At the White Sox spring training facility in Arizona, manager Ozzie Guillen had a private meeting with a group of veteran players.

During the meeting, Coach Guillen says he asked what he “needed to change to make the ballclub better, my expectation for them with the ballclub, different ideas.”

“I want them to take charge with the ballclub. Last year I was a little [too] involved with [players' problems]. But I have to be open. I wanted to know if [something] bothered them or not. If nothing bothers [those veterans], then I’m not going to [get involved]. You have to be aware of what the players think and what are the expectations for them.

They want me to be me. It was no big deal. Before spring training starts, I always talk to the players about what I have to do to get better, what I have to do to make sure the team is better.

After the meeting, Coach Guillen made it clear who is accountable in the end, saying:
“I’m the leader of this ballclub. I’m the face of this thing.”

At the All-Star beak, the Blazers are 12 games over .500 with a 20-5 home record.

As this article describes, Portland GM Kevin Pritchard began setting the groundwork at the 2006 NBA draft when he “took out a red pen and wrote: ‘We’re Back!!!’ on a board in a hotel room.”

Pritchard’s background has prepared him well for his current role in Portland. He played four seasons at Kansas for Larry Brown and Roy Williams before playing four seasons in the NBA.

He coached at the college level and in the minor leagues, then scouted for the Spurs under GM R.C. Buford. He’s also worked in player personnel and, in 2005, coached the Blazers on an interim basis. In 2007, he took over as POR’s GM.

“I first wanted to change the culture, have both talent and good guys,” Pritchard said. “It’s all about team, putting individual awards and statistics last and put the team first. I can only control what I can control,” Pritchard said. “There are a lot of opinions out there. We focus on us. We try to do the best we can do, learn from everything that happens and move forward. We have a very good coach and guys that play the right way. You have to get lucky and gel together. We need our young guys to grow. And they are growing.”

Good story here about what it takes to be an effective team captain.

According to Steve Yzerman, who served as captain of the Detroit Red Wings for 20 years, the key is authenticity:

“You have to be yourself,” he says. “I don’t think there’s any one particular personality that’s right to be a captain of a team. Whether a guy is real vocal or real outgoing, I think is irrelevant.”

Before the season, his first as coach of the SJ Sharks, Todd McLellan took Sharks captain Patrick Marleau (shown here) to dinner. It was over dinner that McLellan outlined his expectations for the team’s captain.

In Coach McLellan’s words, “I told him the role I expected him to fulfill… We don’t need a cheerleader, and I think sometimes that’s what the vision of a captain is, the rah-rah guy. We need a guy that, when he stands up, people get quiet, and they look at him, and they want to hear what he has to say. His actions have to match his words.”

That brief discussion, says Marleau, was all it took:

“Having that conversation about what was expected out of me, he set it out and made it pretty simple for me to know what he needed.”

John W. Gardner was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under Lyndon Johnson. He was a great American, advocate for education and wise thinker. Gardner said, “The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive.”

His words couldn’t be timelier.