Coach Sparks: What Makes A Good Coach?

In today’s speech we will be going over the legendary speech of former men’s basketball coach Jimmy Valvano. We will be taking an in depth look at the speech Jimmy V gave at the first ever ESPY’s award show created by ESPN. In our analysis of this speech we are going to be examining the character of the speaker Mr. Valvano, the audience he was giving the speech to, and the situation it occurred in. We will also be discussing his speech as a whole, touching upon everything from his organizational pattern, to speaking style, and delivery of his speech. From there will look at the impact his speech has made and whether or not it was persuasive enough to show that his call to action actually created a viable outcome afterwards.

Coach Steve Rocker is one of the most successful high school basketball coaches in Kentucky’s history. Coach Rocker was very successful in previous years. Strangely, this year was very different for him. For the first time in his professional life, he is falling short of his expectations, the community expectations, and the team’s expectations. His team lost a lot of games, but most importantly the boys had no motivation or desire to bring the team out of the rut they found themselves. His players have lost their will to win, their love for their teammates, and their passion to play. Coach Rocker’s motivational methods that have always worked before and resulted in success are now failing, and he doesn’t know why. He argues that his players have become selfish and bored with winning because they have been so successful in previous years. “And there’s no question that my guys have lost their drive to win because they’ve won so much in the past. Now all they want is individual ‘wins’…which just doesn’t cut it on a team” (Gongwer, 2010, p. 17).

There are several leadership styles represented in the film “Hoosiers.” This movie brings two different concepts called transactional leadership and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership styles are more concerned with maintaining the normal flow of operations, whereas a transformational leader goes beyond managing the daily tasks for leading their followers to success. Transactional leadership styles also include trying to establish direction, aligning people, they are dedicated to communication, creating teams, motivation and inspiration. A transformational leadership styles basically turn towards to creating the agenda and requests, they are dedicated to planning, policies and procedures. The leader’s job

With the right influence, communication and skill development is the key to a valuable coach. Without my two outstanding high school coaches, I wouldn’t have the love for basketball and track the way I do today. They have taught me everything I needed to know for the present, along with tips for the future. Coach Lewis and Coach Kohler have done more for me than what I’ve ever deserved and I will never be able to pay them back for all their help and encouragement. But I hope they have understanding of how much of a change they can make on someone's life, someone's life like my

It all started with an email seeking freshman male in his coaching and administration program. The 2012 graduate of UConn’s Sport Administration and coaching program, William Aloia, says this future success as the Associate Athletic Director for The College of St. Rose started out by almost” falling into his lap”. The New Jersey native began his undergraduate experience with two Division-I parents, and like an abundance of people he knew that working in sport was something he wanted to do. Previously a part of the Kinesiology department under the late Joe Marrone, Will jumped on the opportunity posted through an email and started his freshman year as a basketball manager for the very successful UConn’s basketball program. He explains how this experience “opened his door up”. Will states; “once I started at UConn working with the women’s basketball program and being around collegiate athletics at such a high level it’s really something in itself, and unbelievable experience. I knew it was for me, I didn’t know which part for sure, but I knew this was something I wanted to do.” What Will realized very quickly realized about working in sport is that often times it is a thankless job. However, that did not stop him from finishing his undergraduate career as a four-year manager for the basketball team. The motivation for Will early in his career has been a two-dimensional illustration of success.

So many Coaches have talent and dedication for what they do. I 'm proud to play for one that has a spectacular history of coaching. That coach is Dennis Lorio, who Graduated from LSU (Louisiana State University) with an economic degree and played baseball. “I love the intensity and the relationship in football” Coach Lorio explaining with a passionate expression. I can see it in his eyes that he is very dedicated and hardworking coach. As of now he is 62 years old and still willing to coach. “It’s not the same without coaching. The joy and the sorrow I feel during the season has been addicted to me. I’ve been in this game almost all my life and that is a very long time.”

Being a men’s head coach could be very difficult. It is a great way for you to be involved with students throughout their high school. To be a head coach you have to put in many hours planning practices and games. Just not anyone can be a head coach. To be a men’s head coach you have to go for many years of college. I want to be a men’s head coach because I love sports, helping people, and seeing student athletes being successful.

In Coach K’s book Leading with the Heart Grant Hill is allowed to write the forward and talk about his coach from the perspective of a new college recruit, and later he speaks as a friend and confidant. What Coach K teaches is about life and leadership. He sets the bar high so you can 1) strive to be the best you can be; 2) appreciate the value and rewards of a hard work ethic; 3) build close relationships based on trust; 4) set shared goals; 5) sacrifice and give of yourself; 6) win with humility; 7) lose with dignity; 8) turn a negative into appositive; 9) be a part of something bigger than yourself; and, 10) enjoy the journey (Krzyzewski, pg x).

I chose to review “Leading with the Heart Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business and Life” Mike Krzyzewski, Donald T. Phillips, and Grant Hill (Forward), 2001. The book is written by Duke Basketball coach Krzyzewski, in it he recalls some of his most significant games and events in his career. He also offers advice to anyone who is trying to do better in life. Coach K, "There are five fundamental qualities that make every team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring and pride." The book has four sections; Preseason, Regular Season, Postseason, and All-Season. Each section four chapters. In each chapter he provides readers with an understanding into how he selects, learns about, and builds his team.

In life, you encounter many situations and people that aid in molding you into the person you are meant to be. When these instances in time occur, we may not realize it, but looking back they made a huge impact on our lives. For the past four years, I have been a member of the Navarro Runnin’ Lady Panthers Basketball Team, and while the sport itself taught me many lessons and skills I can use to be successful, there was one coach that managed to do the same.

Pat Summitt and Mike Krzyzewski are legendary coaches icons that will always be remembered for their lifetime achievements and winning the championships in a unique style. It’s tranquil to say that they are great coaches but what enhanced their ability to be even better was their capability to showcase transformational leadership and emotional intelligence. These two individuals have set a new standard for what the coaches should instill in their personal values to allow them to be consistent in the efforts to inspire a vison, challenge the process, encourage the heart, enable others to act, and model the way.

Coach Carter also displays transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is the ability of a leader to get people to do more than they originally expected to do in support of large scale innovation and change; the leader inspire and excite followers to high level of performance (Nelson & Quick, 2013). According to Marquis & Huston (1992), there are five key qualities of a transformational leader. One of the qualities is having the passion and ability to inspire. Transformational leaders show passion in their work and have the capacity to pass this passion on to others. Coach Carter is successful in achieving this through setting clear expectations and demonstrates passion when doing this. At their first team meeting, Carter hands each student a contract, setting out his expectations of the contracts. If they do not sign and follow it, they do not play. Coach Carter aims to pass on his passion to the players enabling them to succeed in playing sports and succeed in their education. Another quality transformational leaders possess is the ability to pass their values on to others. According to Marquis & Huston (1992), people admire leaders that support their own values and beliefs by enabling others to understand how their own values make them who they are. Coach Carter encourages a team ethic throughout. Carter ensures his team takes this on board by stopping everyone from playing – academic achiever or not. He’s teaching that successful teams succeed because of

Charles Barkley once said, “I am not a role model. I am not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I can dunk a basketball does not mean I should raise your kids.” No adult has a choice as to whether a child looks up to him or her, but parents are responsible for raising their children as best they can. The first role models or leaders in most children’s lives are in fact their parents; although they may not be the best role models, they are often the figures that children first learn from. Even if there was a perfect parent, that should not limit a child from observing other leaders. John Wooden, considerably the most successful basketball coach in NCAA history, led the UCLA Bruins to 10 NCAA championships with an all-time win-loss coaching record 885-203 (UCLA site). A Game Plane for Life: The Power of Mentoring, is a collection Wooden’s anecdotes related to leadership and the applications of those methods to his coaching practices. Observing leaders from the past allowed Wooden to envision clarity in the future; a clarified vision of the future gave Wooden more power in the present. John Wooden was a consistent and prepared leader who fostered a community of trust and knew his values.

The coach is focussed, determined, tenacious, hard – even ruthless- but never cruel. His resolve to overcome all obstacles and challenges in pursuit of the agreed goal is unshakeable. No matter how many setbacks, he has the resilience to keep coming back, to keep fighting. He always has heart for the fight. He persistently seeks for the advantage and no matter how small that is, he will seize it and maximise its value. He is devoted to

The next season we improved a lot as a team because coach Specht made adjustments and fixed the problems we had the year before. That’s what makes him a great coach because he was willing to adapt and be open minded to other ways of playing. Also he would ask the players what they thought about things, that is something I really liked because the players see the game different than the coaches. Before every game he would ask me what I thought about the lineup and what our game plan should be in the game. If we were having a bad game or if things weren’t going the right way, I would be the first person he would come to find out what we need to fix. Having a coach that trusts a player this much is rare most coaches don’t listen to what the players have to say.