Tag: Basketball

Winning Every Day

Written on January 1, 2009.

Pat Summitt’s Strategy Centers on Goal-Setting Eight times Pat Summitt’s University of Tennessee women’s basketball team has ended the season by lifting high the national championship trophy. Not once was that her team’s goal. Before each of the 34 seasons that Summitt has been a head coach of some of the most accomplished teams of all time, she and her captains have committed a set of goals to writing.

Focusing On Improvement When You’ve Reached the Pinnacle

Written on November 1, 2008.

How Roy Williams Motivates His Team Roy Williams knows about expectations. The veteran coach of the University of North Carolina’s vaunted basketball program has, in years past, fielded teams of which little was expected. And he has come to play with teams when anything less than a championship would seem, at least in the public eye, a failure. Williams doesn’t hesitate in saying which he prefers: “Give me great players...

Shaquille O’Neal

Written on June 1, 2008.

Visualize Victory… The truly great see victory before the game begins Given all the changes that have occurred recently it may seem like it happened forever ago, but in reality only two years have passed since this scene played out at the NBA finals. As his 7-foot-1, 325-pound frame would suggest, Shaquille O’Neal is as dominant a player as the NBA has ever seen. In 2006, four years after O’Neal...

Pat Summitt

Written on April 1, 2008.

What off-season… The truly great are always working towards the next game… The goal is what’s ahead, and there’s always something ahead. Tennessee’s Pat Summitt is no stranger to hard work. In fact, it’s the only kind of work the legendary head coach has known over her 34-year career. Growing up on a farm with three older brothers and a father who didn’t take no for an answer,...

Swen Nater

Written on December 1, 2007.

Rubbing Elbows… The truly great understand the value of association. A community college basketball coach was getting his car fixed by a local mechanic. As he walked into the garage he noticed the guy under his car had his head sticking out one side of the car and his feet hanging out the other. That moment led to a life-changing discussion and a powerful lesson in Greatness. As I sat with legendary UCLA basketball...