It was the most painful of defeats — Game 7 heartbreak for a franchise that hadn’t won a World Series in more than three decades.
But in the days after the Toronto Blue Jays’ loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers last year, manager John Schneider received a handwritten note of encouragement from someone familiar with his agony: Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr.
“To go from not knowing someone at all, to just watching seven games of really wonderful leadership. That really made a mark on me,” said Kerr, who suffered his own painful Game 7 defeat nine years prior.
“I don’t do it all the time, but if I’m moved by someone or a team or whatever, then I’ll write a note and send it off.”
Kerr told The Athletic he received a similar message of support from then-New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton after the Warriors lost the final game of the year in 2016.
“I like the idea of coaches supporting coaches,” Kerr said. “It’s a great profession, but it’s also a hard one.”
Coaches of different sports supporting each other amid tough times was one of the better leadership ideas I’ve read about in recent weeks.
This week’s Best of 7 features six other pieces I’ve read recently with interesting coaching and leadership ideas.
2. Stick to the facts
Broadcaster Ian Eagle has witnessed just about every type of play imaginable over his three-decades-long career. But there was little he could’ve done to prepare for what transpired at the end of last weekend’s Duke-UConn Elite Eight game.
So, how did Eagle navigate the pandemonium of an unexpected Duke turnover, then seconds later, a 35-foot miracle shot that will go down as one of the most famous in NCAA history?
“When it gets frenetic, my main objective is to just make sure that what you’re saying is correct,” Eagle told Sports Illustrated.
“There’s no planning it. There’s no way of predicting how that’s going to go. But I do think leaning on experience and the fundamentals now come into play. Just cover the action. Accurately report what’s happening in front of you. That’s been the mantra for me, especially in those situations where it gets frenetic.”
The message struck me as applicable beyond broadcasting. Amid pressure, uncertainty and high stakes, keep it simple, stick to what’s known, and avoid larger speculation and hyperbole.
3. Play the long game
Tony Vitello’s Major League managerial career hasn’t gotten off to an ideal start.
The new San Francisco Giants manager, who made the leap to the majors after a terrific run at the University of Tennessee, saw his team get swept in the first three games of the season, going scoreless in the first two.
The San Francisco Chronicle insinuated that Vitello might naturally be a bit over-consumed with short-term results — pointing out that he already gave his players a fiery motivational speech that didn’t seem to entirely land.
“Vitello may have been trying to deflect some of the blame for his team’s troubling shortcomings. Or, after eight seasons of rallying the youngsters at Tennessee, it may be that he puts a little too much weight into the impact his speeches can have,” the Chronicle wrote.
The article offered some worthy ideas on the difference between coaching a roughly 60-game season and a 162-game year and the complexity of communicating with pros compared to college players.
4. What the player wants
Tennis coach firings are different from those in other sports as they’re made exclusively by the players themselves instead of a front office or larger organizational body.
Recently, six-time Grand Slam winner Iga Swiatek made the decision to part ways with her long-time coach, Wim Fissette. And while she didn’t explicitly list the reasons for her choice, she offered some valuable insights into what she’s looking for in her next coach.
“Eye to the game. Sensing what a player needs – in the short and long term.
“He must be able to make the right decisions: when to introduce new moves, new exercises, when to start changes in the game, and when to build the game on the strengths of his player.
“In terms of personality, he should be understanding and have good communication skills, because he should be the leader of the team,” she told Tennishead.net.
“He must combine the work of all people and make everything work together.
“It must be someone with whom you just have a good time, because tournaments are long and there (is) also a lot of free time.”
Agree or disagree with her decision and the explanation, but the quote shed some light on what’s important to players beyond strategy and tactics.
5. What works for one doesn’t work for all
As a women’s assistant basketball coach at Xavier University in 2008, Mike Neighbors regularly attended the men’s team’s practices to try to pull ideas from a rising star in the coaching profession: Sean Miller.
Each week, Miller would pass out a different colored practice jersey to his team’s top player as a reward, and Neighbors decided he was going to do the same if he ever became a head coach.
So, when he took over at the University of Washington in 2013, Neighbors spent about $2,000 to make sure he had a uniquely-colored practice jersey in every size.
The problem? The first time one of his players earned it, she didn’t want to wear it — explaining she didn’t want to look different than their teammates.
“That idea completely flopped. Completely fell on its face the first week,” Neighbors told The Athletic.
The piece was an important reminder that just because a particular ritual has buy-in with one particular group doesn’t mean it will garner the same enthusiasm with another.
Cultural habits just about always require customization.
6. Tear down the box
Not a coaching article, but GQ profiled country music star Luke Combs and the apparent contradictions that make it difficult to label him.
“Vulnerability is a big part of Combs’s appeal, and he works hard to reframe exactly what a man in country music looks and behaves like,” GQ wrote. “He loves hunting, fishing, and chugging a beer (he ritually shotguns one at every show), but he speaks openly about being in therapy for OCD, isn’t afraid to cry onstage, and says he wants to make sure he takes on his equal share of both the physical and emotional labor of parenting.”
Asked how these dimensions can co-exist, Combs offered a perspective that seems obvious but is frequently taken for granted.
“People are nuanced,” he told the magazine.
Combs appears to be at peace with the fact that his tastes and preferences are hardly algorithmic.
“He says that some members of his team didn’t understand why he needed a slow, four-minute ballad with the only solo on steel guitar,” GQ wrote. “Not only did Combs insist on keeping it, he went ahead and named the whole album after it.”
7. The 2 types of swearing
Some coaches curse like they breathe. Others can go virtually an entire career without uttering a profanity.
The Athletic featured an interesting piece behind the larger effects of swearing, interviewing a pair of linguistic experts who have conducted studies on its impact on players.
Essentially, they boiled bad language into two categories.
A. Functional swearing
-swearing to inspire someone to accomplish a task that’s part of a larger purpose
-Example: Telling a player, “You’ve got to be f---king aggressive.”
B. Abusive swearing
-typically more personal and degrading in nature
-Example: Telling a player, “You’re too f---king weak to play in this match.”
“Communication is a negotiation. We co-construct meaning,” said Kieran File, an associate linguistics professor at the University of Warwick in England.
“What we find through some of the work we’ve done with coaches is that they’re alarmed at how certain things might be landing.”