chairs and make sure there wasn't any trash in the stands. And you always, always treated your coaches, teammates, and opponents with respect. No back talk. No matter how heated a practice or a game got, you never lost your cool.

I remember one night we had a particularly shitty loss at home (another loss prior to the Running Practice). We had a team meeting in a classroom before we went to the locker rooms to change and leave. That game was a bummer for everyone involved. It was just a poor effort by our entire team. Our coach was standing in there, livid as shit, just screaming at us. And she stopped to single me out. I was alarmed because I didn't even play in the game. Was she mad at me for something I did during half time or during warm up? Maybe I didn't cheer loudly enough on the bench? What? She shouted, "Joann, don't you look at the floor! My eyes are not on the floor. You look at ME when I'm talking to you!" Pretty sure I stared at her for the remainder of the night. At the time, I was kind of peeved at her, like, I didn't even play in that game, I don't get why you're sweating the small stuff like that. But she wasn't just punishing me for some small, random misdeed, she was trying to teach me more about how to handle myself in defeat. A loss is a loss is a loss, no matter who it's to and no matter how bad it is, but you don't hang your head. You look at defeat in the eye and you take what it has to give you. You learn from it, and you let it motivate you. But you don't let it defeat you. You've still got to carry yourself with all the dignity and pride and integrity and heart that you have.

And it's a little too personal to talk about here, but I went through some really rough times in high school, and I really would not have gotten through any of it without my teammates or my coaches. They talked to me a LOT, and they made it known to me that their office and the gym could be my safe places. They stood by me and helped me stand in my darkest of times, and they gave me a lot of wisdom to live life by. They cared about me not just as a player on their team, but as a person, too. And that kind of care and genuine concern existed for every player on the team, from 1-15.

I learned a lot from the great coaches of my life, not just Coach Clarke and Coach Carter. Everything from how to shoot a basketball to how to box out to how to handle myself in front of a hostile crowd to how to fight through adversity to how to support my teammates. They taught me what I needed to know to succeed on the court, on the field, on the course, and everything I needed to know to be a decent human being outside of those arenas, and it means a lot to me. So excuse my language when I say that I can't stand scumbags like Bruce Pearl or John Calipari. Hell's not deep enough for rats like that. (And of course, you know I'll probably have more to say about these guys in a later post.)

A culture of winning is cultivated not just by the coaches, but by the players too. It doesn't work if the entire team doesn't embrace it.

The Illinois team in 2009 will forever be with me because in my mind, we reached our goal of qualifying for Nationals because we kept building on and embraced a culture of winning. Some people think it was a one-year thing, that all of a sudden all the players on the team just got really good and all the stars aligned for us. But that's not how it works. Things don't just happen because they're "supposed to" -- if that was the case, every team would end the season with a win and no hearts would ever be broken. But that's not how it goes. We finally reached our goal after years of not reaching it. Years of working harder and harder. After yet another Regionals loss, we'd learn that what we were doing wasn't enough, and we had to do more and do it harder. Because we worked hard in '08. We really did. But we just didn't have enough. So in '09 we had to bring it even harder. We accepted that success meant multiple gut-busting track workouts a week. We accepted that it meant taking no days off and never taking it easy. We accepted that it meant hitting the gym with more seriousness and more intensity than we ever had before. And everyone got better that year, didn't matter whether you were on universe line or you just got garbage points, everyone busted ass. Didn't matter what year you were, how long you were playing, or what role you had on the team, it was understood that everyone worked hard, and everyone played hard, no matter what. One person who really surprised me was Rachel Graham. Rachel had two jobs on top of her classwork, and she still made it to all (if I recall correctly) our practices. She worked just as hard as everyone else. I remember when we came back from winter break that year thinking that I had done okay with keeping up with my fitness, but I'm pretty sure I died at that first track workout. And Rachel was KILLING it. I mean, she was faster than she was before break. It was awesome to see that my teammates embraced that attitude of doing work and wanting to get better no matter what. It motivated me to work that much harder too, and it made reaching our goal that much sweeter, the fact that we were all in it together. That hard work and that drive and discipline will always stick with me. It's funny, because Kelly and I were just joking about how sometimes we still hear Goose in our heads, telling us not to throw in the red zone until we see chest. Ahh.

So I believe in doing things the right way, every time, no matter what I'm doing and no matter who's watching. When programs accept that way of teaching and that way of being, then they find success. I guess that's not the only way of winning, but I think it's the right way to win.

That's what I love about Spirit of the Game. It's about taking personal responsibility and having the integrity not to cheat even when it would be to your benefit. Major shout out here to Walden Nelson, who should have finished at least in the Top 5 of Callahan voting. I don't particularly enjoy watching the men's game, but I like watching the way Walden plays. He's got unbelievable skills with and without the disc in his hands, and he's just an unstoppable player. But the thing I like the best about his game is that he's hungry and humble. He's a fierce competitor, but a fair one too. He's not the guy boner checking it up on RSD, and he's never the guy talking shit on the field. He plays the game clean and doesn't play the call game. If he fouls you, he doesn't contest it. If you were in, he calls you in. Especially on the elite level, you really don't see players like him, who perform at a high level with such a great sense of fairness and humility. So kudos to you, Walden.

Oh, and also, that bow in the endzone during the Carleton game was probably the best thing I've ever seen in my life. So there's that.

I wish every player in every sport were just like Walden. Great athletes who want to win but not at the price of forsaking integrity and morality. When you're sliding your feet to get under someone penetrating into the lane and you haven't set your feet when he/she comes barreling into you, you take the hand you're given, stand up, and raise your arm to indicate your foul -- you don't argue with the ref. When you continually show up late to practice, even if you're a five star recruit, you don't deserve to start games, and you don't jaw off at your coaches or teammates about it either. When you don't work hard in practice and in a game, I don't care how talented you are, you don't deserve to win. When you're knotted in a universe point game and you catch the disc out of bounds just outside your endzone, you call yourself out no matter who is or isn't there on the sidelines to see your feet. Even if it matters to no one but yourself, you run hard even when you're tired and you keep your shooting or throwing or whatever form, whether you're up or down by thirty, and whether you're fresh or tired.

And that's the attitude that wins games.

So winning is a culture. Talent and athleticism help, sure, but without discipline, hard work, integrity, and a team attitude, then a program finds no success. When programs look for kids with talent but without character, they're just asking for trouble. If you want to build a winning program, you have to cultivate a winning culture, and that takes time and the combination of the right coaches and the right players. I'll take Geno over Calipari any day of the week, and I'd take a team full of Sue Bird's or Shea Ralph's or Kelly Faris' over a team full of John Wall's any day, and you can quote me on that.

Work hard and dream big, ya'll.