John Beilein at Michigan has the Wolverines in the NCAA tournament in his second season.  Chicago Tribune has the piece via the AP’s Larry Lage

Beilein became one of seven coaches to earn NCAA tournament bids with four teams after doing so at West Virginia, Richmond and Canisius.

It’s safe to say the guy who has never been an assistant coach can coach.

“Coach Beilein deserves 90 percent of the credit because he did a great job in getting us to believe,” standout forward DeShawn Sims said. “Believing has been lost in Ann Arbor since the last time we went to the tournament.
“Once you teach people to believe, it’s easy from there.”

Earlier this week, new Bucs defensive coordinator Jim Bates talked about what he looks for “in a player besides the talent.”

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How much passion does he have to play the game? You can take some great athletes and if they don’t have the passion to play at the highest level it won’t work out. Some of them are great athletes, but if they don’t have a passion to play at the highest level, some of them hit The Peter Principle and can’t play at this level because they can’t adjust and something may be missing.

But once they can play the technique, they have passion, they’re a team player then the guy has a good chance of improving with our coaches and becoming a good football player.

The mental part is also important. If a guy can’t think it will be tough. Some guys get it and some guys are rep guys that need the reps to learn. That is coaching. Our job is to give him the best edge to being successful. The players are looking for help in becoming a better player. That is our job as coaches.

In the words of Muhammad Ali:

“The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road – long before I dance under those lights.”

At 19-4, winners of six of their last seven, Mizzou has already won three more games than all of last season. According to this story in today’s St. Louis paper, increased intensity in practice is one reason for the Tigers’ turnaround.

“Coach [Mike Anderson] (pictured above) is a strong believer that road games are pretty much won by toughness,” said junior guard Zaire Taylor. “He always says, ‘When you go on the road, we need men,’ and that is pretty much the mentality we’ve been taking in practices.

The reason we’ve won our last two games is because of our practices. Ever since we lost at Kansas State, our practices have been like wars. We’ve been taking (hard work) that we’ve been bringing in practices and we’re bringing that same energy into games. The practices have taken a step up.

When I go home from practice now, I feel more bruised than I do after games. The competitive atmosphere is real high. You wouldn’t know we are teammates by the way we get after each other.”

Good excerpt from the book “First In, Last Out” by John Salka, a New York City fire battalion chief.

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Trust comes from consistency. You have to work beforehand to develop it, but even then, what I’ve discovered is that you don’t create trust. Trust comes from your people, not you. When your people see you at the head of the column, being the first one in, facing each danger alongside them, you simply create the conditions that make trust possible. You can’t make trust, you can only make trust possible. That’s because trust is people’s response to you when you act in ways that show them you’ll benefit from following your lead.

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.”

Saw where Georgia ended an 11-game losing skid with a win over Florida yesterday.

According to this note from the Atlanta paper, UGA football coach “Mark Richt deserves at least some credit for inspiring the Bulldogs. At the behest of interim coach Pete Herrmann Richt came and spoke to the team before their Friday afternoon practice.”

“I called Mark and asked him if he’d come over,” Herrmann said. “He’s as respected a person as we have on this campus and I wanted him to, you know, say a few words about what he loves. He loves Georgia. He loves the coaches here at Georgia, he loves the athletes, and he talked about that. And he talked about playing it all the way through.”

During his talk with the team, Coach Richt wrote “GATA” on the board. Translation: “Get after their [butts].”

Said one Georgia player, “He said we have to play for us and that’s what we did.”

Jay Bilas (ESPN College Basketball) made a statement to the players we were working with at one of our summer workouts. That statement has stuck with me, and I use it often with our players to this day. He told the guys, “Don’t just try to get through the workout; try to get from the workout.” This is so true now that the season is getting into the late stages. Not only do the players need to get something out of each skill development session they have, but they must also get something from practice every day as well. The ability of a team or a player to get something from every practice session is what will separate a lot of them from the rest of the pack as the battle for tournament and playoff spots wages on. Human nature says that when fatigue sets in we often will try to just get through this practice or through this skill workout. What successful teams do is understand the need and the importance of each, and that they have to get something from these sessions. The more they get from these sessions the better the chances are for successful results. So as you talk to your team, it’s important to make sure they know that they have a choice each time they walk onto the floor, into the weight room, or even into a film session. They can do what the average teams do and just try to get through the session. Or they can make a championship decision and get something from each session. It takes a little bit higher level of concentration and focus to get something from each session, but it pays much greater rewards in the long run! A simple decision, if you ask me. On a side note, I think this philosophy can apply to coaches and in the corporate setting as well. So often I hear people trying to just get through the day. Yet when I think about the characteristics of successful people, I often find that they seem to get more from their day than others. We all have to make sure that we are not just going to work but that we are getting something from our day — not just getting through our day. Pretty simple…….through or from. Which mindset will make you more productive? Which mindset will make you feel better about your day today?

“Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.”

Napoleon Bonaparte

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.”