Dean I believe it is all in the attitude. I played in two national final fours in college and coached in 3 with the U of Calgary. In Bemidji Coach Peters stated at a dinner with eveyone present that "we are here for the whole apple and not for the apple sauce." there was never an option of not winnig but most importantly not do eveything it takes to win. This was drilled on us from day one. When we scored or they scored we all knew why the goal happened. Clarity
All three times we went to the final four when I was asst. coach at the U of Calgary we were ranked #1 in Canada and we never won. In my opinion as a former player I thought we changed everything so much when we got to Toronto that the players were not comfortable and all three time underachieved.. (just my thought and I could be full of sh---).
Good insights Tom. (I don't think you are full of sh1T!) It would be interesting to talk to the other members of the coaching staff to get their feelings. Did you guys debrief as a group? Do you have any other recollections of why you didn't win with the group at U of C?
What about while at Bemidji? Reasons?
I love the comment about "the whole apple" in relation to the "applesauce." Clarity - define the goals / culture and then hold the team / players / staff accountable to that standard. Attitude is SO important.
I think a quote attributed to Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can or can't... you are probably right!"
(Hmmm, this stuff maybe should go under "The Art of Coaching" thread...)
PS Dinner with Olli and his family was very nice. Some good discussion surrounding the teaching systems in Finland, Canada, and abroad.
----------------------
Dean in Bemidji Coach Peters started talking about winning the Championship from Day one. At that time hockey didn't start until October and we did 6 weeks of off ice training which consisted of a lot of running intervals. In my first year it finished with a 10 mile run around the lake and after that it was 20 miles, 10 around the lake and 3 times around the golf course. I think the 10 was better because it was doable for hockey players. This set the tone for the entire season. There was clarity in how we played in all situations. By todays standards the practices were primitive and every week was the same sequence as the last. (better than when I played in the AJHL and we would scrimmage while our coach drank a bottle of wiskey with the owner and then stagger onto the ice and bag skate us for 20 or 30 minutes to end practice.) Two of our D played for the silver medal winning USA Olympic team in 72; so that helped as well.
In 90 at U of C we got unlucky. We were leading 4-2 with 2 min. left and 2 players from the Hat wouldn't come off. The winger near the boards changed 3 times. Finally exhausted one of them tried to sit on the puck and they picked it up and bankded it off one of our D with 1:52 left. They got another off two shin pads after Bracko had gone end to end and put it in the far corner only to hit the knob of their goalies stick. We went to OT and they won with a tip in off our D's stick when he tried to block it. Willy was coaching.
In 95 and 96 we played our worst games of the season at the Nationals after sweeping the U of A. The team core was recruited by Willy before he went to Japan to coach. We got about 8 top major junior players in the 93-94 season and enticed them with a 3 week tour of Scandanavia that I arranged. Jason K still holds the record for most pp goals in major junior hockey. I never sensed the same committment to hard work at Calgary as there was and still is at Bemidji.
The Pros and Cons of the Tutor Stampede
By ALINA TUGEND
Published: October 22, 2010 NY Times
I’M well aware that many parents in my community assume that hiring tutors — whether to help their children with learning difficulties or to bump up already high scores — will be as much a part of the cost of school as backpacks and calculators.
But I was somewhat surprised this summer when I found out that several boys on my son’s travel baseball team had instructors who gave them individualized lessons throughout the year.
Private batting instruction for Little League? I somewhat self-righteously told friends that this had all gone too far. What about those who couldn’t afford it? Are they going to get squeezed to the bottom of the Little League ladder?
And what about just letting our children figure things out on their own? I agreed with a friend who wondered what was next — hiring a tutor to make snowmen in the winter?
Then, a few weeks later, I accidentally ended up having some private tennis lessons, when other members of my class failed to show up. And while I’m not off to Wimbledon, my tennis did improve remarkably.
Seeing how helpful some one-on-one lessons were for me, my husband and I offered to pay for a few individualized batting lessons for our younger son. And guess what? He also improved — and even more important, understood the mechanics of batting far more than he ever had.
But I still questioned whether those of us in affluent communities — not just in the New York area, but across the country — had gone too far in the tutoring arena. Besides expanding the ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots, are we also turning every activity into an intensive training session rather than an opportunity to simply have fun?
I don’t know what Americans spend on private music and art and sports lessons, but according to Edward E. Gordon, president of the Imperial Consulting Corporation and one of the authors of “The Tutoring Revolution” (Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2006), they now pay about $15 billion collectively on academic tutors. That’s a lot of money.
So I talked to a few people, some of whom have thought about how much children have to do today and some of whom have written about what it takes to perfect skills in any area. Daniel Coyle, author of “The Talent Code” (Bantam Books, 2009) has written extensively about how people get to the top in a given field.
“I’m very ambivalent” about private instruction, Mr. Coyle said. “A whole industry has risen up where there wasn’t one before, and the irony is, as effective as a lot of it is, all this machinery of coaches and tutors can increase skill, but decrease motivation. The kids can end up losing ownership.”
But Mr. Coyle agreed that there were certainly times when such instruction could be helpful.
“There’s a lot of upside to listening to an expert,” he said. “Coaches and teachers have a lot to offer. I would just hate losing that amateur spirit.”
What about piling more and more on children, many of whom are already running from one activity to another?
“Over-scheduling is a real problem,” said Alvin Rosenfeld, co-author of “The Over-Scheduled Child,” (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000) and a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “But this is a separate and very different issue.”
“If your kid wants to be better at a sport, why not get private instruction?” he said. “I’ve seen kids who are clumsy on the soccer fields and with five to six lessons, it gets them up to an adequate level.”
The crucial point, however, is that the push should come from the child, not the parent. And everyone needs to be realistic about the goal.
Before rushing into three days a week of lessons and an intensive summer camp, “parents have to get an idea of the statistics,” Dr. Rosenfeld said. He noted that “some 440,000 boys will play in competitive basketball games in the fourth grade.” But, he said: “About 4,000 will play in college. And about 30 will get into the N.B.A.”
It is also critical, he said, to separate the good instructors from the bad. And to know what your child needs: a tough taskmaster or a gentle encourager?
Vicki Abeles, director of the recently released documentary “Race to Nowhere” about stressed and over-programmed students, does not see tutoring and private instruction so benignly.
“I’m not saying it’s all bad or all good, but it bears looking at,” she said. “Academic tutoring used to be remedial, but now the vast majority is doing it because parents and educators want students to be competitive.”
She also wondered whether hiring tutors and instructors whenever a child faced difficulty might mean “we’re sending the message that they can’t do this on their own.” She added: “They don’t learn to struggle. I’ve talked to college professors who say kids still send their essays home or to tutors to be looked at.”
I decided to talk to Ralph Vasami, who helped improve my son’s batting average, to get his take on all this. He played baseball at the University of Pennsylvania and now along with his brother, Chris, coaches many children in our community for around $75 an hour and $40 for half an hour.
“The first thing Ralph and I do, before the kid even takes a swing, is ask what the goal is,” said Chris Vasami, who plays in the minor leagues for the New Jersey Jackals. “Most people are pretty realistic. They want their son or daughter not to be afraid of the ball, or not be afraid to swing and miss.”
Some of the Vasamis’ students want to make the high school team or have a shot at a college team, the Vasamis said, but both the parents and students have to realize how much they will have to work outside of the private lesson.
“It’s like someone can sit in class and take notes, but are they equipped to take the tests unless they study in addition?” Ralph Vasami said.
Mr. Gordon, who has been writing about tutoring for years, said he believed the majority of parents who hired someone to help their child with academics did it because the child was struggling, not to increase already high scores.
“That may be very true in Manhattan, but it doesn’t reflect the reality of what goes on in the American landscape,” Mr. Gordon said.
The most important thing a tutor can do is “help a child learn how to learn,” he said. And parents have to realize that teaching and tutoring involve different skills.
“Tutoring is precise individual instruction,” he said. “A tutor should give some understanding of the child’s issues — not just that he has trouble in English or math, but why they exist.”
It’s also important to remember that “tutoring should not be a lifelong crutch for a child,” Mr. Gordon said. “The purpose of tutoring is to help a child learn how to go about the learning process. If a child does wonderfully with a tutor, but terribly in a classroom, what’s the point?”
The use of tutors and private instructors has certainly increased over the years, but Dr. Rosenfeld recalled that he received the help of a great tutor in preparing for the SATs back in the early 1960s.
“He taught smart Jewish kids from Brooklyn who wanted to get into the elite schools,” said Dr. Rosenfeld, who did well enough to attend Cornell University and then Harvard Medical School.
The name of the tutor? Stanley Kaplan.
The Many Errors in Thinking About Mistakes
By ALINA TUGEND
Published: November 24, 2007 NY Times
OF the many mistakes I have no doubt made over the last few weeks, two stand out: One cost me money and one cost me some pride.
I made an error in an article, and of the thousands who read it, a few gleefully e-mailed me about it.
I corrected it, although I sheepishly admit my first — though fleeting — instinct was to avoid owning up.
In the second case, in a flurry of zealous organization, I sent in a check to cover a bill for my husband’s monthly train pass. It turns out that he pays by direct debit. I canceled the check.
Then we got a notice that we were being charged $20 for a bounced check.
Neither mistake was on the scale, with, say, amputating the wrong leg or causing two planes to collide.
But they bothered me and made me consider how we are taught to think of mistakes in our society.
“I think it’s a very difficult subject,” said Paul J. H. Schoemaker, chairman of Decision Strategies International and teaches marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “There’s a lot of ambivalence around making mistakes.”
On one hand, as children we’re taught that everyone makes mistakes and that the great thinkers and inventors embraced them. Thomas Edison’s famous quote is often inscribed in schools and children’s museums: “I have not failed. I have just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.”
On the other hand, good grades are usually a reward for doing things right, not making errors. Compliments are given for having the correct answer and, in fact, the wrong one may elicit scorn from classmates.
We grow up with a mixed message: making mistakes is a necessary learning tool, but we should avoid them.
Carol S. Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, has studied this and related issues for decades.
“Studies with children and adults show that a large percentage cannot tolerate mistakes or setbacks,” she said. In particular, those who believe that intelligence is fixed and cannot change tend to avoid taking chances that may lead to errors.
Often parents and teachers unwittingly encourage this mind-set by praising children for being smart rather than for trying hard or struggling with the process.
For example, in a study that Professor Dweck and her researchers did with 400 fifth graders, half were randomly praised as being “really smart” for doing well on a test; the others were praised for their effort.
Then they were given two tasks to choose from: an easy one that they would learn little from but do well, or a more challenging one that might be more interesting but induce more mistakes.
The majority of those praised for being smart chose the simple task, while 90 percent of those commended for trying hard selected the more difficult one.
The difference was surprising, Professor Dweck said, especially because it came from one sentence of praise.
They were then given another test, above their grade level, on which many performed poorly. Afterward, they were asked to write anonymously about their experience to another school and report their scores. Thirty-seven percent of those who were told they were smart lied about their scores, while only 13 percent of the other group did.
“One thing I’ve learned is that kids are exquisitely attuned to the real message, and the real message is, ‘Be smart,’” Professor Dweck said. “It’s not, ‘We love it when you struggle, or when you learn and make mistakes.’”
As we get older, many of us invest a great deal in being right. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do, we focus on flagellating ourselves, blaming someone else or covering it up. Or we rationalize it by saying others make even more mistakes.
What we do not want to do, most of the time, is learn from the experience.
Professor Dweck, who wrote a book on the subject called “Mindset” (Random House, 2006), proved this point in another study, this one of college students. They were divided into two camps: those who did readings about how intelligence is fixed, and those who learned that intelligence could grow and develop if you worked at it.
The students then took a very tough test on which most did badly. They were given the option of bolstering their self-esteem in two ways: looking at scores and strategies of those who did worse or those who did better.
Those in the fixed mind-set chose to compare themselves with students who had performed worse, as opposed to those Professor Dweck refers to as in “the growth mind-set,” who more frequently chose to learn by looking at those who had performed better.
Mr. Schoemaker would agree. He was the co-author of a June 2006 article for the Harvard Business Review called “The Wisdom of Deliberate Mistakes.” Among its theories is that there is too much focus on outcome rather than on process.
If businesses and people are not making a certain number of mistakes, “they’re playing it too safe,” he said.
The resistance to making mistakes runs deep, he writes, but it is necessary for the following reasons, which he outlined in the article:
¶We are overconfident. “Inexperienced managers make many mistakes and learn from them. Experienced managers may become so good at the game they’re used to playing that they no longer see ways to improve significantly. They may need to make deliberate mistakes to test the limits of their knowledge.”
¶We are risk-averse because “our personal and professional pride is tied up in being right. Employees are rewarded for good decisions and penalized for failures, so they spend a great deal of time and energy trying not to make mistakes.”
¶We tend to favor data that confirms our beliefs.
¶We assume feedback is reliable, although in reality it is often lacking or misleading. We don’t often look outside tested channels.
Of course, there are mistakes and then there are mistakes.
“With children, you want them to make mistakes, but not end up in prison or in a wheelchair,” Mr. Schoemaker said. One also has to weigh the consequences. We want people who run nuclear power plants or fly planes to avoid mistakes as much as possible.
But most of us are not holding people’s lives in our hands and can stand to take a few more chances.
“Unfortunately, the people who most need to make mistakes are the ones least likely to admit it, and the same is true of companies,” Mr. Schoemaker wrote.
Of course, there are stupid mistakes, or what Stanley M. Gully, associate professor at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University, called “unintelligent failures.”
After all, nobody wants a worker who keeps making the same mistake, and “if we fail and don’t learn from it, it’s not an intelligent failure,” he said.
Professor Gully and other researchers have looked at ways of training people to do complex tasks and found that in some cases encouraging them to make mistakes works better than teaching them to avoid them.
Those who were good at processing information, open to learning and not overly conscientious were more effectively trained if they were persuaded to make mistakes.
“We get fixated on achievement,” he said, but, “everyone is talking about the need to innovate. If you already know the answer, it’s not learning. In most personal and business contexts, if you avoid the error, you avoid the learning process.”
But old habits die hard. I want to be more open to — or less afraid of — making mistakes. But if you catch an error in this column, do me a favor. Keep it to yourself.
For the ethics file...
Toronto Star
Hockey coach faces ban for opposing racial slur
December 03, 2010
Kate Allen
Coach Greg Walsh pulled his Peterborough minor league hockey team off the ice after an opposing player hurled a racial slur at one of his teenaged team members and no one apologized.
Two weeks later, Walsh is watching his house league team from the stands while he serves an indefinite suspension from the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA). Meanwhile, the player who used the taunt and his two coaches received three-day penalties and are playing again.
Because of a Hockey Canada rule on “refusing to start play,” Walsh could be barred from coaching for up to a year.
“I acted in the best interest of the kids I represent as coach of the hockey team, and I’m prepared to accept any punishment that was given, he said. “Whether it’s fair, whether its not . . . that’s not my decision.”
Others are less diplomatic. “We’re supposed to be in it for the kids, but we’re just running into hurdles of bureaucracy,” said John Gardner, president of the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL).
The target of the slur, Andrew McCullum, 16, is simply angry. “He wanted to make a statement that he does not tolerate racism,” McCullum said of his coach.
The incident occurred at a Nov. 15 game between two Peterborough Minor Hockey Association teams. McCullum, who has played for Walsh’s NAPA Auto Parts team for years, and a boy who plays for the Austin Trophies got into an on-ice confrontation.
They were sent to the penalty box for two minutes, where “we were chirping each other,” McCullum recalled.
The other boy then called him “the N-word.” The referee didn’t hear it, so couldn’t impose a penalty.
The Austin Trophies coach benched his player for part of that period. But when the boy was put back on the ice the next period without offering an apology, Walsh was furious.
“In order for us as a team to protect our player from that, we said that we weren’t going to play and we went to the dressing room. Simple as that,” he said.
Walsh’s players were changing out of their uniforms before the referee’s two-minute window for the team to reconsider was over. “They seemed pretty angry,” McCullum said.
According to the Hockey Canada rulebook, any official responsible for a team withdrawing from the ice and failing to return may be suspended for up to a year. Walsh is prevented from coaching until a hearing to determine the extent of his punishment for breaking that rule.
OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan said that while Walsh may not be suspended for an entire year, he expects the coach will suffer some penalty. “He has breached the regulations, and that’s suspendable, so I don’t know how long it’s going to be.”
Ropchan agreed the rule is “harsh,” but added: “It’s really clear on what happens if you remove a team from a game, for whatever reason.”
The OMHA merely enforces the rules set by Hockey Canada, he said, adding Walsh didn’t have to force the game to end for the Austin Trophies player and coaches to be punished.
Other coaches have suffered suspensions under the same rule for removing their team from play when kids have been injured by much larger players on the opposing team, according to another OMHA official.
Todd Jackson, a senior manager at Hockey Canada, said the regulation “allows the minor hockey associations to deal with different situations on a case-by-case basis.”
Walsh knew he could face suspension for the decision, and the referee warned him about the rule at the time. Asked whether he thinks the outcome fair, he laughed. “Under the circumstances, certainly not. But a rule is a rule.”
But the GTHL’s Gardner said that “we can be over-regulated.” He added, “I always say, if you want to do well in Ottawa politics, get into hockey for a year or two.”
McCullum said it’s the second time in two seasons another player has used the same slur against him.
Following a Star investigation into racism and violence in minor hockey last year, this season the GTHL changed the penalty for discriminatory taunts to an indefinite suspension — up from a three-game suspension like the one McCullum’s opponent received.
Carl Friday, a senior GTHL referee, said he thinks those penalties should be applied everywhere. “If every league were to go to that, it would show a unified decision,” he said.
Gardner agreed that “you’ve got to speed up in order to catch up with the times.”
Austin Trophies coach John Welsh said the offending player is a good kid who deeply regrets the incident. A letter of apology has been written and McCullum will receive it soon, he said, adding he thinks Walsh’s suspension is taking too long to be resolved.
Walsh’s team continues to play without a coach but still stands behind his decision, said manager Tracy Groombridge.
“We just want to play hockey.”
Ongoing discussion between Major Junior and NCAA
College hockey becoming bigger pipeline to NHL
By Kevin Allen, USA TODAY
December 3 2010
The NHL, once resistant to having an abundance of former college hockey players, could soon reach the point where one of three players has an NCAA background.
According to the NHL, 225 of the 789 players (28.5%) who have played at least one game this season are former college players. That list doesn't include New York Islanders regular Kyle Okposo, a former University of Minnesota player, and a few other ex-collegians who have been hurt all season.
"I think you are going see that number hitting at least 35% in the next few years," said Paul Kelly, executive director of College Hockey Inc., a marketing arm for the sport.
The primary feeder system has always been Canadian junior hockey, which best mimics the NHL's style of play and schedule length. That program continues to produce many top NHL stars, including Steven Stamkos, Sidney Crosby and Drew Doughty.
But Central Collegiate Hockey Association Commissioner Tom Anastos said it's not unthinkable that the college player representation in the NHL could grow beyond 35%
"I wouldn't be surprised that someday that we would see 35% to 40% of NHL players coming out of our system," Anastos said. "I don't know if it would take another 10 or 15 years, but the number is going to continue to grow."
Kelly says the loss of Russian players to the Kontinental Hockey League and the reduced number of quality players coming out of Slovakia and the Czech Republic are contributing to college hockey's rising stature.
Over the past three years, 34.6% (218 of 630) of all draft picks were college players or players who had committed to play college hockey. NHL teams own the rights to about 200 players still in college.
"The number of signings of college free agents has also trended upward over the last few years," Kelly said. "The late bloomers … Tyler Bozak, Christian Hanson, Casey Wellman, kids that weren't drafted at age 18."
Kelly says 20 to 25 NHL scouts usually are at Merrimack College games to look at undrafted center Stephane Da Costa.
"I think … college hockey has become more of a realistic option if you have dreams of playing in the NHL," said Los Angeles Kings defenseman Jack Johnson, who played for Michigan. "There are more college programs becoming more competitive across the country. It's not just a select few."
The NHL outlook has come a long way from the 1980s, when college players would arrive at training camps knowing they had more to prove than Canadian juniors.
"It was just a harder climb up the hill if you were from college," said former NHL player Tom Laidlaw, who went from Northern Michigan to the New York Rangers in 1980.
Laidlaw said college players back then had to prove they were willing to fight through injuries and would battle for their teammates.
"I was Canadian so it was a bit easier," Laidlaw said. "It was worse to be an American college player back then because the perception was that an American hadn't lived the game like a Canadian had."
St. Louis Blues defenseman Erik Johnson, who played college hockey at Minnesota, said the indication of change to him is that a lot more Canadians are starting to go to college.
"The only downside is that college doesn't let you go to NHL training camps," Johnson said. "If college would let you go and try out for the pro teams, it would be a more ideal destination for more players."
Canadian juniors continue to be the biggest pipeline to the NHL, claiming 50% of picks in the last three drafts. But as Nashville Predators general manager David Poile said, "We will and do go anywhere to find players."
"Junior is still very good," he said. "But college hockey is very good. European hockey is very good. We have players now from Denmark, and Anze Kopitar is Slovenian."
The college influence has even climbed into management ranks. Ten NHL general managers hold college backgrounds.
"Our development system is as good as there is in the world right now," Anastos said.
By the numbers
A breakdown of college representation among NHL players. The list of colleges on the left includes anyone who has played one NHL game this season. The list of teams on the right includes active players and those on the injured list.
College
Players
Team
Players
Wisconsin
18
Colorado
11
Boston College
17
Los Angeles
11
Michigan
17
San Jose
11
Boston Univeristy
15
Florida
11
North Dakota
12
Tampa Bay
10
Michigan State
11
Chicago
10
Minnesota
11
New Jersey
9
Clarkson
8
Pittsburgh
9
Ohio State
7
St. Louis
9
Maine
6
N.Y. Islanders
9
Colorado College
5
Buffalo
8
Dartmouth
5
Anaheim
8
Denver
5
Vancouver
8
Miami (Ohio)
5
Calgary
6
Notre Dame
5
Edmonton
6
Princeton
5
Ottawa
6
Vermont
5
Carolina
5
Harvard
4
Columbus
5
Massachusetts
4
Detroit
5
Michigan Tech
4
Minnesota
5
Nebraska-Omaha
4
Montreal
5
New Hampshire
4
N.Y. Rangers
5
Providence
4
Toronto
5
St. Cloud
4
Philadelphia
4
Western Michigan
4
Washington
4
Alaska-Fairbanks
3
Atlanta
3
Bowling Green
3
Boston
3
Colgate
3
Dallas
3
Cornell
3
Phoenix
3
Minnesota State-Mankato
3
Nashville
2
Minnesota-Duluth
3
Northern Michigan
3
St. Lawrence
3
Yale
3
Alaska-Anchorage
2
Lake Superior
2
Massachusetts Lowell
2
Bemidji State
1
Ferris State
1
McGill
1
RPI
1
Heard about this fellow on Jim Rome's daily sports radio show. He apparently recently gave up his position at Ameritrade to become an assistant coach in NCAA football - his intent is to become a full-time coach! Wow! I am sure he is financially well off so the career change is something he can pursue without worrying about financial repercussions... I am jealous! (The article below is over a year old - I think Joe has stepped away from Ameritrade and was volunteering his time for free this past year...) I think his business experience will be a solid asset to the student-athletes he is involved with - acting as a mentor to prepare for life after football. I think to a large degree, we fall short on this piece in hockey - we have blinders on while we help kids pursue the dream - and there is a much more important world out there - waiting to be discovered once the hockey career is over!
Courtesy: NU Media Relations Release: 07/16/2009
http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=204762446
TD AMERITRADE Chairman Moglia NU's New Life Skills, Leadership Consultant
The Nebraska Athletic Department today announced that beginning July 29, Joe Moglia, chairman of TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation, will work under the direction of Nebraska Associate Athletic Director Keith Zimmer and will be the life skills and leadership consultant for football.
Moglia will join Nebraska’s nationally prominent Life Skills Department, which provides services in the areas of personal and team education on societal issues, career counseling and education, and community outreach to the University’s current and former student-athletes.
In this role, Moglia will help encourage student-athletes to focus on career aspirations after football, whether immediately following college or after a career in the National Football League or another professional athletic organization.
Moglia is donating his services to the University in his new position and remains chairman of the board at TD AMERITRADE. He will help Nebraska student-athletes better understand their unique leadership roles and how they can best exemplify the responsibility of being ambassadors for the University of Nebraska.
Prior to his career in financial services, which most recently included eight years as chief executive officer of TD AMERITRADE, Moglia coached football for 16 years. He was the defensive coordinator when Dartmouth College won back-to-back Ivy League championships.
As defensive secondary and special teams coach at Lafayette College, his players set national and school records. He also turned two high school programs around, authored 11 articles in national coaching journals, wrote a book on football, and has since been inducted into two high school halls of fame.
Nebraska Reestablishes His Career in Football
“Joe is well-rounded in the financial world and has experience at the highest level on Wall Street, but he also has a real passion for football,” Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne said. “He was a very effective coach and has always wanted to get back into it. Now that he’s moved from CEO to chairman, he has more time, and this gives him the opportunity to reestablish his career in football.
“Joe is organized, systematic and has the ability to get things done,” Osborne said. “I’ve known him for three or four years and had the opportunity to become better acquainted with him the past six months. While he will not be coaching, he’ll be very active in life skills. He can interact with student-athletes in all of our sports programs and teach them the fundamentals of finance and how to invest.
“Working with Nebraska and seeing how a top program operates administratively is a good way to reconnect with football,” Osborne said. “With his background and track record, Joe could be leading any number of major corporations, but he wants to be here to learn how we operate and show how he can contribute.”
“We’re delighted that Joe will support our student-athletes in football,” Nebraska Coach Bo Pelini said. “It’s not every day that the only person in the world who’s written a book on both football and investment strategies wants to volunteer his expertise. We appreciate what he’s accomplished, and we’re looking forward to working with him.”
Moglia is the author of “The Perimeter Attack Offense” and “Coach Yourself to Success: Winning the Investment Game.” Under his leadership, TD Ameritrade has become the world’s largest online discount brokerage firm (in terms of the number of retail online equities placed each day).
Despite his business accomplishments, “I suppose people will say this guy hasn’t coached for 20 years, so what can he do now?” Osborne said. “That’s why he wants to learn how we operate and bring some leadership abilities of his own to the table. I don’t know where it all will lead, but I think Joe would be a good coach.”
20 questions with the Golden Jet, Bobby Hull
By Sean Fitz-Gerald, National Post December 4, 2010
One of the most gifted goal-scorers in National Hockey League history had not eaten, by his estimation, in almost a day. Bobby Hull looked tired, shuffling slowly down a hallway, sparking to life only midway through an interview, and again to the annoyance of a ringing cellphone that interrupted his afternoon.
"Jesus," he said, fumbling with it.
"Hello?"
Hull, now 71, had accidentally disconnected.
"Isn't that awful? This is the worst goddamn ... I opened it, and I just happened to touch something, and the goddamned thing..." he said. "Oh, I can't wait until I can go out in the middle of Lake Michigan, to the deepest hole, and throw these goddamned cellphones in there."
It had already been a long day, promoting his new book, The Golden Jet, featuring 200 glossy pages of his career in photographs. Hull had risen to the NHL through the ranks of legend, from smalltown Ontario by way of hard manual labour, muscles carved from all forms of stone, and a slapshot that defied conventional understanding.
By the time he was finished, Hull had led the Chicago Black Hawks to a Stanley Cup title (1961), while assuring himself a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame with 610 career goals and 1,170 points. His son Brett followed his path and plowed even further, finishing his career with 1,391 points.
That is the storybook part.
The other side of the story includes a bumpy transition to the nascent-and-doomed World Hockey Association, a bitter and very public divorce from Brett's mother, Joanne, and an estrangement from his prodigal son. There have been scrapes with the law, including one guilty plea for trying to punch a police officer in suburban Chicago in 1986.
Hull's life, as he admits, is a combination of narratives.
He has been married to Deborah for almost 30 years now, and they live in Sarasota, Fla., at least when he is not on the road, which is often.
Hull works as an ambassador with the Blackhawks, the defending Stanley Cup champions, and wears a championship ring on each hand -- one from 1961, and one from earlier this year, a cherished symbol of his homecoming.
Hull stopped by the National Post for a round of 20 questions earlier this week, covering everything from his family history, his health and an alternate nickname to "The Golden Jet."
1 Composite or wood?
BH I never, ever used a composite stick. Northland, the company, made my sticks. But when I'd be at Brett's games, he'd have three or four sticks made up out in the rack. And I used to just salivate when I grabbed those sticks.
2 How did you curve your first blade?
BH Poured hot water on it, from a tap, until it got soft and lithe. And then I'd shove it under a door at the Chicago Stadium and put a chair up, underneath the handle, and left it there all night. When I came back in the morning, it was just like this-- [cups hand, like the letter 'C'] -- and then it was "top corner," or "second balcony." [chuckles]
3 What is the secret to getting a puck onto the street from inside Chicago Stadium?
BH Oh. [laughs] That was in the old Stadium. If you stood at right about the red line, against the boards in between the two benches, there was an exit diagonally across the rink. There was an exit that went out into the main corridor, on Madison Avenue, and there were glass doors on the other side of the corridor. Just a few of us could get that puck over the glass in the corner, and then out through that exit, where it would bounce and hit those glass doors -- and break the goddamn glass in the doors. [laughs]
4 The Winnipeg Jets gave you a $1-million signing bonus...
BH [interrupts] It wasn't the Winnipeg Jets. It was the World Hockey Association. There were nine teams in the league at that time, when we first began, and they all divvied up $110,000 or whatever it was. And the million came from all nine teams.
5 More than 400 players will earn more than $1-million this season. Do today's salaries drive you crazy?
BH Isn't that something? Oh, god. Just to give you an idea, when I broke in, in 1957, I made $6,500. So you're saying 400? Isn't that something? Making $1-million or more? That is unbelievable ... that, to me, is out of whack. The Ovechkins and the Malkins and the Crosbys and the kid in Tampa and the Kanes and the Toews, they all deserve to be paid royally because they entertain royally. But, there are a lot of those players that you talk about--making a million or more -- that should be making basic rates, according to their ability to draw people into the building.
6 Which opponent drove you the most crazy on the ice?
BH Um, likely, [Bryan] Bugsy Watson. He was with Detroit. He was put out there just for the sole purpose of getting me off my game. When I look back on it, it wasn't really his doing, because he didn't know any better. It was guys like Sid Abel, who was coaching at that time, who would put these people out there for the sole purpose of getting me off my game. Then you'd have to whack 'em, and the blood was flying. When I look back on it, I would just like to have been able to play just one season being treated as just an ordinary left winger ... Of course, if you wish in one hand and sh-t in the other, you know which one will fill up first. [laughs]
7 What was your view of Glenn Hall's legendary habit of vomiting before a game?
BH Ohhhh, I tried to get the trainers to change his seat right over by the sh-thouse door, but they said, "No, that's his seat, and that's where he's going to sit.' And, oh god, I'd hear it-- 'whoop, whoop'--and then, all of the sudden, up he'd jump. And, 'clump, clump,' with all of his equipment on, heading toward the washroom. Then you'd hear, 'blurb!' Then you'd hear [Stan] Mikita: "Atta boy, goolie! Get good and sick because the sicker you get, the better you play!"
8 What would the 71-year-old Bobby Hull tell the 33-year-old Bobby Hull about leaving the Chicago Blackhawks for the WHA?
BH Um, I would have to say, "You're backed in a corner, son. Go to it." That's exactly what happened. [Chicago] backed me into a corner, they never offered me a contract while they were off floating around in their 110-foot ship in the Caribbean. They didn't seem like my 15 years of blood, sweat and tears for them made any difference. They pissed me off, a few years before that, on a number of occasions.
9 Does Winnipeg deserve another NHL team?
BH I don't think they could afford it. It's not that they don't deserve one, but I don't think they have enough fans, enough corporate businesses, to fund a professional franchise of that magnitude.
10 Who is more like the old Bobby Hull: Patrick Kane or Jonathan Toews?
BH [chuckles] No one has faster feet than Patrick Kane, or faster hands. But I think Johnny is, if you're going to compare, more like me. He's a 22-year-old in a 50-year-old man's head. He never does anything wrong, never says anything wrong. And what a leader he is. I would love to have him on my team, and he'd be the captain of my team, as well.
11 Have you ever been known by a nickname other than "The Golden Jet?"
BH [chuckles] I can't recall them calling me anything, except in Detroit. They called me "The Sweathog," because they didn't like me there. Some of my greatest games were played in the old Olympia [Stadium], head-to-head against [Gordie] Howe. I used to fill the tanks the night before with a little bit of fire-brewed Stroh's [beer]. And when I warmed up, I'd sweat it out, and my red jersey would snap in the breeze as I'd be flying around the ice. And that's what they knew me as: "The Sweathog."
12 On page 8 of your book, you say the Hamilton Tiger-Cats said you likely could have played defence for them. Could you hit harder than you could shoot?
BH Likely as hard. I loved to play. I was centre linebacker and fullback. I used to love the body contact of people coming through that line.
13 How are you feeling these days?
BH Sometimes good, sometimes not quite so. A few years ago, I was walking around with pneumonia, walking pneumonia. And my heart went into A-fib [atrial fibrillation]. Your heart goes, 'lub-dub, lub-dub.' Well mine goes, 'lub-bllbb, lub-bllbb.' It doesn't beat true, and it doesn't fire the blood where it should go as quickly as it should. I had a stent put in, and I have a pacemaker. I'm sure as hell not half the man I used to be.
14 Getting to the...
BH [interrupts] I can't sleep through the night. Of course, my shoulders are worn out and I need a new knee. But I'm such a goddamned chicken, I'm afraid of the knife. I could lay and get stitches all night, but the thought of them going into my flesh with a scalpel, I don't relish it.
15 In 1980, you told a reporter: "I have nothing left, just my sanity, my health and my memories." What do you have now?
BH [chuckles] That was just to make people feel bad, those who were a--holes. I have everything that I need, except health. I'd rather have that Bobby Hull that I remember back as a 30-, or 40-year-old, but my wife and I are very happy, and financially sound. In the last couple of years, she's got a little puppy dog, and when I'm away so much, he is just the greatest little pup that ever was. A cross between a Shih Tzu and a poodle. He is the smartest little sucker there ever was.
16 How did you feel, when Brett signed with the Flames in 1986, that he said, "It's mostly because of my mother and my stepfather that I am where I am?"
BH Brett Hull was not going anywhere when he was 16, and he came to a game that I was doing for Hockey Night in Canada. I took he and his buddy out after the game and bought him dinner and a couple of beers. I said, "Are you going to school?" "No dad." "Are you playing hockey?" "No dad." "Are you playing baseball?" "No dad." So I said, "Brett, with a little bit of intestinal fortitude and hard work, you could solidify your future in a couple of short years. Get your ass doing something. If you want to play hockey, go and play hockey."
17 On page 158 of your book, there is a picture of you smiling with a young Bobby, Blake, Brett and a woman identified only as "their mother." How have you reconciled that part of your past?
BH Put it behind me. It happens. We're two people who tried to make a go of it, and it doesn't work. I regret not being able to be with the kids all through their childhood and into their teens and into college. But just to stay with a person that you're not getting along with -- and when the kids are getting bad vibes and hearing bad things from both -- I don't think you should stay together.
18 In the late '70s and early '80s, there were a lot of really nasty allegations. Are you a different person now than you were when those allegations...
BH Same guy. Same guy with the same attitude toward life. You only pass this way one time, and if you don't have fun, you'll go to the grave, and you'll have missed a lot. I think I've mellowed a lot, as far as that's concerned. Where I think that my wife is a better wife now than when we got married, and that was 28 years ago.
19 You're not talking about Joanne ...
BH Oh, Christ, no. She's not my wife. As my kids would say, "Dad, how come you call your ex 'our mother?' " And it's just because I don't need it. I don't want to think about it. But she goes as Joanne Hull Robinson. I said, "You don't f---king like me, what are you doing using my name if you don't like me? Forget about the Hull in the middle." But that's neither here nor there.
20 Write the first sentence of a story you would write about Robert Marvin Hull.
BH They were the best of times, they were the worst of times. Doing a little plagiarism from A Tale of Two Cities. And they were. It was the greatest time of my life. I've really never, ever had a job. I played hockey. And if you like what you're doing, it's not a job. And there were times in there when everything didn't go my way, but no one ever said that life was all a bowl of cherries.
© Copyright (c) National Post
Coach's game day
Inside look at coach Molleken on Blades' game day
By Cory Wolfe, The StarPhoenix December 6, 2010
It's a Saturday afternoon in the Okanagan Valley and Saskatoon Blades head coach Lorne Molleken is going through his usual game-day routine.
He's been coaching hockey for 26 consecutive winters, so his life sometimes resembles that Groundhog Day movie where Bill Murray's character wakes up to repeat the same day over and over.
Molleken relishes the rituals, though.
He always draws up a game plan in the morning and shines his shoes in the afternoon. And even though pre-game meals of pasta and chicken get monotonous long before the end of a 10-day road trip, Molleken never complains. He used to eat hard-boiled eggs on game day, but that was in his previous hockey life as a free-spirited goaltender.
Now 54, Molleken has the respect of some of the biggest names in hockey. Twice in the past two years, NHL general managers have offered him coaching jobs in the American Hockey League, but Molleken turned them down. He's got security as the coach and general manager of the Blades and he enjoys working with young players.
A few of his current proteges have a chance to become NHL stars. It's no surprise, then, to see Carolina Hurricanes talent hawk Bert Marshall grilling Molleken in the lobby of the Coast Capri Hotel. The two were in the New York Islanders' system together in the late 1970s.
"That guy," Molleken says later, "used to block more shots than the goalie would stop."
Time to get to the rink.
4:45 p.m. -- The Blades' bus departs right on time. Molleken always rides shotgun, occupying the two front seats to the right of driver Pete Smith.
As the bus rumbles towards Prospera Place for the Blades' 7 p.m. date with the Kelowna Rockets, another hockey team rolls into view.
"Vernon Vipers," says Molleken, reading the side of their white bus as it passes in the left lane. "They're the Centennial Cup champions, aren't they?"
Then he catches himself, realizing that Canada's national junior A championship is no longer known as the Centennial Cup. It's been the Royal Bank Cup for 15 years.
"Or whatever you call it," he says.
4:53 p.m. -- The bus arrives at the rink.
Molleken saunters toward the coaches' room where Tim Hortons coffee is already brewed thanks to trainers Steve Hildebrand and Graham Watt. The coach hangs his grey sportcoat on a hook, adjusts his navy necktie, and returns to the hallway.
"Les, are you ready?" Molleken says to Les Lazaruk, the team's play-by-play man.
Time to tape an interview for the radio broadcast. Molleken stands with his back to the cindercrete wall and rehashes the previous night's 4-3 overtime win in Kamloops.
"It wasn't our best game," he says into Lazaruk's microphone, "but we had spots throughout the game where I thought we played extremely well and it's been a trademark of this team all year that we've been able to find a way to win a hockey game."
5 p.m. -- Assistant coach David Struch stands in the corridor under the stands.
With a blue marker, he scribbles numbers and arrows on a dry-erase board. The diagram resembles a weather map, but it's actually the team's power-play strategy.
5:06 p.m. -- A WHL official, dressed in a black blazer, brings a copy of the lineup to the coaches' room.
Molleken checks it over and makes one addition: Ayrton Nikkel, a 15-year-old Kelowna defenceman who's making his WHL debut tonight.
"So," Molleken says, "No. 55 is . . ."
Trainer Stever Hildebrand finishes the sentence.
"Ayrton? Yup."
"OK," says Molleken. "Now how do you spell his name?"
After receiving a few conflicting suggestions, Molleken checks the spelling in his BlackBerry.
"A-Y-R-T-O-N," says Molleken. "N-I-K-K-E-L"
"It better be N-I-K-K-E-L," mutters Hildebrand. "That's what's on his jersey."
5:30 p.m. -- Players wander in and out of the coaches' room, which doubles as a storage area for tape and equipment. Precisely 90 minutes before game time, Molleken tells defenceman Duncan Siemens to herd the players for a pre-game meeting.
Siemens' exclamation -- "Meeeeting!" -- breaks up a game of hacky sack in the hallway. The players' chatter stops, and like children at storytime, they huddle around Molleken's diagram board in the locker-room.
The coach outlines the game plan. Much of the briefing focuses on how to defend Rockets defenceman Tyson Barrie, Kelowna's offensive catalyst.
Assistant coach David Struch stands ready with a towel to clear the marker from the board and give Molleken a fresh canvas for the next diagram. Within a few minutes, all angles have been covered.
"Now let's have a real good warm-up," says Molleken. "Let's get our legs moving and get ready for a big win here tonight."
The players hoot and holler.
Molleken is gone quicker than Struch can wipe the board.
5:45 p.m. -- At the Blades' bench, centre Marek Viedensky begins arranging pucks to spell the word "WIN" on the ledge of the boards. It's a game-day ritual he inherited from Travis Toomey, who was traded to the Seattle Thunderbirds in September.
Viedensky has barely completed the task when a stern, young rink attendant starts dismantling the project. Viedensky protests, along with Molleken and Hildebrand, but the attendant gathers the pucks into a bucket and dumps them into the webbing on top of the net.
Soon after, Kelowna Rockets GM Bruce Hamilton happens by. Molleken relates the rink attendant's actions and jokingly threatens to bring up the issue at the next board of governors meeting.
"Hey, we have a tradition here where we put the pucks up on the boards," says Molleken. "That kid comes by and tells us we can't do that because one might go in the Zamboni."
"That's right," says Hamilton, whose son Curtis plays for the Blades.
"You gonna flood the ice again?" asks Molleken.
"We might," Hamilton replies with a shrug and a half-smile. "You guys who play in public buildings play by their rules. When you come to private buildings, you play by our rules."
The rivals share a laugh.
6:25 p.m. -- The players hit the ice for warm-up.
Molleken seldom watches. Even during his playing days, he wasn't much for warm-up. Winnipeg Clubs coach Muzz MacPherson once called out Molleken for his lacklustre approach, but the free-spirited goalie simply replied: "When the clock starts tickin', I start kickin'."
MacPherson had a more lasting influence on Wayne Gretzky. It was MacPherson who convinced a 16-year-old Gretzky to wear No. 99 because a teammate had already claimed Gordie Howe's No. 9.
6:40 p.m. -- Molleken is pacing.
"It doesn't get easier," he says after a nervous exhale.
Molleken's assistant, Struch, stands in front of the mirror and adjusts his tie.
"Strudel," hollers Molleken. "We should be able to play that kid (Nikkel). You can move him around. Just make sure we have Duncan (Siemens) and Stef (Elliott) against their top line."
6:52 p.m. -- Molleken sits in a corner of the coaches' room: Head down. Hands clasped. Knees bouncing nervously.
6:58 p.m. -- The coach stands and marches out of his concrete bunker. Struch follows. They cross the corridor into the Blades' locker-room and Molleken speaks:
"OK, guys. Let's make sure we're the aggressors (but) I want lots of discipline in all areas. Let's be physical and let's play (expletive) Blade hockey for 60 minutes!"
Then Molleken turns to the Kelowna-raised kid, Curtis Hamilton. The coach's voice booms with intensity.
"It don't get any better," roars Molleken, "than a Saturday night in Kelowna, eh Hambone?"
The players erupt and Molleken marches back across the hall to the coaches' room.
7:02 p.m. -- At last, it's game time.
Molleken claps his hands once and says, "Let's get 'er done."
Assistant coach Jerome Engele is already up in the press box, but Molleken's other deputies fall in line behind him: Struch, Hildebrand and Watt. They march out to face a packed house of 6,100.
7:41 p.m. -- At the first intermission, Saskatoon leads 2-1 on goals by Stefan Elliott and Darian Dziurzynski, but Molleken wants to see more shots than the nine his players fired in the opening frame. They're trying to be perfect instead of throwing pucks on net and pouncing on rebounds.
8:32 p.m. -- The tide turns in the second period. Kelowna scores three quick goals -- in a span of 2:19 -- to take a 4-2 lead. At the intermission, Molleken demands more effort. Too many freeloaders, he says.
9:27 p.m. -- The buzzer sounds on a 6-3 Kelowna win. Playing a fourth game in five nights, the Blades' fatigue shows.
9:28 p.m. -- Molleken enters a sombre locker-room.
"Every game that you guys play, you know you're going to get challenged -- every game," he says to his first-place team. "The difference tonight was that we didn't counter what they threw at us in the second period. OK? You know they're going to come hard and we have to be ready to play. 'Compete' is what it was all about here tonight and we didn't do a very good job. That's why you lose a hockey.
"Keep your heads up and get ready for (expletive) Tuesday night (in Prince George)."
cwolfe@thestarphoenix
© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix
Why Hay said no to Oilers' offer and stayed in the WHL
By Ed Willes, The Province December 8, 2010
This is what Don Hay turned down at when he was offered the associate coach's post with the Edmonton Oilers this offseason.
The job, for starters, was an entree back into the NHL, which meant considerably more money than the Vancouver Giants could pay and a closer proximity to a head-coaching position in The Show.
It also represented a chance to work with Oilers head coach Tom Renney, with whom Hay had worked in Kamloops in the early '90s. Finally, and this can't be stressed enough, it meant an end to the interminable bus rides that Hay has endured for the past seven years.
Hay considered all this, then opted to stay with the Giants. We'd ask why, but the more pertinent question might be: Just who is this man's career counsellor?
"I said, 'Geez, Don, you're leaving an awful lot of money on the table,' " Giants owner Ron Toigo said. "He just said, 'I've never coached for the money and I'm not going to start now.' "
But the buses, Hayser????? The buses?????
"The rides do seem to get longer," said the 56-year-old Kamloops native. "I keep bugging Ron to put a La-Z-Boy in the front."
He pauses.
"Edmonton was a good opportunity, but it's got to be a really good offer because of the relationships I have here. I'm happy. That's important."
So maybe the man knows what he's doing after all.
Tuesday night, before their meeting with the Kamloops Blazers, the Giants honoured Hay for his 500th career WHL win, putting into focus a career that started as a part-time assistant in Kamloops 25 years ago and now has him fourth in all-time wins among WHL coaches.
Think about that for a moment. Think of what that number represents. Now think of the lives that have intersected Hay's career.
There's Stanley Cup-winner Ken Hitchcock, who coaxed Hay out of the Kamloops fire department to become a full-time assistant with the Blazers in '85. Hitchcock, who was there on Saturday night when Hay joined the 500 club, offered his new assistant a $7,000 pay cut to join his staff 25 years ago.
"Try selling that one to your wife," Hay said.
Then there was Giants co-owner Pat Quinn, who congratulated Hay.
"That was special," he said. But so was hearing from former players like Evander Kane, an NHL first-rounder in '09, and Dave Chyzowski, an NHL first-rounder 21 years earlier.
All this caused Hay, who isn't exactly given to moments of introspection, to reflect on his career. True, that reflection ended with the Giants' first neutral-zone turnover on Tuesday night but, if you were wondering what keeps bringing him back, well, it isn't the bus rides.
"Coaching isn't about wins and losses," he said. "It's about the process of building your team. I believe in what we do here."
And that belief is at the core of what the Giants have built during Hay's seven years.
This year the Giants have lost 150-man games to injuries, and Hay says it's been the most challenging season of his tenure.
But, in the next breath, he talks about the excitement of teaching, of reaching these young kids, the way he's reached so many others over the years.
Craig Cunningham, by way of example, is the captain of this year's team. This is his fifth season with Hay and the Giants. In his first campaign, he scored, roughly, zero goals in 48 games. Last summer, after Cunningham had a 97-point season, the Boston Bruins took him in the fourth round.
It's kids like Cunningham who keep bringing Hay back.
"It was really emotional for me at the end of last year," Hay said. "James Wright, Lance Bouma and Craig were all 20 and graduating. [Cunningham chose to return as an overager this season.]
"They were with me for four years. You see them come up as 16-year-olds, then you watch them grow.
"You feel like they're your sons."
And over the years he's had a lot of sons.
"Each year is different, but it's also the same," says Hay.
"You watch them grow as people and players. When they're ready to leave, our job is done.
"You're really excited for them. But you're also sad because you're not going to be part of their lives any more."
Except that Hay will always be a part of his players' lives and that's just one of the things that's more rewarding than a fatter paycheque.
ewilles@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province
Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/said+Oilers+offer+stayed/3945937/story.html#ixzz17a8gqEcc
Here's article from thetalentcode.com by Daniel Coyle
How to Light a Fire: The Keith Richards Method
Passion is the nuclear reaction at the core of every talent. It’s the glowing, inexhaustible energy source. It’s also pretty darn mysterious.
Where does intense passion come from? How does it start, and how is it sustained? How does someone fall wildly in love with math or music, stock trading or figure skating?
Most of us intuitively think of passion as uncontrollable — you have it or you don’t, period. In this way of thinking, passion is like a lightning strike, or a winning lottery ticket. It happens to the few, and the rest of us are out of luck.
But is that true? Or are there smart ways to increase the odds?
We get some insight into that question from none other than Keith Richards, whose book Life just came out. My favorite part of the book (and that’s saying something) is the part where Keith tells how he fell in love with music, and specifically with the guitar. The process went like this:
Step one: Keith’s Grandpa Gus, who was a former musician and a bit of a rebel, noticed that Keith liked singing.
Step two: whenever young Keith would come over, Gus placed a guitar on on top of the the family piano. Keith noticed. Gus told him, when he was taller, he could give it a try.
Step three: one momentous and unforgettable day, Gus took the guitar down from the piano, and handed it to Keith. From that moment, Richards was hooked (his first addiction). He took the guitar everywhere he went.
As Richards writes:
“The guitar was totally out of reach. It was something you looked at, thought about, but never got your hands on. I’ll never forget the guitar on top of his upright piano every time I’d go and visit, starting maybe from the age of five. I thought that was where the thing lived. I thought it was always there. And I just kept looking at it, and he didn’t say anything, and a few years later I was still looking at it. “Hey, when you get tall enough, you can have a go at it,” he said. I didn’t find out until after he was dead that he only brought that out and put it up there when he knew I was coming to visit. So I was being teased in a way.”
Reading it, I couldn’t help but think that most parents and teachers — me included — do precisely the opposite. We don’t put things out of reach — in fact we put them within reach. We go fast, not slow. We try to identify passion, not to grow it. We don’t take the time to make the nuclear reaction happen on its own.
For me, the lessons are these:
Don’t treat passion like lightning. Treat it like a virus, one that’s transmitted on contact with people who already have it. Grandpa Gus loved music. He noticed Keith liked singing.
Create a space for private contact with a vast, magical world. The guitar was totally out of reach. It was something you looked at, thought about, but never got your hands on.
Give time for the ideas to grow. And I just kept looking at it, and he didn’t say anything, and a few years later I was still looking at it.
Know that it’s never about today, but rather about creating a vision of the future self. “When you get tall enough you can have a go at it.”
For parents and teachers, Gus provides a useful model. Because Gus didn’t hover. He didn’t push. He didn’t even try to teach, beyond some rudimentary chords. But he did something far more intelligent and powerful. He understood what makes kids care. He carefully put the elements in place, sent a few pointed signals at the right time, and let the forces of nature take their course.
Smart man, that Gus.
And I can’t help but wonder: are there other Gus stories out there that might be instructive? How do we take the Gus Method and apply it to schools, or sports, or math?
Here's more Daniel Coyle.
Advice That Changed Your Life
When it comes to developing our talents, we all hear a lot of good advice. In fact, there’s never been a moment in the history of the world when we’ve had such an incredible bounty of good advice – a teeming ocean of it, provided by teachers, coaches, parents, the Internet.
For example, pick up a golf magazine. Each page brims with dozens of perfectly sound, smart tips; it’s a cornucopia of good advice. But does all that good advice actually make you better? (Judging by the historical average of golf scores, the answer is a resounding no.) It’s the same with other sports, music, art, math, business, you name it.
This surplus creates a uniquely modern problem: with good advice so plentiful, how do you know when you’ve located truly great advice – the rare, powerful ideas that really matter? How do you know when you’ve found advice that might change your life?
For instance, here’s one of the the greatest pieces of advice I’ve heard. It’s from the late John Wooden, and it goes like this: You haven’t taught until they’ve learned.
That’s it.
You haven’t taught…until they’ve learned.
I know what you’re thinking. Because I thought it when I read it for the first time a few years back. My thought was, no kidding, dude.
But then one day shortly afterward I was coaching my Little League team, trying to teach them to field grounders. I was, as usual, putting my attention into my coaching – saying the correct words, showing them the correct form – and presuming if they picked it up, that was their responsibility.
Wooden’s words hit me like an avalanche. I wasn’t really coaching, because they hadn’t learned it yet. I wasn’t teaching, I was just talking. And no matter how wisely I talked, no matter how brilliantly the drills were designed, it didn’t matter until they actually learned it. That was the only yardstick.
His advice showed me that it really wasn’t about me at all—it was 100 percent about them, about doing whatever it takes to create a situation where they learned. It seems strange to say now, but that was a titanic realization, and I still find myself thinking about it a lot.
I think this kind of advice–truly great advice–tends to follow a distinctive pattern.
It seems super-obvious at first, then gets deeper as you live with it.
It expresses a basic scientific truth about learning.
It jolts your perspective and leaves you somewhere new.
And so here’s the next step: I think it would be good and useful to start to gather some of these jewels of great advice in one place. Namely here, on this blog.
What’s the single greatest piece of advice you’ve ever heard? What’s the one that changed your life? It could be anything – something you heard or read or saw – all that matters is that it works for you.
You can write them in the comments section below, or email them to me at djcoyle@thetalentcode.com and I’ll start a master list to use and share.
To get things going, here are a few gathered from a peanut gallery of friends:
–Practice on the days that you eat
–If you want to get better, double your failure rate
–Do one thing every day that scares you
How NOT to Develop Your Talent: The 3 Deadly Habits
Daniel Coyle - Nov 3 2010
We spend a healthy amount of time here trying to identify good habits for building skill. In fact, we do it so much that I can’t help but wonder: what if we turned the question on its head? What if we tried to identify the worst, most unproductive, most deadly habits? What habits are skill-killers? What’s the fastest way to slow down your talent development?
Let’s start with a well-established truth: many top performers are obsessive about critically reviewing their performances – either on videotape or with a coach or teacher.
A good example of this is Bill Robertie, who’s a world-class poker player, world champ in backgammon, and a grand master in chess (and who’s written about by Alina Tugend in her soon-to-be-released book Better by Mistake). Robertie reviews every game obsessively—even the ones he wins—searching for tiny mistakes, critiquing his decisions, breaking it down. The same is true of many top athletes, musicians, comedians, and (I can vouch) writers.
Which leads us to Deadly Habit #1: Thou Shalt Ignore Your Mistakes.
* In order to develop your talent slowly, you should never, ever review your performance. You should regard errors as unfortunate, unavoidable events, and do your best to immediately hide their existence or, even better, erase them from your memory.
Another general truth about top performers is that they love rituals. Whether Rafael Nadal prepping for a serve or Yo-Yo Ma prepping a sonata, a lot of top performers are addicted to idiosyncratic, persnickety rituals that seem, to the neutral observer, insanely detailed and RainMan-esque. They tie their sneakers just so, they place their violin case at a certain precise angle. These behaviors are usually described as a superstition, but I think that misses the point: their ritual is their unique way of prepping themselves to deliver a performance.
Which brings us to Deadly Habit #2: Thou Shalt Avoid Ritual.
* In order to develop your talent slowly, you should approach each practice and performance as if you’ve never, ever done it before. You should be casual. You should avoid any repetition of actions, thoughts, or patterns of any kind, and instead make every day completely different.
A third commonality of top performers is that they are thieves. They are incurable shoplifters of ideas and techniques, constantly scanning the landscape for something they can use. As Picasso said, “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”
Which gives us Deadly Habit #3: Thou Shalt Not Steal.
* In order to develop your talent slowly, you should regard your talent as your own private creation, and your challenges as private challenges that only you can solve. Don’t look elsewhere for guidance; certainly not to other performers.
It’s interesting to note that each of these deadly habits is not a big thing. They are small, nearly innocuous-seeming patterns that we can all fall into. We’ve all ignored past mistakes, avoided ritual, and failed to find guidance in the experiences of others. But here’s the real point: perhaps these little habits are a lot bigger than we might think.
This point is underlined by a fascinating paper I just bumped into called The Mundanity of Excellence, by Daniel Chambliss. Chambliss makes a powerful case that top performers aren’t great because of any overarching superiority, but rather because they do a lot of ordinary things very well. They pay attention to detail. They make each repetition count. They seek small, incremental improvements one at a time, every single day. And these little habits, over time, add up to great performance.
As Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Mary T. Meagher puts it, “People don’t know how ordinary success is.”
Of course, these three habits aren’t the only ones. What other deadly habits are out there? I’d love to hear your suggestions.
Kevin Sullivan just sent me this link. This week the coaches discuss developing speed in practice. It is a really good coaching site.
http://www.lightthelamp.flexxcoach.com/
Hockey coach banned for pulling team
Player on opposing squad made racist remarks
By GALEN EAGLE and BRENDAN WEDLEY, QMI Agency
December 16, 2010
PETERBOROUGH — A minor hockey coach’s stand against a racial slur directed towards one of his players has been suspended for a year.
Greg Walsh pulled his team from the Nov. 15 house league game after the officials and the opposing coach let a player back on the ice after he called 16-year-old Andrew McCullum, one of two black players on Walsh's team, the N-word.
He has been suspended until April 10.
The Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) delivered its decision on Thursday after a hearing held at the league’s offices in Richmond Hill on Dec. 11.
Walsh was reluctant to talk about the ruling as he contemplates how to move forward.
“At this point, I have no comment,” he said. “I’m dumbfounded, so I have no comment.”
Walsh has the option of appealing the decision.
OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan characterized the suspension as fair, saying Walsh's suspension could have been for longer.
The OMHA sees the racial slur and Walsh’s actions as two separate issues, Ropchan explained.
The Peterborough Minor Hockey Association suspended the offending player for three games, which settled the racial slur issue, Ropchan said.
“They dealt with the situation of the racial slur and we were satisfied with how they dealt with that. Refusing to start play was all we had to deal with,” he said.
The OMHA does not make the rules, it just enforces the rules and the rule Walsh broke was a very severe one, he said.
“(Taking a team off the ice) affects a lot of players and people and schedules and things like that,” he said.
“We are put in a position to have to apply the regulation and the necessary suspension based on the criteria set forth by Hockey Canada.
“It is a Hockey Canada regulation and it is very severe and (Walsh) was made aware of the consequences.”
Under the suspension, Walsh is prohibited from any involvement in all hockey under Hockey Canada jurisdiction until April 10.
The team walked off the ice in unified protest to a racial slur directed at McCullum.
McCullum and a player from the opposing team were sent to the penalty box after they exchanged some words on the ice.
“He kept chirping me in the box. I was sitting trying to ignore him and the people that were keeping the score came over to me and said he called me the N-word,” McCullum told QMI Agency earlier this month. “I felt very angry and upset about it.”
When the penalty was over, McCullum skated directly over to his bench and told his head coach.
“(Walsh) called in the refs and told them he was going to forfeit the game if the coach on the opposing team let his player play,” McCullum explained. “They said they couldn’t do anything because they didn’t hear it.”
When the player returned to the ice for the third period, the team forfeited the game.
The coach of the opposing team was John Welsh, who is also the president of the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association.
Welsh has not responded to repeated requests for an interview during the past two weeks.
McCullum said the OMHA ruling shocked him. It sends a very poor message that racism is OK, he said.
“I feel upset about it, surprised,” he said Thursday. “He did a good thing. He shouldn’t be punished that bad for what he did.”
McCullum’s mother, Debbie, said she was at a loss for words when told about Walsh’s season long suspension.
“It is ridiculous. I guess it just doesn’t pay to stand up for something,” she said.
Daryl Taylor, who is one of two people to take over the team's coaching in Walsh’s absence, said he too was disappointed but not surprised.
“When we made the decision to leave the ice that’s what I figured would happen,” Taylor said.
“I don’t necessarily agree (with the rule) in this circumstance, but I think (Walsh) was prepared to take the punishment whatever it was.”
In the wake of Walsh’s original suspension, the story caused a major uproar in the hockey world. The Peterborough Examiner newspaper and the OMHA have been flooded with e-mails in support of Walsh’s actions, criticizing the OMHA for sending a poor message.
Ropchan said the organization understands the criticism but reiterated the OMHA was just enforcing the rule.
“We have received a lot of criticism on it … but we have to apply (the rules) as they are written,” he said. “We do take the racial slurs and racism very seriously and there is no place for it in hockey, but that’s a separate issue.”
But Ropchan was vague as to what Walsh could have done differently in the same situation. He could have gone to the referees or made a formal complaint to the league, Ropchan suggested.
This was the second time in three years that McCullum has been the victim of a racial slur under Walsh’s watch and Walsh was not satisfied with how the league dealt with the situation previously.
Walsh took a strong stand against racism in hockey in comments he made to the media after the incident.
“There is just no place in society for that language. Period. End of story,” Walsh said Dec. 2. “It’s important that we can provide an atmosphere for the kids to learn more about life than just playing hockey. It’s more than hockey. It’s about turning young men into adults.”
The team's manager, Tracy Groombriddge, said the team will try to get on with their season but said the OMHA ruling will not set well with the players.
“I think it’s telling people that they really shouldn’t stick up for what they believe in and it’s a shame. It sends a really bad message to Andrew,” she said.
Banned hockey coach speaks out
By QMI Agency
December 17, 2010
The governing body for minor hockey in Ontario needs to have the guts to take a stand against racism, says a local house league coach who was suspended for the rest of the season for pulling his team from a game after a racial slur was hurled at one of his players.
Greg Walsh learned on Thursday that the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) had suspended him until April 10 for forfeiting a game on Nov. 15 when the player who uttered the racial slur was allowed to return to the ice in the third period.
The player who used the racial slur against one of Walsh’s players was later given a three-game suspension.
Walsh compared the punishments.
“In the end, if you want to use the basics, is you have society saying it’s only worth three games to hurl a racial slur at a fella… and if you want to stand up against that then you get suspended for the rest of the year,” he said on Friday.
Despite the suspension, Walsh said he doesn’t regret the actions he and his team took to protest the use of the N-word.
“This is not about one person, or one hockey team, or one guy. It’s about that society needs to rid itself of behaviour like this,” he said.
Walsh became most animated when he recalled watching McCullum apologize to him on a national news broadcast after the season-ending suspension had been handed down.
“It’s absolutely disgusting that he should have to feel any remorse for what happened, and they created it. I’m just defending him,” Walsh said.
Ontario Human Rights Commission Barbara Hall voiced her support of Walsh’s actions in a letter to The Examiner on Friday.
Walsh bravely defended his player’s right not to be the subject of racial slurs and led his team off the ice in protest, Hall states.
“His action was admirable,” she states. “But the way he is being treated by the Ontario Minor Hockey Association – a full-season suspension – is not. All of us, on and off the ice, should stand up and say no to racist conduct.”
Sports organizations should be prohibiting, not sanctioning, racist conduct, Hall states.
Hall couldn’t be reached for an interview.
Walsh was immediately suspended following the game on Nov. 15. The OMHA held a hearing at its offices in Richmond Hill on Dec. 11 and on Thursday it issued its ruling.
The incident happened during a game at the Kinsmen arena.
The player hurled a racial slur at Andrew McCullum as the two players were in the penalty box after a confrontation on the ice near the end of the second period.
On-ice officials couldn’t penalize the player because they didn’t hear the slur, the OMHA states in a release issued on Thursday.
Walsh brought it to the attention of the officials and the opposing team’s coach, but the player was back on the ice to start the third period. That’s when the team forfeited the game in protest.
The coach of the opposing team is John Welsh, the president of the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association (PMHA).
The player who uttered the racial slur, the coach of the opposing team and an assistant coach of the opposing team were given three-game suspensions by the PMHA on Nov. 17.
The PMHA is reviewing its internal policies and procedures as a result of the incident, the OMHA states in a release issued on Thursday.
Walsh is being penalized for pulling his team from the game.
The PMHA has refused to comment at this time, but the OMHA stated that the PMHA supported Walsh throughout the hearing process.
Walsh wouldn’t comment on the level of support he has received from the PMHA or on reports that the PMHA lobbied the OMHA to immediately lift Walsh’s suspension.
“I have no comment,” he said.
The OMHA focused on Hockey Canada regulations rather than considering the specifics of the situation, Walsh said.
“The OMHA does not want to be involved. They do not want to help. They just want to blame somebody else for the problem. It’s a Hockey Canada regulation,” he said.
On Thursday, OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan said the PMHA dealt with the racial slur issue with the three-game suspension of the offending player.
The OMHA only had to deal with the refusal to start play, which is a regulation set by Hockey Canada, Ropchan said.
Peterborough MP Dean Del Mastro, who is the parliamentary secretary to the minister of sport, expressed disappointment over the OMHA’s suspension of Walsh.
“This has become a national story,” Del Mastro said. “I saw it as an opportunity to reaffirm that frankly there’s no place for racism in Canada… They had an opportunity, in my view, to take a strong stance that would have been on the right side of the issue.”
Del Mastro said he believes that the player who uttered the racial slur and his family are genuinely remorseful.
“I don’t think we as a community should be beating up on them,” he said.
Organizations that control minor sports in Ontario need to take action soon to ensure that it’s clear that any form of prejudice or racial slurs is unacceptable, said Hamilton East-Stoney Creek MPP Paul Miller, the NDP sports critic.
“They need to revisit their rules governing these kinds of incidents,” he said. “They have to send a strong message.”
Miller added he doesn’t agree with the OMHA looking at the racial slur and forfeiting of the game by Walsh’s team as separate issues.
The player who uttered the racial slur, his coach and his assistant coach got three-game suspensions, while Walsh is suspended for the rest of the season, Miller pointed out.
“That’s hardly fair,” he said. “What’s wrong with that picture?”
The OMHA was penned in by its regulations when it considered Walsh’s suspension, Del Mastro said.
“There isn’t a lot of latitude in the rules … It’s something that the OMHA may want to consider in the off-season,” he said. “If the public at large was polled on this, I don’t think you’d find very many people that think Greg Walsh should have been suspended for even a minute.”
NOTE: Coach Greg Walsh made a point on Friday of defending the sponsor of the opposing team, Austin Trophies. Austin Trophies is a great sponsor of the league, Walsh said.
bwedley@peterboroughexaminer.com
Hockey coach's suspension lifted
OMHA reverses ruling on coach who pulled team from game after racial taunt
Last Updated: Monday, December 20, 2010
An Ontario minor hockey coach who was suspended after a racial slur prompted him to pull his team from the ice said Monday that the Ontario Minor Hockey Association has rescinded the suspension.
Peterborough hockey coach Greg Walsh, who was suspended for the year after he pulled his team from the ice following a racial slur, said the penalty has been rescinded.
Greg Walsh, a coach from Peterborough, Ont., called CBC News to confirm that the suspension had been lifted.
The OMHA also confirmed the move.
"The board met behind closed doors yesterday and decided to end Walsh's suspension," OMHA director Richard Ropchan said. "This is the right decision to move forward."
Walsh, the coach of the NAPA Auto Parts team, pulled his team from the ice after one of his players was the target of a racial slur from the opposing team.
On Nov. 15, one of Walsh's players on the NAPA Auto Parts team, Andrew McCullum, 16, was sent to the penalty box along with a rival from the Austin Trophies.
While they were in the Kinsmen Arena penalty box, the boys heckled one another. McCullum told his coach that the opposing player directed the N-word at him.
The referee benched both players for the rest of the period, but when the offending player came out to start the third period, Walsh and his team left the ice. That move was against the rules of Hockey Canada, the sport's national governing body.
The Ontario Minor Hockey Association last week decided to suspend Walsh from the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association Midget House League until April 10.
The ruling came after a Dec. 11 hearing into the incident.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/12/20/toronto-hockey-coach.html#ixzz18jDnPdtw
Minor hockey officials want apology for reinstated coach
By Linda Nguyen, Postmedia News December 21, 2010
Two Ontario minor league hockey teams will boycott all tournaments in Peterborough, Ont., until a local coach there gets an apology for being suspended for intentionally forfeiting a game after a racial slur was directed at one of his players.
"Essentially, we won't come back to Peterborough for a tournament again until we get an apology from the Ontario Minor Hockey Association," Keith McDonald — coach of the two London, Ont., teams — said on Tuesday.
Greg Walsh, who coaches the Peterborough team NAPA Auto Parts, was reinstated Monday after he was automatically suspended following a forfeiture during a Nov. 15. game.
At that game, Walsh pulled his team off the ice after referees did not immediately discipline a player on the opposing team for allegedly calling one of his players the "N-word." Officials said they did not hear the racial slur from the player on the Austin Trophies which was directed at 16-year-old Andrew McCullum.
That player, his coach and assistant coach were later suspended for three games.
Walsh was told last Thursday his suspension was going to last until April 10. But the OMHA contacted him Monday to notify him that they have reversed the suspension effective immediately, following a weekend board meeting.
Nevertheless, McDonald doesn't think it's enough.
"I just think it was the public backlash that caused the OMHA to reverse their decision," he said. "Not because of what happened. People make mistakes but I think the OMHA needs to admit theirs and make sure we have policies and procedures in place."
He said the parents of his players, who are between the ages of 7 and 10, support the boycott.
The OMHA originally said it had no choice but to suspend Walsh because it had to follow Hockey Canada's rules. The association said it has been in contact with Hockey Canada and will review the policy biannually as scheduled.
Spokesman Richard Ropchan had no comment Tuesday on the boycott.
The Peterborough Minor Hockey Association is also in the process of looking at its policies to prevent future similar incidents.
Peterborough is about 150 kilometres northeast of Toronto.
Doyle: Suspended minor hockey coach finally reinstated
loosepucks.com 12/20/10 15:56 blog
It took way too long, but a minor hockey coach who took a stand against racism in a Peterborough midget house league can finally go back behind the bench.
...
Greg Walsh made national headlines when he pulled his team off the ice after one of his players was on the receiving end of a racial slur during a midget house league game in Peterborough in November. The Ontario Minor Hockey Association held a hearing into the incident and decided to uphold Walsh's suspension for the remainder of the hockey season. But now, the OMHA's Board of Directors has decided to overturn the suspension and allow Walsh to get back to coaching.
The incident happened during a mix-up between two players in a Peterborough Minor Hockey Association game. One was accused of directing "The N-word" towards the other player, who is black, while in the penalty box. The on-ice officials did not hear it, but it was overheard by timekeepers. Walsh informed the referees and the opposing coach of it and informed both that if the player was allowed to return to the game - his team would not. When the player who used the slur returned in the third period, Walsh and his players decided they would not play and left the ice.
The player involved along with the coach, who is also President of the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association, were both suspended three games and have since returned to action. But Walsh was facing a more severe punishment for pulling his team off the ice and failing to play.
Before I go further, I will disclose that I know Walsh through my days in Peterborough. But I have not spoken to him since this incident occurred, or actually in a couple years since I moved to Sarnia.
I do not agree with how the Ontario Hockey Minor Hockey Association handled this incident. First of all, the hearing should have occurred quickly. Why was it a few weeks before a hearing took place? In this day-and-age of modern technology - conference calls, web meetings, etc. could have taken place if a face-to-face was difficult to coordinate. I understand the rule, and potential severe punishment, for pulling your team off the ice. That rule is necessary so that you don't have coaches pulling their team off anytime a coach is unhappy with a referee. The integrity of the game itself could be compromised if a coach could withdraw his team anytime they are losing and a call is missed. But the OMHA stuck to its rulebook and slapped Coach Walsh with a major suspension, despite evidence his team had been wronged. The lengthy suspension was justified by saying that it could have been a calendar year. Since that ruling came down, there have been whispers that major sponsors were threatening to pull their support from the OMHA.
How do I think it should have been handled?
If I was heading up this situation, I would have thanked Walsh for bringing this situation to light and taking a stand. But I would have also asked him to acknowledge withdrawing his team from a game is not something that can be taken lightly no matter the situation. With that in mind, I would have reinstated him immediately after the hearing, calling it "time served". He could not go unpunished for pulling his team off the ice, that is a rule and he was aware of it. But to sit out the rest of the year for taking a stand against something we all agree with him taking a stand against was ridiculous. I would have also ordered a review of player conduct regarding racial, ethic and social discrimination in all minor hockey branches under their jurisdiction. What is the punishment for stooping to that level? How is it to be handled if not heard by the on-ice officials? What should a player do if he/she feels they have been victimized not only by an opponent, but what if the comments are coming from their own team? It can happen.
People are calling the three-game suspension to the coach and player involved to be too light. You have to factor in how many games that league plays. I do not have that number, but when I played house league hockey we played one game per week with another game thrown in on a weeknight every couple weeks. This is not the OHL where three games could be served over one weekend. Three games is also a higher percentage of the season than a league like the OHL. I believe the player involved is remorseful for what happened, and his suspension along with an apology should suffice. If it happens again - well of course that is different and penalties should escalate for repeat offenders. But one slip of the tongue should not tarnish a person for life if they are willing to learn from it.
Running minor hockey is not an easy task - it is a job I certainly would not want. You have overzealous parents who think their kid is heading to the National Hockey League going up against people who are just looking for a recreational activity. Hopefully this situation will turn into a lesson for minor hockey executives as well. At least the OMHA Board of Directors got it right in the end.
tdoyle@loosepucks.com
Twitter: Loosepucks
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OMHA reverses suspension in racist slur case
By QMI Agency
Last Updated: December 20, 2010
Peterborough - A Peterborough hockey coach who was suspended for the season after pulling his house league team from a game to protest a racial slur hurled at one of his players has been reinstated.
The Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) reversed its decision on Monday, immediately reinstating Greg Walsh, who was told Thursday that he was suspended until April 10.
The OMHA wouldn’t say why it reversed its decision, made at a Dec. 11 committee meeting at league offices in Richmond Hill, Ont.
Walsh’s team forfeited a game Nov. 15 after officials failed to penalize the player who uttered the racial slur and the opposing coach failed to pull the player from the game.
Walsh expressed surprise Monday over the OMHA’s reversal.
“It’s very humbling in the end the support that we received, really from all across the country,” he said. “I applaud the OMHA for looking at it. We had planned an appeal anyways, but it’s very nice to see that they saw merit in the case.
“It was nice to see that the public really had a voice and it was heard.”
Walsh hopes the racial slur was an isolated incident in Peterborough hockey.
“It’s still a problem in society. It’s not just hockey,” he said. “This is just another life lesson that we learned as a team.”
The 30-member board met Sunday afternoon to discuss the suspension, OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan said Monday.
“They decided to have a closed-door meeting and to review the decision,” he said. “Based on its review, the board decided to terminate the suspension immediately and basically we move on.
“I’m very pleased with the board’s decision and we move on.”
Ropchan said he’s the spokesman for the OMHA and that was the information the board gave him to make public.
Walsh was temporarily suspended on Nov. 15, pending the outcome of a hearing, for pulling his team from a game that was held at the Kinsmen arena in Peterborough.
A player uttered a racial slur at Andrew McCullum as the two players were in the penalty box following a confrontation on the ice near the end of the second period.
A referee didn’t hear the racial slur, but Walsh brought it to the attention of the officials and the opposing team’s coach.
The player was back on the ice to start the third period and that’s when Walsh’s team forfeited the game in protest.
The coach of the opposing team is John Welsh, president of the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association (PMHA). Welsh hasn’t responded to numerous requests for interviews over the last two weeks.
The player who uttered the racial slur, his coach and an assistant coach were given three-game suspensions by the PMHA on Nov. 17.
The PMHA supported the immediate reinstatement of Walsh, said Jeff Ayotte, a lawyer representing the PMHA.
“It was the right thing to do. Given the nature of the one boy’s comments, the PMHA does not condone in any way racism or any type of conduct like that,” he said.
As a result, the PMHA is reviewing its policies and procedures.
The PMHA plans to roll out its new policies next month, Ayotte said.
“Education is the key and greater penalties, greater sanctions if it does occur,” he said. “It’s about more than hockey. It’s for children. And we’re trying to provide a safe environment where they can continue to play and learn.”
Walsh and his NAPA Auto team have offered their support for the policies and procedures review.
Right now, a racial slur is considered a minor penalty until the second incident, Walsh said.
“There’s no more minor penalty for that,” he said. “I would like to see that that is called as a major penalty by the PMHA, then the person that had made that slur would have gone through the same process that I went through."
Walsh is looking forward to getting back behind the bench.
“It’s very gratifying because we are a team. I get to get back with the kids that I have a great deal of respect for. I get to coach my son, which means a lot to me too,” he said.
After reading this one, I wonder what some people are thinking... the lowest level peewee team... really parents???
Controversy pushes girl off coed hockey team
December 22, 2010
Robert Cribb - Toronto Star
For 12-year-old Kayla Watkins, the public humiliation was too much.
After learning a parent on her coed peewee hockey team — comprised entirely of boys except for her — called for restrictions on her ice time or her removal from the team unless her skills improved, she did the only thing she thought she could: She quit.
“I felt that if I went back all the parents would have been watching every move I made and always staring at me,” said the outgoing preteen, who has been playing the game since the age of four.
“To play hockey you shouldn’t have to go through what I went through. I was just looking to have friendship and play the game I love.”
The controversy that seized the Toronto Ice Dogs PeeWee “A” club — minor hockey’s lowest level of competitive play — emerged last month at a parents’ meeting called by George Atis, who has a child on the team, but is not part of the coaching staff.
The Thornhill lawyer drafted the agenda which included this item: “Kayla Watkins — Player Ability Limitations and Suggested Options.”
“It is now 14 games into the season and I have noticed that Kayla’s play has not improved,” the agenda reads. “It is at the point where many of the team members do not want to play on this team if this situation is not addressed.”
Atis then details two possible options for consideration, either moving Kayla from defence to forward and keeping her off of power plays and penalty kills, or playing her every second shift on defence and again keeping her off special teams “until her skating and shooting improves.”
“If Kayla is NOT amenable to the above options, the coach should find Kayla a new team to play on — commensurate to her skill level — for the balance of the season,” the agenda reads.
Atis also raised concerns about Kayla changing in the same locker-room as the boys, stating, “there have been many ‘near miss’ incidents where the boys have almost been exposed to Kayla.”
Vanessa Watkins, Kayla’s mother and team manager, says she was shocked by Atis’s targeting of her daughter.
“Do we not put our kids in team sports to learn to be a team player, to win as a team, to lose as a team and it’s not about me, me, me?”
In an interview Monday, Atis defended the agenda, saying it voiced concerns from boys on the team who were both squeamish about undressing in front of Kayla and frustrated with her play on the ice.
“I wrote the agenda, I stand by it,” said Atis, whose son Michael has played with Kayla for the past two seasons until her recent departure.
“I lay the blame, if you must know, at the feet of Vanessa Watkins . . . If it was my child, he would have never been in that position because I would not have put him on a team where he was not competing and where he was a liability to the team.”
While such disputes are common at higher levels such as triple-A hockey, they shouldn’t happen at single-A, Kayla said.
“(Atis) is not my coach so I don’t know how he’s judging my play,” she said. “If there’s something wrong, my coach should have talked to me, not him. And my coach never did.”
Paul Macchia, Kayla’s coach, says he chose her to be on his team and never wanted her to leave.
“There’s always complaints from parents about ice time but I’ve never seen an issue where it has gone this far before,” he said. “I don’t know what they were trying to accomplish. It’s not an individual player losing a game. She made mistakes but so did others on the team. We’ve been the same since she left.”
The team is currently 10th out of 12 teams in their division with a record of 8-13-1.
Sheree Watkins, Kayla’s grandmother who attended the meeting and many of her granddaughter’s games, called it a mean-spirited attack on the team’s only girl.
“It floored me that a lawyer would write an agenda like that. There was just so much discrimination.”
Atis said he supports coed hockey generally and that his move wasn’t about gender discrimination. It was about skill level.
“This should have never come down to a singling out of Kayla in this fashion. I think you should look to Vanessa and ask her if she felt truly in her heart . . . if Kayla was at the same level as her teammates.”
Kayla found out about everything when she spotted a copy of the agenda in her mom’s email.
“I was very upset. I do think parents can be over the edge,” she said.
Atis said he never intended Kayla to see the agenda.
“As a parent, my heart goes out to her. If Kayla truly read this agenda by accident, it is very unfortunate . . . I am mortified that Vanessa or Sheree or whoever shared this agenda with Kayla would actually do so . . . I believe Kayla’s feelings could have been spared. That, to me, is the great shame in this process that Kayla would feel as she did.”
Since quitting the Ice Dogs, Kayla has moved to the all-girls North York Storm.
She may miss the challenge of playing with boys. But the culture is far more welcoming, she says.
“Everyone’s nice to each other. It doesn’t matter if we win or lose. If we lose a game, it’s okay because everyone picks each other up.”
And now for something completely different (that's for you Kai!) - some good news articles! You have to see John Wooden's TED Talk...
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/john_wooden_on_the_difference_between_winning_and_success.html
For a list of all TED Talks, see:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?utm_campaign=ted&hl=en&utm_medium=on.ted.com-twitter&utm_source=blog.ted.com&key=0AsKzpC8gYBmTcGpHbFlILThBSzhmZkRhNm8yYllsWGc&utm_content=site-basic#gid=0
How John Wooden changed my life: Exclusive interview with Steve Jamison
Steve Jamison has co-authored five books with John Wooden, produced a documentary about him, and is consultant to his leadership program at UCLA. All this came about after one fateful meeting, for an innocuous interview.
Coach Wooden has influenced the lives of many, and he discusses his inspirational philosophy on personal success in today’s heartwarming TEDTalk. To understand why Steve got hooked by the story of this legendary basketball coach, read below the fold >>
An excerpt from the interview:
When I got back to transcribe the conversation, I realized that every single sentence was fully formed, enlightening and substantive. I just kept re-reading it. And it was about leadership and life, not basketball. He said things like, “Don’t forget, Steve, the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”What did Coach Wooden think about his talk being posted on TED.com?
He said, “Fine.” Well, he was delighted with TED when he was there. But he’s just come out of the hospital, and although his recovery is coming along fine, he was in the hospital for three weeks. And he’s currently on some very serious medication, so that’s all he could manage. But he is recovering, and was able to celebrate daughter’s birthday with her this weekend.
When we watched the video here at TED, we were all very impressed with Coach Wooden’s wit and public speaking prowess, especially considering his age.
He’s always had the ability to hold the attention of crowd. He’s got a sense of humor and a profound presence that is unique and probably brought on by his phenomenal experience and age. His presence is just riveting.
How did you first meet Coach Wooden and how did your relationship with him evolve?
It was totally unforeseeable. I interviewed him for another project I was doing that involved talking to the top performers in sports to understand their way of thinking and see how that could be applied elsewhere.
In my mind, he wasn’t a big deal. I was more impressed with his players. If you’re an average fan, like I was, you don’t talk to the bench. I knew he was good, but I didn’t go into the interview with any sense of awe. I actually took my dad along, because my dad understood and he was excited.
All of that changed when I met Coach Wooden. He has this combination of great inner strength and great inner youthfulness. As we went on, I got to see much more of what he was about.
When I got back to transcribe the conversation, I realized that every single sentence was fully formed, enlightening and substantive. I just kept re-reading it. And it was about leadership and life, not basketball. He said things like, “Don’t forget, Steve, the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”
So when I saw the transcript, literally I thought, “This is a book!” I called Coach with a great deal of enthusiasm to tell him about my intentions. He was polite, and said no. But I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I called him back in a week. And he said he had a lot of things on his agenda, and he was serious, even though he was in his 80s.
But I kept going back, and eventually wrote him a letter. I tried to convince him with all the usual arguments — money, visibility. He didn’t care. Then I remembered that he had said, “I am a teacher.” So I sent him a note that said this book is an opportunity to teach. He agreed to work on it.
Eventually we found a publisher, and created a small, blue book that started a real relationship in my life with Coach, that has turned into a great friendship. He views his team as an extended family, and we were a different type of a team, but we were a little team of two in writing this book.
I thought that was it. But the little blue book, “Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections,” became popular and the publisher asked if there were any other books we’d like to do. So we did another fabulous book together. We did a PBS show and I was the producer, called “John Wooden: Values, Victory and Peace of Mind.” We’ve also done a children’s book called “Inches and Miles” and other books since then.
Why do you think the books have had so much success?
These were all driven by John Wooden’s appeal. He talks about not just leadership, but his life and his father’s influence. A lot of young people get advice from their dad and just forget it. But he carried his dad’s advice with him all through his life.
His dad emphasized the golden rule and that was fundamental to his coaching. His definition of success comes from his father telling him not to compare himself to others, just do your best.
Coach was values-driven and character-based before those terms were coined. He understood how to treat people right, but he was also very demanding. His strategy is based on his dad, but also on his coach at Purdue, Piggy Lambert, who was another one of the greatest coaches of all time. He also had this “team as an extended family” idea.
I remember that first transcript, I sent it to my dad, and asked, “What do you think?” He sent it back with a note that said, “Everything that Coach Wooden says is pure gold. Don’t mess it up.”
It sounds like Coach Wooden was really influenced by his father and the idea of family. His father must also have been a tremendous man.
Yes he was. I once went to his father’s gravesite, actually — just to pay my respects to that kind of a man.
And the team is an extended family. All the players still contact Coach, and stop by for lunch or breakfast regularly. They send him letters, postcards and birthday cards from everywhere.
One of Coach’s first players, from his first high school team in 1932, contacted him while we working on a book. He hadn’t much longer to live, and wanted to talk to Coach. After they had spoken, I asked the player quickly, “How’d it go?” He replied, “Coach Wooden really cared about us boys on the team, and made us practice extra because of it.”
It sounds like Coach Wooden has an amazing philosophy.
Well, when he first started teaching he thought he was supposed to like all the players all the same. But then he started coaching, and he realized that he didn’t like everyone the same. He read something that Amos Alonzo Stagg had written, where he said, “I don’t like all my players the same. But I love them all the same.”
So, Coach changed his pre-season talk from, “I will like you all the same,” to “I will not like you all the same. I will love you all the same and I will give you the treatment you earn and deserve.”
He also liked when people paid attention to little things. I remember being at a game with him, where they sent in a waiter to serve his dinner. Now, this waiter didn’t know who Coach was, but he took his time making sure everything was done correctly, adjusting the cutlery and the flowers till they were just right. When the waiter left, Coach said, “Steve, if there’s a secret to success, it just might be little things done well. I love to see little things done well.”
He loved when people paid attention to perfecting the relevant details. And every season, he would show his players how to put on their socks. They had to learn to put on their socks properly to avoid folds, creases and wrinkles, because folds, creases and wrinkles could cause blisters. Blisters cause pain, and pain causes distraction, and that can come at the wrong time.
He also insisted that they double-knot their shoestrings. All of these nuts and bolts combined with the different elements of leadership — that’s what he was getting at. In my opinion he was the best at getting players to perform at the highest level they can.
How about the John Wooden Global Leadership Program at UCLA? How did that come to be? And to what extent are you involved with it?
I’m a consultant to that program. Coach sees over it and approves what’s done.
I was seeing from my results in book sales that there was a great interest in these skills in corporate America. So I got the idea for a program like this and I said, UCLA is the place for it. And so I set up a lunch meeting for Coach with Dean Judy Olian, and he had a great impact on her. She called me and said, “Let’s do it.”
Coach agreed to it because we have a banquet each year and the proceeds go to student scholarships. When you say scholarships for young people, you’re talking his language.
Right now, it’s still an award and a banquet with a distinguished keynote speaker. But in the future we’re hoping to get Coach’s teachings integrated into the curriculum.
Are there any other plans for the future?
Well, we would like to see the children’s book, “Inches and Miles,” animated. We’ve had a couple of offers on that, but not one I like yet. But you know, a child will watch “Winnie the Pooh” 400 times. Imagine if they did that with something that contained lessons that were this important.
Here is another good one - Stuart Brown on "Play." He also has a book out... now it is on my list! Amazing pictures and description of a polar bear and a husky (dog) playing!
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html
Keep it fun, coaches!
A couple of sites of interest with tons of articles and videos. Tom mentions the site on the home page, down toward the bottom.
Minnesota Hockey... I posted some of these links under the thread "Competitiveness."
http://www.minnesotahockey.org/page/show/80470-home
http://minnesotahockeyhep.com/
--------------------------
Dean, I think the Minnesot hockey program is the most open to new ideas and really tries to help their coaches.
I couldn't believe how enthused they were about high school hockey when I went there to play for Bemidji State. The fans at the games were unbelievably loud and the enthusiasm was more than I have seen at games in any other hockey place I have been (and that is almost every hockey power).
On a Thursday afternoon at 1pm on a workday the arena where the NHL team played was full for a high school qualification game. No one went to clas but all watched on TV. Canada and Minnesota are equal in their love for our favourite game.
A Canadian goaltender’s lesson in life
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jan. 07, 2011
Perhaps you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but just maybe this old dog has something to teach a few people.
We will meet Sheba later.
But let us begin around midnight Wednesday on the Peace Bridge leading from Buffalo, N.Y., to Fort Erie, Ont. Dan Visentin, a high school math teacher, is driving. His wife, Liz, also a teacher, is in the car, as are his parents Italo and Rita Visentin.
Italo Visentin knows something about dreams. More than a half century ago he and Rita came from Italy to nearby Niagara Falls with no idea what would happen to them in this strange new country where they didn’t even speak the language. Yet it all worked out wonderfully. He became a crane operator; their children excelled in school and life; retirement gave them time to spend with grandchildren – and they had just witnessed one of them have a dream shattered.
Mark Visentin, who turned 18 only last August, was in goal for Team Canada at the World Junior Championship when the unimaginable happened. Canada was ahead 3-0 heading into the third period of the gold medal game and seemed on cruise to avenge the championship lost to the Americans last year in Saskatoon. The young Canadians had already effortlessly dispatched this year’s Americans 4-1 and seemed to be doing the same to the Russians – only to have Russia score two goals in 13 seconds, tie the game in less than five minutes and storm on to a stunning 5-3 victory.
Even without the radio on, everyone in the car knew what was being said: the greatest collapse ever …the team had choked…the goalie was the goat. They hoped that Mark, travelling behind in another car with his girlfriend Harmony, didn’t have his radio on. He didn’t.
“How ya doin’ tonight?” the border guard asked as Dan Visentin handed over the four passports.
“Depressed,” Mr. Visentin answered.
The guard, flicking through the passports, paused and looked up, surprised.
“Oh shit,” he said, “you’re a Visentin.”
“I’m the father.”
The guard handed back he passports. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You have a great kid there – you got to be proud of him.”
“We are.”
“He’s going to be a great goalie one day.”
“We know.”
Mark Visentin made it through at another border booth and drove slowly to his parents home in little Waterdown. No radio. Hardly any words. What was there to say?
He had already said what he thought he had to say. He had sobbed on the ice and wept in the dressing room – no different from any of the other shattered players – and when Andre Brin, Hockey Canada’s media person at the tournament, tentatively asked if anyone was ready to meet the media, Mark Visentin volunteered immediately.
“I’ll come out,” he told Mr. Brin.
A lot of goaltenders would have refused. Some of the gathered media reacted with surprise when the black curtain split open and out stepped the Canadian goaltender of record, eyes clear, head held high, and prepared to talk as long as there were questions.
“I like to get stuff done and not leave it,” he says.
He put no blame on the defence that at times let him down, no blame on the forwards who had their own breakdowns. He took full responsibility.
“I’m not the guy who blames his team,” he says. “You really wish you could have provided a couple of saves when they were needed but I didn’t. They kind of took it to us.”
He had felt the tide turning, as coach Dave Cameron later put it. He watched the “spark” go into the Russians and knew that it had gone out of his own team. “We pushed the panic button a bit,” he says. “We tried to get back but….”
He knew he could talk forever and the score would never change. “No one to blame but me,” he says. “I try to make myself accountable for what happens.”
It is, in fact, the accountability and responsibility of that critical position in hockey that first appealed to him. In his first year of novice they let each youngster try goaltending, and when some of the children balked, he volunteered. In his second year he went fulltime in the nets.
“I fell in love with it,” he says.
“Only fat kids who can’t skate play goal,” his father would kid him. But Mark stuck with it even though he had shown promise as an out player.
“The goaltender can be a game-changer,” he says, “and that is a great, great feeling. But if you’re going to do that, you have to accept the ups and downs that come with it.”
His great hero was Curtis Joseph, then the goaltender for the nearby Toronto Maple Leafs. He and his friends would play on the backyard rink and he would imagine he was “CuJo” kicking out the pucks – at least when Sheba, the family’s golden retriever puppy wasn’t running off with them.
An only child, he had formed a remarkable bond with the dog. They grew up together and today are teenagers together, Sheba 14 and Mark 18, though she long ago lost interest in chasing pucks.
Dan Visentin didn’t push his son. He himself had never played the game and he left the coaching to others. One minor hockey coach, Ken Jaysman, took Mark as goaltender on his AA Novice team and the team went through the season undefeated – Mr. Jaysman’s attitude and love of the game making a huge impression on the youngster.
Soon he was considered a goaltender to watch. At 16, he made the leap to major junior, drafted by the Niagara IceDogs, a team that plays out of St. Catharines, Ont. At 17, six weeks short of his 18th birthday, and much to his own surprise, he became a first round draft pick (chosen 27th overall) of the Phoenix Coyotes.
“I felt like I had a heart attack,” he said of the surprise first-round choice, a selection that Sports Illustrated tagged the biggest surprise of the opening round of the draft. To Mark Visentin, however, it was “the best day of my life.” He had no idea that, before the year was out, he would also go through the worst day of such a young life.
He hopes, like every player named to the Team Canada junior team, to have a professional career, but he is an excellent student with an average consistently above 80 per cent and intends to take courses at Brock University for as long as he’s a junior. “You have to have a back-up plan,” he says.
But the main plan is obviously to go as far as he can in hockey. Last summer he was invited to the junior camp, but when he got there they lumped him in with the under-18s rather than the under-20s and he was sure he would never be able to impress the ones he needed to. But then they made him one of four goaltenders invited to the December camp in Toronto. His roommate was Olivier Roy, who got his call from team management early that final morning of camp and told Mark, who figured this meant he himself hadn’t made it.
“Who’s your partner going to be?” the disappointed youngster asked.
“You!”
It seemed that partnership would be in the back-up role, with the year-older Mr. Roy pegged to get the most work, but after Canada lost 6-5 in a shootout to Sweden, the switch was made to Mark Visentin. He allowed a weak goal in the quarter-final against Switzerland, but it was the only goal allowed, and he was as good as the rest of his team against U.S.A., when Canada won 4-1 to reach the final. There was no doubt, by this point, that the 18-year-old goaltender would play the gold medal game in a championship that was created for, and has traditionally been decided by, 19-year-olds.
He prepared as usual – a meal of chicken parmesan, listen to some music (everything from rap to country) on the iPad Hockey Canada gave each player for Christmas, get to the rink, work on his sticks, go through the warm-up – but no one, not the coaches, not the country, was prepared for that third period.
It has been described as the greatest collapse ever in Canada’s time in international hockey, but there are comparables. Alan Eagleson says what happened in Buffalo reminded him of Game 5 in the 1972 Summit Series. Team Canada was up 4-1 into the third period in Moscow, only to have the Soviets score two very quick goals – quicker even than the Russians scored their two on Mark Visentin – on Tony Esposito and then two more before the period was out to win 5-4.
Mr. Esposito, it might be worth pointing out, went on to a Hall-of-Fame career.
“People lose perspective,” says Dan Visentin. “The better team won.
“Mark will be fine. He’s not just my son, he’s my best friend – and he’s a great guy. He’s got his whole future in front of him.”
It took a long time for Mark Visentin to drive home that night. He thinks he probably got in around 3:30. “It was weird,” he says of the drive back. “There was just so much to take in.”
He was grateful for his goaltending coach with the IceDogs, Ben Vanderklok, who has worked hard on “focus” and “attitude” and “confidence” the past two years.
“It was a tough pill to swallow,” he says. “But I think I’m a better person for it. This has been a big learning curve.” If he gets a chance next year, when he’ll only be 19, he’ll be ready. He just hopes to get the chance.
There was no one up when he came through the front door, but then the sound of an old dog’s nails moving along the floor.
Sheba came hurrying toward him, wiggling and tail wagging.
“She was just happy to see me,” he says.
And he her, after the day he had just put in.
Easier said than done
Building NHL winner not simple
By STEVE SIMMONS, QMI Agency
Jan 12 2011
TORONTO - At the halfway point of another frustrating Maple Leafs season, it is far too easy and much too inaccurate to point to the Phil Kessel trade as the philosophical reason for the organizational stagnancy.
The other night, when the Leafs were playing the Los Angeles Kings, the obvious comparisons were made: One team building patiently through the draft. The other trying to fast track. One team doing it right, the story went. The other, missing all the cues.
If only building hockey teams were so simple.
While the Kings may seem to be a model for managerial patience and bottoming out — building through the draft being the catch phrase — understand this: The Kings missed the playoffs six straight years to get the draft picks necessary to compete. In the seventh building year, they made the playoffs and were eliminated in six games. This is Year 8. If the season ended today, the Kings would not be in the playoffs. So for all their patience, all their doing things the “right way” you can ask yourself a question: Where exactly are they?
It isn’t just the Los Angeles Kings, although they have the nicest roster of the recent rebuilds. The notion that Brian Burke messed up by trading away two first-round picks for Kessel is a wonderful debating point — but the evidence of successful teams building through the draft is not entirely clear.
The model franchise in all of hockey is the Detroit Red Wings. They’ve had 10 straight 100-point seasons. Almost everything they do seems like the right thing. Their team was built around three draft choices — Niklas Lidstrom, a third-round pick; Pavel Datsyuk, a sixth-round pick; Henrik Zetterberg, a late seventh-round pick. The Red Wings have traded their first-round picks away in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006. Only one important player on their team, Niklas Kronwall was their own first-round pick.
Which means what? It means there is no one way to find success in the NHL.
The Atlanta Thrashers have played 10 full seasons and have never won a playoff game. They have drafted first twice, second twice, third and fourth in their history: How has any of that helped them get to where they are today?
The Columbus Blue Jackets have played in one playoff round in 10 years of existence. They’ve had top 10 draft picks 10 different times. It hasn’t taken them anywhere near contender status.
The Florida Panthers have missed the playoffs 11 of the past 12 years and drafted top 10 on occasions. Their top picks produced Nathan Horton, Stephen Weiss and Jay Bouwmeester, all decent NHL players, none of them about to challenge for all-star status.
Even the New York Islanders, who have picked first twice, second once, and chosen third, fourth and fifth twice in the draft, remain the most dysfunctional franchise in all of hockey.
It works to build through the draft when you have early picks and they turn out to be Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. You can do it when you get lucky and win the Sidney Crosby lottery just after Evgeny Malkin had been selected. You can do it when you end up with Alex Ovechkin, and Nick Backstrom and Mike Green in a few short drafts.
But for every Chicago story, every Pittsburgh, every Washington, there’s an Atlanta, a Florida, a Columbus, and yes, even an Edmonton.
Even the Phoenix Coyotes are an example that questions that notion that drafting early means everything: The Coyotes missed the playoffs six years in a row in the Wayne Gretzky era. In that time, they drafted early five different times. Not one of the five picks has turned into a high-end NHL player. The Coyotes turned their team around in a completely non-conventional way, beginning with the hiring of coach Dave Tippett and the claiming of goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov on waivers. Only five of the regulars who play for the Coyotes were drafted by the team and the best first-round pick, Shane Doan, was selected by Winnipeg, if you believe that.
What impact coaches?
Coaches matter, as long as they're entertaining
Michael Grange
Globe and Mail Blog
Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011
How much difference does coaching make?
It’s one of the endless debates in sports. Fire that guy; hire this guy.
So-and-so coach gets his guys to play hard; so-and-so coach can’t get his guys to execute, and on-and on.
It wasn’t long ago that firing Ron Wilson was the obvious solution to whatever was ailing the Toronto Maple Leafs and Rex Ryan was promising the New York Jets were headed to Super Bowl.
With the Jets facing New England in the Divisional playoffs Sunday and prohibitive underdogs, it's looking like Wilson will last longer than Ryan's pledge, but stranger things have happened.
Why fire Wilson? The reasons were varied: his club had quit playing for him; the Leafs' special teams – particularly penalty killing, considered one area where coaching matters most – remained near the bottom of the NHL; he was growing short with the media; and ultimately he’s heading for his third straight year out of the playoffs.
And then last night he puts a bunch of money on the wall as a bonus if his team can beat the San Jose Sharks – this while playing on the road on the second night of back-to-back – and his club goes out and rallies to win 4-2.
Was it coaching? Maybe, in theory he's a good one. The win gave Wilson 600 for his career. The only men who’ve won more?
Scotty Bowman (1244), Al Arbour (782), Dick Irvin (692) Pat Quinn (684), Mike Keenan (672) and Bryan Murray (620).
But if you’re looking for the so-called money quote; the line where there’s clear connection between Wilson putting his money down and the players lifting their level of play, it’s not quite there; bemusement would be my interpretation:
“He had some money up on the board there for his 600th win, so it was nice to take that from him,” said Clarke MacArthur, who scored two goals and established a new career-high in points with 36.
“I just said ‘Congratulations’, that’s about it” laughed Colby Armstrong when asked what he said to the coach after the game. “It’s pretty good though, 600 wins. It’s a tremendous feat as a coach.”
It’s been an interesting week for coaches. The other day Ryan seemed to go out of his way to break every rule in the unwritten rule book in advance of the Jets-Patriots matchup.
He questioned the preparation and dedication of Tom Brady and took the risk of alienating his own players by suggesting that he would be the difference if the Jets somehow upset the might Patriots machine.
As former New York Jet lineman Joe Klecko put it: Ryan’s thunder was his George Patton moment, in reference to the famed WWII leaders nickname: old blood and guts, his soldiers called him, as in his guts, our blood.
I suppose there’s no downside when you’re the underdog to rattling the big dog’s cage.
And make no mistake, his words were heard: “When he talks about and insults the preparation of Tom Brady … there’s one guy I know that takes that personally and that’s Tom,” former Patriot lineback Ted Bruschi said on Tuesday evening during at interview on The Michael Kay Show on ESPN 1050. “I think it just intensifies his focus to where you’ve added a little bit more motivation.”
But if the best quarterback in the game comes out and strafes the Jets and Ryan’s club once again gets blown out by Bill Belichick’s Patriots it will be hard to argue that Ryan’s transparent attempt to set the tone for the week was a waste of hot air of which, fortunately, his has plenty to spare.
There are those that have tried to measure the impact of coaches and managers in major sports, and for the most part the results are inconclusive, though their does seem to be some evidence that a really, really bad coach can hurt his team.
But for the most part the measures say the same thing: coaching doesn’t really matter. Even in cases where coaches are fired mid-season and teams seem to bounce back is usually just a regression to the mean, which is to say: teams can't lose forever. Did Wilson's money make a difference in his team getting their fourth straight win and his 600th? Maybe, if goalie James Reimer was short on cash.
But more likely not. Do coaches matter? It doesn't matter to me; my only expectation for coaches is that they entertain me in some fashion.
In this regard, Ron Wilson and Rex Ryan are doing pretty well
What Makes a Great Teacher?
For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the Obama administration offers states more than $4 billion to identify and cultivate effective teachers, Teach for America is ready to release its data.
By Amanda Ripley
On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math.
One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor’s math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked.
The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so.
At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools—not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it’s worth noting, not a very hard one).
After a year in Mr. Taylor’s class, the first little boy’s scores went up—way up. He had started below grade level and finished above. On average, his classmates’ scores rose about 13 points—which is almost 10 points more than fifth-graders with similar incoming test scores achieved in other low-income D.C. schools that year. On that first day of school, only 40 percent of Mr. Taylor’s students were doing math at grade level. By the end of the year, 90 percent were at or above grade level.
As for the other boy? Well, he ended the year the same way he’d started it—below grade level. In fact, only a quarter of the fifth-graders at Plummer finished the year at grade level in math—despite having started off at about the same level as Mr. Taylor’s class down the road.
This tale of two boys, and of the millions of kids just like them, embodies the most stunning finding to come out of education research in the past decade: more than any other variable in education—more than schools or curriculum—teachers matter. Put concretely, if Mr. Taylor’s student continued to learn at the same level for a few more years, his test scores would be no different from those of his more affluent peers in Northwest D.C. And if these two boys were to keep their respective teachers for three years, their lives would likely diverge forever. By high school, the compounded effects of the strong teacher—or the weak one—would become too great.
Parents have always worried about where to send their children to school; but the school, statistically speaking, does not matter as much as which adult stands in front of their children. Teacher quality tends to vary more within schools—even supposedly good schools—than among schools.
But we have never identified excellent teachers in any reliable, objective way. Instead, we tend to ascribe their gifts to some mystical quality that we can recognize and revere—but not replicate. The great teacher serves as a hero but never, ironically, as a lesson.
At last, though, the research about teachers’ impact has become too overwhelming to ignore. Over the past year, President Barack Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have started talking quite a lot about great teaching. They have shifted the conversation from school accountability— the rather worn theme of No Child Left Behind, President George W. Bush’s landmark educational reform—to teacher accountability. And they have done it using one very effective conversational gambit: billions of dollars.
Thanks to the stimulus bonanza, Duncan has lucked into a budget that is more than double what a normal education secretary gets to spend. As a result, he has been able to dedicate $4.3 billion to a program he calls Race to the Top. To be fair, that’s still just a tiny fraction of the roughly $100 billion in his budget (much of which the government direct-deposits into the bank accounts of schools, whether they deserve the money or not). But especially in a year when states are projecting $16 billion in school-budget shortfalls, $4.3 billion is real money. “This is the big bang of teacher-effectiveness reform,” says Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit that helps schools recruit good teachers. “It’s huge.”
Despite the perky name, Race to the Top is a marathon—and a potentially grueling one; to win, states must take a series of steps that are considered radical in the see-no-evil world of education, where teachers unions have long fought efforts to measure teacher performance based on student test scores and link the data to teacher pay. States must try to identify great teachers, figure out how they got that way, and then create more of them. “This is the wave of the future. This is where we have to go—to look at what’s working and what’s not,” Duncan told me. “It sounds like common sense, but it’s revolutionary.”
Based on his students’ test scores, Mr. Taylor ranks among the top 5 percent of all D.C. math teachers. He’s entertaining, but he’s not a born performer. He’s well prepared, but he’s been a teacher for only three years. He cares about his kids, but so do a lot of his underperforming peers. What’s he doing differently?
One outfit in America has been systematically pursuing this mystery for more than a decade—tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and analyzing why some teachers can move those kids three grade levels ahead in one year and others can’t. That organization, interestingly, is not a school district.
Teach for America, a nonprofit that recruits college graduates to spend two years teaching in low-income schools, began outside the educational establishment and has largely remained there. For years, it has been whittling away at its own assumptions, testing its hypotheses, and refining its hiring and training. Over time, it has built an unusual laboratory: almost half a million American children are being taught by Teach for America teachers this year, and the organization tracks test-score data, linked to each teacher, for 85 percent to 90 percent of those kids. Almost all of those students are poor and African American or Latino. And Teach for America keeps an unusual amount of data about its 7,300 teachers—a pool almost twice the size of the D.C. system’s teacher corps.
Until now, Teach for America has kept its investigation largely to itself. But for this story, the organization allowed me access to 20 years of experimentation, studded by trial and error. The results are specific and surprising. Things that you might think would help a new teacher achieve success in a poor school—like prior experience working in a low-income neighborhood—don’t seem to matter. Other things that may sound trifling—like a teacher’s extracurricular accomplishments in college—tend to predict greatness.
Steven Farr is a tall man with a deep, quiet voice. He is Teach for America’s in-house professor, so to speak. His job is to find and study excellent teachers, and train others to get similar results. He takes his work very seriously, mostly because he has seen what the status quo looks like up close.
Farr grew up in a family of teachers in central Texas. When he graduated from the University of Texas, in 1993, he had a philosophy degree and an acceptance letter to Yale Law School, neither of which felt quite right. So he deferred law school and joined a new, floundering outfit, Teach for America.
After a little more than a month of somewhat uneven training, Farr walked into Donna High School in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas—a place he’d never been. Many of the three dozen kids in his classroom were the children of migrant workers; they would disappear for weeks at a time as their families followed the harvests.
Talking to Farr about those two years feels a little like talking to a war veteran. You and he both know that you can never understand what it was like, and the clichés come marching in. “It was the hardest, proudest, all of that,” he says, his voice drifting away. Then: “I was not the teacher I want our teachers to be.”
Farr lived with three other Teach for America teachers, in a house that had been confiscated by U.S. Marshals in a drug raid. He taught English and English as a Second Language. Texas required that students pass a standardized test before they graduate, and as test day approached, Farr felt a mixture of anxiety and resentment.
About a month afterward, he got the news: 76 percent of his students had passed; 24 percent were told they didn’t yet have the skills to graduate. Even though many were only sophomores, some of them dropped out as a result. The principal congratulated him on his scores, but Farr cried into his pillow that night. “Some of those kids did not pass because I was not as effective as I needed to be.”
After his two years were up, Farr went to law school, as planned. He came back to Teach for America in 2001—this time in charge of training and support. By then, the organization’s founder, Wendy Kopp, had begun to notice something puzzling when she visited classrooms: many Teach for America teachers were doing good work. But a small number were getting phenomenal results—and it was not clear why.
Farr was tasked with finding out. Starting in 2002, Teach for America began using student test-score progress data to put teachers into one of three categories: those who move their students one and a half or more years ahead in one year; those who achieve one to one and a half years of growth; and those who yield less than one year of gains. In the beginning, reliable data was hard to come by, and many teachers could not be put into any category. Moreover, the data could never capture the entire story of a teacher’s impact, Farr acknowledges. But in desperately failing schools, where most kids lack basic skills, the only way to bushwhack a path out of the darkness is with a good, solid measuring stick.
As Teach for America began to identify exceptional teachers using this data, Farr began to watch them. He observed their classes, read their lesson plans, and talked to them about their teaching methods and beliefs. He and his colleagues surveyed Teach for America teachers at least four times a year to find out what they were doing and what kinds of training had helped them the most.
Right away, certain patterns emerged. First, great teachers tended to set big goals for their students. They were also perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness. For example, when Farr called up teachers who were making remarkable gains and asked to visit their classrooms, he noticed he’d get a similar response from all of them: “They’d say, ‘You’re welcome to come, but I have to warn you—I am in the middle of just blowing up my classroom structure and changing my reading workshop because I think it’s not working as well as it could.’ When you hear that over and over, and you don’t hear that from other teachers, you start to form a hypothesis.” Great teachers, he concluded, constantly reevaluate what they are doing.
Superstar teachers had four other tendencies in common: they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.
But when Farr took his findings to teachers, they wanted more. “They’d say, ‘Yeah, yeah. Give me the concrete actions. What does this mean for a lesson plan?’” So Farr and his colleagues made lists of specific teacher actions that fell under the high-level principles they had identified. For example, one way that great teachers ensure that kids are learning is to frequently check for understanding: Are the kids—all of the kids—following what you are saying? Asking “Does anyone have any questions?” does not work, and it’s a classic rookie mistake. Students are not always the best judges of their own learning. They might understand a line read aloud from a Shakespeare play, but have no idea what happened in the last act.
“Strong teachers insist that effective teaching is neither mysterious nor magical. It is neither a function of dynamic personality nor dramatic performance,” Farr writes in Teaching as Leadership, a book coming out in February from Farr and his colleagues. The model the book lays out, Farr is careful to say, is not the only path to success. But he is convinced it can improve teaching—and already has. In 2007, 24 percent of Teach for America teachers moved their students one and a half or more years ahead, according to the organization’s internal reports. In 2009, that number was up to 44 percent. That data relies largely on school tests, which vary in quality from state to state. When tests aren’t available or sufficiently rigorous, Teach for America helps teachers find or design other reliable diagnostics.
So far, only one independent, random-assignment study of Teach for America’s effectiveness has been conducted. That report, published by Mathematica Policy Research in 2004, looked at the organization’s teachers and found that, in math, their students significantly outperformed those of their more experienced counterparts. (In reading, though, the teachers’ students did the same as other teachers’ students.) Another study is due out in 2012 or 2013.
Mr. Taylor, the fifth-grade math teacher in Washington, D.C., is not a member of Teach for America. He grew up attending D.C. public schools and then joined the profession the traditional way: he majored in education in college and then was certified. But Mr. Taylor has a lot in common with the teachers Farr has found to be most effective.
On a typical Monday, Mr. Taylor’s kids come to class and begin silently working on the Problem of the Day written on the blackboard. They sit in four clusters of desks. Each group has a team leader, who is selected by Mr. Taylor each month.
Mr. Taylor walks in and says good morning. “Good morning!” they answer in kid unison. He is wearing a scarf, a black-and-white pinstripe cardigan, and small, oval Dolce & Gabbana glasses, and he looks tired. He is taking classes on the weekends to get his master’s in education administration. He has a Bluetooth headset in one ear and an earring in the other.
After a few minutes, Mr. Taylor announces that it’s time for Mental Math. The kids put down their pencils and grab the orange index cards and markers on their desks. Mr. Taylor begins to walk around the class, reading problems aloud. “How many 5’s are in 45?” The kids have to do the math in their heads. All of them write their answers on their cards and thrust them up in the air. With a quick scan, Mr. Taylor can see if every child has written the right answer. Then he says, “What’s the answer?” And all the kids call out, “Nine!” When they get an answer right, they whisper-shout “Yes!” and pump their fists. If some kids get it wrong, they have not embarrassed themselves by individually raising their hand and announcing their mistake. But Mr. Taylor knows he needs to give them more attention—or, more likely, have their team leader work with them. Children, he has learned, speak to each other in a language they can better understand.
“Now I’m going to trick you,” Mr. Taylor says. “What’s 3 times 120?” The orange cards go down—and back up. “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” says one little girl, unable to contain herself. “‘Ooh’? Is that the answer?” Mr. Taylor says, silencing her.
Next, Mr. Taylor goes to the board to teach a new way to do long division. It’s a clever method that takes a little longer but is much easier than most other methods, and I’ve never seen it before. “You want to work smart, not hard,” he tells me later. “If you just show them the traditional method, not everyone understands.” He actually learned the method last year—from one of his students.
Mr. Taylor follows a very basic lesson plan often referred to by educators as “I do, we do, you do.” He does a problem on the board. Then the whole class does another one the same way. Then all the kids do a problem on their own. During the “we” portion of the lesson, Mr. Taylor calls on students to help solve the problem. But he does this using the “equity sticks”—a can of clothespins, each of which has a student’s name on it. That way, he ensures a random sample. The shy ones don’t get lost.
As the kids move into group work, there is a low buzz in the room. I try, but I can’t find a child who isn’t talking about math. One little boy leans across his desk to help another with a problem. “What do you add to 8 to get 16?” he says, and then he waits. “Eight,” the other boy says. “Then,” says the first, “you subtract that and what do you get?”
The activities come in brisk sequence, following a routine the kids know by heart, so no time is lost in transition. In Teaching as Leadership, Farr describes seeing such choreography in other high-performance classrooms. “We see routines so strong that they run virtually without any involvement from the teacher. In fact, for many highly effective teachers, the measure of a well-executed routine is that it continues in the teacher’s absence.”
On the front wall, Mr. Taylor has posted different hand signals—if you need to go to the bathroom, you raise a closed hand. To ask or answer a question, you raise an open hand. “This way, I have the information before I even call on you,” Mr. Taylor explains. There is even a signal for when you are having a terrible day and don’t feel up to participating: you just put your head down on your desk. I ask Mr. Taylor how often kids exploit that option. “I’ve never had anybody put their head down,” he says, matter-of-factly. “In three years?” I ask. “No.”
Next, Mr. Taylor announces it’s time for Multiplication Bingo. As Mr. Taylor reads off a problem (“20 divided by 5”), the kids scour their boards, chips in hand, looking for 4’s. One girl is literally shaking with excitement. Another has her hands clasped in a prayer position. I find myself wanting to play. You know you’re in a good classroom if you have to stop yourself from raising your hand.
Finally, after a dozen problems go by, a small voice from an even smaller boy pronounces, “Bingo!” Kids wail in despair as the tiny boy walks up to collect his prize (a pencil) from Mr. Taylor. “Dang!” one girl says. “Okay, relax,” Mr. Taylor says, smiling. “It’s just a game.” Before they leave, all the kids fill out an “exit slip,” which is usually in the form of a problem—one more chance for Mr. Taylor to see how they, and he, are doing.
When I talk to Mr. Taylor after class, I notice that he tends to redirect questions so that they reflect his own performance. When I ask him if his first year on the job was hard, he says, “I found that the kids were not hard. It was explaining the information to them that was hard. You paint this picture in your head about how you will teach this lesson, and you can teach the whole lesson and no one gets it.”
Like all the teachers I talked to in Washington, Mr. Taylor laments the lack of parental involvement. “On back-to-school night, if you have 28 or 30 kids in your class, you’re lucky to see six or seven parents,” he says. But when I ask him how that affects his teaching, he says, “Actually, it doesn’t. I make it my business to call the parents—and not just for bad things.” The first week of class, Mr. Taylor calls all his students’ parents and gives them his cell-phone number.
Other teachers I interviewed spent most of our time complaining. “With the testing and the responsibility and keeping up with the behavior reports and the data, it has gotten so much harder over the years,” said one fourth-grade teacher at Kimball, the same school where Mr. Taylor teaches. “It’s more work than it should be. They don’t give us the time to be creative.”
A 23-year veteran who earns more than $80,000 a year, this teacher has a warm manner, and her classroom is bright and neat. She paid for the kids’ whiteboards, the clock, and the DVD player herself. But she seems to have given up on the kids’ prospects in a way that Mr. Taylor has not. “The kids in Northwest [D.C.] go on trips to France, on cruises. They go places and their parents talk to them and take them to the library,” she says one fall afternoon between classes. “Our parents on this side don’t have the know-how to raise their children. They’re not sure what it takes for their child to make it.”
When her fourth-grade students entered her class last school year, 66 percent were scoring at or above grade level in reading. After a year in her class, only 44 percent scored at grade level, and none scored above. Her students performed worse than fourth-graders with similar incoming scores in other low-income D.C. schools. For decades, education researchers blamed kids and their home life for their failure to learn. Now, given the data coming out of classrooms like Mr. Taylor’s, those arguments are harder to take. Poverty matters enormously. But teachers all over the country are moving poor kids forward anyway, even as the class next door stagnates. “At the end of the day,” says Timothy Daly at the New Teacher Project, “it’s the mind-set that teachers need—a kind of relentless approach to the problem.”
Once teachers have been in the classroom for a year or two, who is very good—and very bad—becomes much clearer. But teachers are almost never dismissed. Principals almost never give teachers poor performance evaluations—even when they know the teachers are failing.
Ideally, schools would hire better teachers to begin with. But this is notoriously difficult. How do you screen for a relentless mind-set?
When Teach for America began, applicants were evaluated on 12 criteria (such as persistence and communication skills), chosen based on conversations with educators. Recruits answered open-ended questions like “What is wind?” Starting in 2000, the organization began to retroactively critique its own judgments. What did the best teachers have in common when they applied for the job?
Once a model for outcomes-based hiring was built, it started churning out some humbling results. “I came into this with a bunch of theories,” says Monique Ayotte-Hoeltzel, who was then head of admissions. “I was proven wrong at least as many times as I was validated.”
Based on her own experience teaching in the Mississippi Delta, Ayotte-Hoeltzel was convinced, for example, that teachers with earlier experience working in poor neighborhoods were more effective. Wrong. An analysis of the data found no correlation.
For years, Teach for America also selected for something called “constant learning.” As Farr and others had noticed, great teachers tended to reflect on their performance and adapt accordingly. So people who tend to be self-aware might be a good bet. “It’s a perfectly reasonable hypothesis,” Ayotte-Hoeltzel says.
But in 2003, the admissions staff looked at the data and discovered that reflectiveness did not seem to matter either. Or more accurately, trying to predict reflectiveness in the hiring process did not work.
What did predict success, interestingly, was a history of perseverance—not just an attitude, but a track record. In the interview process, Teach for America now asks applicants to talk about overcoming challenges in their lives—and ranks their perseverance based on their answers. Angela Lee Duckworth, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and her colleagues have actually quantified the value of perseverance. In a study published in The Journal of Positive Psychology in November 2009, they evaluated 390 Teach for America instructors before and after a year of teaching. Those who initially scored high for “grit”—defined as perseverance and a passion for long-term goals, and measured using a short multiple-choice test—were 31 percent more likely than their less gritty peers to spur academic growth in their students. Gritty people, the theory goes, work harder and stay committed to their goals longer. (Grit also predicts retention of cadets at West Point, Duckworth has found.)
But another trait seemed to matter even more. Teachers who scored high in “life satisfaction”—reporting that they were very content with their lives—were 43 percent more likely to perform well in the classroom than their less satisfied colleagues. These teachers “may be more adept at engaging their pupils, and their zest and enthusiasm may spread to their students,” the study suggested.
In general, though, Teach for America’s staffers have discovered that past performance—especially the kind you can measure—is the best predictor of future performance. Recruits who have achieved big, measurable goals in college tend to do so as teachers. And the two best metrics of previous success tend to be grade-point average and “leadership achievement”—a record of running something and showing tangible results. If you not only led a tutoring program but doubled its size, that’s promising.
Knowledge matters, but not in every case. In studies of high-school math teachers, majoring in the subject seems to predict better results in the classroom. And more generally, people who attended a selective college are more likely to excel as teachers (although graduating from an Ivy League school does not unto itself predict significant gains in a Teach for America classroom). Meanwhile, a master’s degree in education seems to have no impact on classroom effectiveness.
The most valuable educational credentials may be the ones that circle back to squishier traits like perseverance. Last summer, an internal Teach for America analysis found that an applicant’s college GPA alone is not as good a predictor as the GPA in the final two years of college. If an applicant starts out with mediocre grades and improves, in other words, that curve appears to be more revealing than getting straight A’s all along.
Last year, Teach for America churned through 35,000 candidates to choose 4,100 new teachers. Staff members select new hires by deferring almost entirely to the model: they enter more than 30 data points about a given candidate (about twice the number of inputs they considered a decade ago), and then the model spits out a hiring recommendation. Every year, the model changes, depending on what the new batch of student data shows.
This year, Teach for America allowed me to sit in on the part of the interview process that it calls the “sample teach,” in which applicants teach a lesson to the other applicants for exactly five minutes. Only about half of the candidates make it to this stage. On this day, the group includes three men and two women, all college seniors or very recent graduates.
One young woman—I’ll call her Abigail—stands up to teach her lesson. She has curly blond hair and wears a navy-blue suit. She tells us she will be teaching a fifth-grade Spanish class. She tapes up a preprepared poster. (Female applicants are more likely to bring props, which is not a bad thing. In fact, women are more likely to be effective in Teach for America, Duckworth found.) Then she writes her objective on the room’s whiteboard: to teach the days of the week. Krzysztof Kosmicki, a Teach for America program director, starts the clock.
To me, Abigail’s objective seems a little dull (especially compared with that of another applicant, who taught “the five fluids that transmit HIV”). She asks the class to repeat each of the days of the week. “I know it’s confusing,” she says. So she teaches them a song to help keep them straight, and then has the applicants sing it—twice. “If I don’t hear everyone’s voice, we’re going to sing it again until I do.” When she asks what day it is, Kosmicki volunteers the wrong answer. She asks another applicant to help correct him, which he does, and then her time is up.
The last applicant to teach is a young man I’ll call Michael. He has been very quiet, but he becomes much more animated when he starts teaching. His objective is to teach the order of operations in a math problem. “Good morning, class!” he says. When someone gets something right, he says, “Correctomundo!” He seems confident. He asks if he can get a volunteer to answer part of the problem on the board, and one of the other applicants steps up. Kosmicki asks him to explain exponents again, which he does. Time’s up.
Later, I talk with Kosmicki about his impressions. He liked Abigail’s sample teach—but not Michael’s. Kosmicki is not very interested in the things I noticed most: charisma, ambitious lesson objectives, extroversion. What matters more, at least according to Teach for America’s research, is less flashy: Were you prepared? Did you achieve your objective in five minutes?
“Abigail’s sample teach was exceptional,” says Kosmicki, who taught for Teach for America in the South Bronx before starting a charter school in Newark, New Jersey. “It was abundantly clear to me that she had practiced.” The students successfully learned the days of the week “somewhere between the third and fourth minute,” Kosmicki says. He was interested in what Abigail was doing, but he had been more focused on the other applicants, acting as her class.
This summer, those who have been accepted will go to a Teach for America training institute. That’s when Steven Farr, the in-house professor, and his colleagues take over. For them, the challenge is not to pick the perfect teacher but to diagnose strengths and weaknesses early and provide intense, customized training to correct them. Farr is more hopeful each year. “When I see not a handful, not dozens, but hundreds of people being successful in a world where most people think success is not possible, I know it can be done,” he told me.
Of course, thanks to its mission and brand, Teach for America has been able to draw from a strong recruiting pool. (During the 2008–09 school year, 11 percent of Ivy League seniors applied.) Large, low-income school districts do not get nearly as many candidates per open position, and most of the candidates they do get aren’t nearly as high-caliber. Plus, the extreme hours that Teach for America teachers put in—for two years—are not sustainable for most people over the long term.
But if school systems hired, trained, and rewarded teachers according to the principles Teach for America has identified, then teachers would not need to work so hard. They would be operating in a system designed in a radically different way—designed, that is, for success.
This year, D.C. public schools have begun using a new evaluation system for all faculty and staff, from teachers to custodians. Each will receive a score, just like the students, at the end of the year. For teachers whose students take standardized tests, like Mr. Taylor, half their score will be based on how much their students improved. The rest will be based largely on five observation sessions conducted throughout the year by their principal, assistant principal, and a group of master educators. Throughout the year, teachers will receive customized training. At year’s end, teachers who score below a certain threshold could be fired.
The handbook for the new system looks eerily similar to the Teach for America model, which is not a coincidence. The man who designed it, Jason Kamras, is a former Teach for America teacher who taught in a low-income D.C. school for eight years before being chosen by D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to help fix the schools. Rhee is herself a Teach for America alumna, who went on to run the New Teacher Project.
Washington, D.C., is also applying for Race to the Top money from the Obama administration, along with many states. To qualify, states must first remove any legal barriers to linking student test scores to teachers—something California and Wisconsin are already doing. To win money, states must also begin distinguishing between effective and ineffective teachers—and consider that information when deciding whether to grant tenure, give raises, or fire a teacher or principal (a linkage that the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, has criticized as “inappropriate” federal interference in local prerogatives). And each year, states must publish which of their education and other prep programs produced the most effective (and ineffective) teachers and principals. If state and local school officials, along with teachers unions, step up to the challenge, Race to the Top could begin to rationalize America’s schools.
By the time the Obama administration begins handing out awards this spring, Mr. Taylor will be finishing up another year at Kimball Elementary. On the mornings his students take their standardized tests, he will cook a hot breakfast of sausage, eggs, and toast for them, as he always does. But this tradition may be coming to an end. He’s thinking about quitting in the next few years.
Mr. Taylor wants to become a principal. In just three years as a teacher, he feels that he has already run up against the limits of his classroom. He wants to bring what he has learned to scale. That way, he says, “it won’t just stay with me, bundled in Room 204.” He is, like many great teachers, well aware that he is not one in a million—or at least, that he should not be.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-makes-a-great-teacher/7841/
Copyright © 2011 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.
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http://www.teachingasleadership.org/
http://www.teachforamerica.org/the-corps-experience/becoming-an-exceptional-teacher/
Teaching As Leadership: http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-As-Leadership-Effective-Achievement/dp/0470432861
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Positive predictors of teacher effectiveness
Angela Lee Duckworth a*, Patrick D. Quinn b and Martin E.P. Seligman a
a Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
b Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
(Received 5 March 2009; final version received 14 June 2009)
Some teachers are dramatically more effective than others, but traditional indicators of competence (e.g., certification) explain minimal variance in performance. The rigors of teaching suggest that positive traits that buffer against adversity might contribute to teacher effectiveness. In this prospective longitudinal study, novice teachers (N¼390) placed in under-resourced public schools completed measures of optimistic explanatory style, grit, and life satisfaction prior to the school year. At the conclusion of the school year, teacher effectiveness was measured in terms of the academic gains of students. All three positive traits individually predicted teacher performance. When entered simultaneously, however, only grit and life satisfaction remained significant predictors. These findings suggest that positive traits should be considered in the selection and training of teachers.
Keywords: learned helplessness; explanatory style; grit; life satisfaction; teacher performance
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Positive predictors of teacher effectiveness.2009.pdf
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Not allergic to ice: Severe allergies haven't kept Poti from NHL career
Joseph White, The Associated Press
11 Jan 2011
ARLINGTON, Va. - The spread was nice at the Capitals' annual media day luncheon. Flavourful meat. Fresh veggies. Players, coaches and reporters lounged around various tables, enjoying the food and chatting about hockey.
Over by the window, away from everyone else, sitting a chair at a table with nothing but a drink and nice view, was defenceman Tom Poti.
"They asked me if I wanted something," Poti said. "I said don't even worry about it. We're only here for 40 minutes and I can just go home and eat."
It was a rare moment in which Poti's many allergies made him stand out, which is quite remarkable - because he has a lot of them. No nuts. No chocolate. No fish. Nothing from the ocean. No MSG. Most spices and sauces are verboten. Everything he eats has to be cooked in separate, clean utensils. It's been this way since he began eating solid food as a toddler, when he would break out in hives, rashes and have other problems at nearly every feeding.
"They finally ended up taking me to an allergist. I almost died from the testing it was so bad," Poti said. "Nowadays they test for just one thing at a time, back then they'd test for everything (at once). I had to get filled up with adrenaline, things like that.
"They finally figured out what I could have and I couldn't have, and I've just been doing that ever since."
The 33-year-old Massachusetts native is now a veteran professional athlete, with 12 seasons in the NHL and an Olympic silver medal as a member of the U.S. hockey team at Salt Lake City in 2002. He's proof that even the most sensitive of constitutions can be productive at the most demanding of occupations.
"I don't think it's real easy for him, but it's something that he's adjusted to," teammate Brooks Laich said. "Especially with the amount of travel - you're on airplanes, you're in hotels. Kudos to Tom for just adjusting and being strong himself with it."
When the team flies to road games, the charter company has a list of Poti's allergens. When players go out to eat at a restaurant in another city, Poti will speak to the chef personally "and make sure he can take care of me. ... That's the safest way to do it."
"I eat a lot of the same stuff most guys do," Poti said. "I can have chicken, steak, hamburgers, turkey - it just has to be plain. I don't cook with any oils or any spices. If I eat chicken, it's just plain grilled chicken. If I eat steak, it's just plain steak. Hamburger, I don't put any mustard, relish or ketchup or stuff on it - just plain."
Poti, his family and his teammates - he's been in Washington since 2007 - are so used to his routine that it has become second nature.
General manager George McPhee says Poti's allergies have never been an issue, and the few minor things the staff does on Poti's behalf are hardly an imposition. It's been eight years since Poti's last major scare, when he grabbed a bottle of his sister's lotion in the bathroom because his face and neck were dry. He didn't look at the ingredients, so he didn't realize it contained some type of nut oil.
"I started breaking out in hives and got rushed to the hospital," he said.
Poti carries an EpiPen everywhere he goes. At home, his wife does most of the cooking and has become good at being creative.
"There's certain things I've found that I can have. I use a lot of Italian dressing on things to spice stuff up for me," Poti said. "And I found a pasta sauce that agrees with me."
Poti serves as a spokesman for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network.
"The biggest thing I tell kids - I've spoken to a lot of kids over the years - is don't let it hold you back," Poti said. "It's not easy, but I always tell them that everybody has something to deal with, everybody has some kind of problem, and I tell them the way I look at it: I'm fortunate, I can't eat this certain thing, but there's a lot of other things I can do."
Here's another way to put Poti's allergies in perspective. Over the last nine months, he's had two medical scares that are just as worrisome - if not more so - than his food allergies.
Last April 26, he was struck in his right eye by a puck during a playoff game. The impact broke four bones in his face, and he lost sight in the eye for more than 24 hours. He had plastic surgery and his sight recovered enough for him to return for the start of the season.
He still doesn't have 100 per cent feeling in his face, and the long-term prognosis for the eye is uncertain in part because of the steroid drops he's been using.
"Any time I could eat something and could go into anaphylactic shock," Poti said during training camp, "but the scariest thing for me was the eye."
Poti started wearing a visor on the ice, which his wife and mother had wanted for years.
"It's weird. It fogs up, and it gets wet and you can't see," Poti said. "It's a lot hotter under there, but I made some promises so I've got to keep it on. It's probably a good thing."
On Dec. 23, Poti suffered a concussion in the Capitals' overtime loss to Pittsburgh. The constant headaches caused him to miss three games - including the rematch against the Penguins in the Winter Classic - and to take the usual barrage of tests before returning last week.
Again, it made a hamburger without mustard seem trivial.
"With your allergies, usually if you stay away from some things, you're OK," Poti said after his first game back. "With a concussion, you never know what's going to happen."
Or... "How to build a team and use what could easily slide into "professional jealousy"... as positive motivational fodder... by Blake Nill."
Even though this is an article about CIS Football, there are some interesting comments from Blake Nill, head coach of U of C, who lost again to Laval. I have talked to Blake on many occasions as he joined U of C my last year I coached there... I like how he talks about elevating the level of play in this article - rather than complain about how good the other team is. (I know there are whispers of payments / incentives to play football on the Laval team... I have heard it happens in other sports at other schools too. But the CIS is a toothless entity... anyways, I don't want to get off-topic. Also interesting to read the last edition of Sports Illustrated - the lead story is about a sports agent who went on the record declaring he had paid players to use him as an agent - even when they were in school. "The truth will set you free" - his comments were met with a lot of people distancing themselves; having convenient memory lapses; or discrediting him and his comments altogether!)
Anyways, Blake has some neat comments on trying to get the program / team better. He has moved the program forward in a short time (and they do have money - a very large, organized alumni with open wallets. They 'fundraise' an amazing amount of money each year. Good for them!)
It does take a few years to turn a program around. I think 3-5 years to fully put one's stamp on it.
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Dinos coach concedes Laval has set new standard
By Allen Cameron, Calgary Herald November 27, 2010
Good teams reach championship games; great teams win them, and the University of Calgary Dinos got a convincing reminder of that Saturday afternoon.
The Laval Rouge et Or, 29-2 winners over the University of Calgary Dinos in the Vanier Cup for their sixth national title since 1999, are Canadian university football's richest program thanks a wealthy private backer and unparalleled fan and corporate support.
But if other teams want to play at their level, suggested Dinos coach Blake Nill after the game, they have to follow the same model.
"I don't expect them to slow down," said Nill. "It's a matter of other teams sincerely wanting to get up there. They have to keep raising the bar.
"We need someone stepping up and saying, you know what? I'm prepared to spend this because that's what football means to us. If you look at this right here, tell me what CIS team wouldn't want this at their university. Laval said, 'We want it.' Now, other teams have to decided if they really want this or not."
But it goes beyond financial support; at the end of the day, all the money in the world means nothing if you don't have the players, and Nill had an early clue prior to Saturday's game that those players were ready.
"I was watching them warm up and I didn't see one of their guys drop a ball in the warm-up," he said. "I was watching for that; I was sitting there going, 'Geez, at least throw a poor pass.' But not one dropped pass that I saw.
"It just shows you that their plan and the model with which they run their team has superseded the rest of the country. Every now and then, a team gets close and every now and then they lose, but the consistency with which they've won just makes it difficult (for other teams)."
Which isn't to say the Dinos can't reach those heights; since hiring Nill, the Dinos have reached the final four in Canada three straight years, and lost the last two Vanier Cups.
As well, there is promising talent in the system. Offensively, the quarterback reins will be passed from Erik Glavic to Eric Dzwilewski, who was named the country's top rookie earlier this week. Running back Matt Walter may be back for a fifth year, while Steven Lumbala continues to improve in leaps and bounds.
The defence looks terrific next season with youngsters such as linebacker Sam Hurl and defensive back Doctor Cassama.
"I'm a realist," said Nill. "I think we can beat these guys, and there are other teams that can beat them. But the teams have to get better, that's all it is. It's do-able. I told my kids after the game that in five years we've come so far. And we will keep going. We're going to lose a couple key guys, but that's part of it. You have to keep building and rebuilding.
"I told my coaches (after the game) that the best team won, there's no doubt about that. We're a good football team, but you can see the difference right now. We just have to keep trying to get better, getting better athletes, train harder, and we'll be back some day."
acameron@calgaryherald.com
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/sports/Dinos+coach+concedes+Laval+standard/3894849/story.html#ixzz16cTTYWyN
Dean
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Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
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