Wooden's Wisdom | Leadership Resource Center

Issue 579 - "Look at Me" is not a good look.


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 12	Issue 579
Craig Impelman Speaking \| Championship Coaches \| Champion's Leadership Library Login
"LOOK AT ME" IS NOT A GOOD LOOK. John Wooden Video Clip (2 min. 17 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked: "Tell us how you went about preparing for UCLA practices?" John Wooden was clear about his feelings on showmanship: "I detest showmanship. I didn't permit showmanship and I don't like it at all." In his book Wooden on Leadership, with Steve Jamison, Coach expounded on this topic: "No one player should take credit for the effort of all the others. That is the primary reason I strongly discouraged individuality—showboating or flamboyance—in the context of team play. Showing off or doing something contrived to gain attention for oneself not only demeans that individual, it is dismissive of the effort made by all of the other team members. A player who is thumping his chest after he makes a basket is acknowledging the wrong person." If you played for John Wooden you were required to acknowledge your teammate for a good pass with a quick point or nod. If you demonstrated showmanship, you came out of the game. I find it disconcerting to see more and more professional and college basketball players display three fingers after they make a three-point shot. My primary concern is that now high school and grammar school players are doing the same thing. We should be setting an example of teamwork not more of "look at me"! We are building the leaders of tomorrow. "Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own" is a better leadership philosophy than Hey, look at what I just did. The need to be looked at and needing the approval of others is not good for a youngster’s (or anybody’s) mental health and social media used improperly does not help. We have too many youngsters already basing their happiness on how many "likes" they get. As coaches we should do more than nothing about the ever-increasing amount of showmanship. Sports are supposed to develop character. What will you do? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 579. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 579. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE The Temple – What Makes It Of Worth You may delve down to rock for your foundation piers, You may go with your steel to the sky You may purchase the best of the thought of the years, And the finest of workmanship buy. You may line with the rarest of marble each hall, And with gold you may tint it; but then It is only a building if it, after all, Isn't filled with the spirit of women and men. You may put up a structure of brick and of stone, Such as never was put up before; Place there the costliest woods that are grown, And carve every pillar and door. You may fill it with splendors of quarry and mine, With the glories of brush and of pen — But it's only a building, though ever so fine, If it hasn't the spirit of women and men. You may build such structure that lightning can't harm, Or one that an earthquake can't raze; You may build it of granite, and boast that its charm Shall last to the end of all days. But you might as well never have builded at all, Never cleared off the bog and the fen, If, after it's finished, its sheltering wall Doesn't stand for the spirit of women and men. For it isn't the marble, nor is it the stone Nor is it the columns of steel, By which is the worth of an edifice known; But it's something that's living and real. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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