Wooden's Wisdom | Leadership Resource Center

Issue 696 - How Coach Wooden Learned to Plan Like a Champion


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 696
Craig Impelman Speaking \| Championship Coaches \| Champion's Leadership Library Login
HOW COACH WOODEN LEARNED TO PLAN LIKE A CHAMPION John Wooden Video Clip (99 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked: "What happened if a player was not playing their best?" Coach Wooden chose Industriousness: "There is no substitute for work. Worthwhile results come from hard work and careful planning." Ask yourself three questions: 1.Do I work hard? Or take shortcuts? 2. Do I feel the goal I am pursuing is worthwhile? 3. What are my habits in terms of careful planning? The next step in using the Pyramid is to determine how to master these three skills. Coach Wooden was only a master of #’s 1 and 2 when he began his coaching career. When John Wooden began coaching high school basketball in the 1930s, he didn’t plan his practices. He came to practice and taught what thought was needed that day. How did Coach Wooden become a master of #3: careful planning? Coach Wooden changed his methods after he observed a Notre Dame football practice led by Hall of Fame coach Frank Leahy. Every drill, every movement ran with perfect timing. The whole practice was perfectly orchestrated and ran with the precision of a Swiss watch. Coach Wooden returned to South Bend Central and began planning his practices like he planned his English classes. Over time, his skill grew into mastery. When he coached at UCLA, his daily planning routine looked like this: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Staff planning meeting. No interruptions (except urgent family matters). Post-practice: Sit in the locker room with assistants and review notes on what went well and what didn’t. Before dinner: Go to his office, open that day’s practice sheet, and write detailed reflections. Next morning: Review that exact day’s practices from the past three years—with notes—and make targeted changes. Each drill was planned to the minute. If a drill was scheduled for 5 minutes, he stopped it after 5 minutes—even if it was going poorly. He would make a note on his practice card: "Not enough time allotted for this drill." Over time, with constant improvement and implementation of consistent routines (rituals), extraordinary pre practice and post practice, careful planning became a daily habit of routine excellence, not just a phrase on the Pyramid of Success. How do you plan your day? How do you review the effectiveness of your efforts? What systems are you improving over time? "If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?" Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 696. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 696. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE A Choice Sure, they get stubborn at times; they worry and fret us a lot, But I'd rather be crossed by a glad little boy and frequently worried than not. There are hours when they get on my nerves and set my poor brain all awhirl, But I'd rather be troubled that way than to be the man who has no little girl. There are times they're a nuisance, that's true, with all of their racket and noise, But I'd rather my personal pleasures be lost than to give up my girls and my boys. Not always they're perfectly good; there are times when they're wilfully bad, But I'd rather be worried by youngsters of mine than lonely and childless and sad. So I try to be patient and calm whenever they're having their fling; For the sum of their laughter and love is more than the worry they bring. And each night when sweet peace settles down and I see them asleep in their cot, I chuckle and say: 'They upset me to-day, but I'd rather be that way than not.' Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
For more information visit www.woodenswisdom.com