Saturday, June 5, 2010
Woodenisms
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5249709 - ESPN has a lot of other great articles from people that were close to him, give it a look!
Coach, Teacher, Hero: Rest in Peace John Wooden
If I had a "Mount Rushmore" of the mentors that have helped shape me as a player, coach, and human being, the four people would be my father, John Wooden, Dave Hildebrandt (first coach at Newbury) and Bob Vilsoet (Women's coach at Harper that talked me into playing again when I was 19). Woke up at 5:45 am today to turn on ESPN for news that I had been preparing myself for since yesterday: John Wooden died of natural causes at the age of 99.
Where to even start? My father set a strong foundation for how to conduct yourself as an athlete both on and off the court, but John Wooden's books really took it to the next level for me. I remember picking up a John Wooden book for the first time in September of 2006. It took me two days to read his book about the Pyramid of Success which he created, and it completely blew my mind.
He won 10 NCAA National Championships in 12 years, but winning was never discussed. Effort was his focus, playing with class, never criticizing a fellow teammate. His quotes are timeless: "Be quick, but don't hurry" "Failure to prepare is preparing to fail", and so many more will stay with me until the day I die. Even at the age of 98, he wrote a book about mentoring, and although he talked a lot about sports figures, he also talked about how people can influence those off the court, discussing some of his mentors (President Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa were two of his favorites).
I never met John Wooden. E-mailed him once just to see what would happen, and received a generic response that was automated (He was in his mid 90's - I didn't take it personal). I don't like to do the "What if" thing, but I am certain of one thing: If I had never been graced with the teachings and philosophies of John Wooden, I would not be where I am today. My approach to sports (and life for that matter) completely changed after reading his books.
I have no tattoos yet, but if I was ever to get one, it would be the pyramid of success on my back, because I do my best to use this as a guidance to how to act both on and off the court.
Rest in peace John Wooden - I was blessed to stumble upon your books. The world was a better place for your contributions.
I will post links upon my return to Chicago of various Wooden clippings.
Where to even start? My father set a strong foundation for how to conduct yourself as an athlete both on and off the court, but John Wooden's books really took it to the next level for me. I remember picking up a John Wooden book for the first time in September of 2006. It took me two days to read his book about the Pyramid of Success which he created, and it completely blew my mind.
He won 10 NCAA National Championships in 12 years, but winning was never discussed. Effort was his focus, playing with class, never criticizing a fellow teammate. His quotes are timeless: "Be quick, but don't hurry" "Failure to prepare is preparing to fail", and so many more will stay with me until the day I die. Even at the age of 98, he wrote a book about mentoring, and although he talked a lot about sports figures, he also talked about how people can influence those off the court, discussing some of his mentors (President Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa were two of his favorites).
I never met John Wooden. E-mailed him once just to see what would happen, and received a generic response that was automated (He was in his mid 90's - I didn't take it personal). I don't like to do the "What if" thing, but I am certain of one thing: If I had never been graced with the teachings and philosophies of John Wooden, I would not be where I am today. My approach to sports (and life for that matter) completely changed after reading his books.
I have no tattoos yet, but if I was ever to get one, it would be the pyramid of success on my back, because I do my best to use this as a guidance to how to act both on and off the court.
Rest in peace John Wooden - I was blessed to stumble upon your books. The world was a better place for your contributions.
I will post links upon my return to Chicago of various Wooden clippings.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Greetings from Macon - Recap from 1st Tournament of Summer and some Words of Wisdom.
Writing this one from Georgia - enjoying a nice weekend away from the normal grind. I've been working incredibly hard on the court, and as starting on the 12th I'll have 6 straight weekends with tournaments, I figured this would be a nice calm before the storm. Looking forward to moving here in two months to begin the coaching gig!
As usual I'm terrible with updates, but I'll do my best to catch everyone up. I've been practicing every day that the weather has allowed for the last 2 months, and I can definitely see the payoff. Opened up the pro season with the MPVA event last Saturday in Grand Haven, Michigan. Although it was hard to lock in someone to play with as USAV Indoor Nationals was going on during the same weekend, I was lucky and pulled in Brett Benfield 2 days before the tournament. He's a seasoned veteran that definitely brings a lot to the table, and after a basic practice session on Thursday, we set out to Michigan to do some damage.
It wouldn't be easy. As I had no points on this tour as I've never played an MPVA event, we were seeded 22nd out of 27 teams. That gave us a 1st-round match-up against 11 seed Eli Masud/Travis Wilson, another team from Chicago. They had won an EVP event 2 years ago, and Travis partnered with former D-III opponent John Kessenich to make the AVP Muskegeon Main Draw last year, taking a game from Olympians Sean Rosenthal and Jake Gibb. Our work was cut out for us, but I felt they may come out flat, and it's all about who's better that match.
Before getting into details about the tournament, let me give a shout-out to the MPVA - Rick and his staff were on top of everything being organized, and kept things moving better than any sand tournament I've played in previously. I have no issue continuing to travel 3 hours each way to these tournaments knowing the quality they're going to put out (hopefully I'm not jinxing them!).
Weather was gorgeous, and we arrived early to warm-up. Travis shows up about 15 minutes before first serve, and Eli runs up about 5 minutes beforehand. Brett and I both had a feeling they weren't going to be crisp, and sure enough we were able to sideout well and serve aggressively. Brett was very effective with his skyball, and I resorted to floats as I had NO timing jump-serving in the deeper sand (Nothing in Chicago compares to this stuff - I was always early as I wasn't hanging in the air is long, and the one jumper I made all day was a waffle). We won the first game 22-20, and the second was a barnburner.
I was confident we would pull the match out the whole time, but I KNEW it at 20-20, which actually was after a point for them. Brett overpassed a ball and I moved up to about 8 feet off the net to take the TKO ball from Travis. Luckily, it hit me right in my platform, but the force of the hit shot it off the court to the right. I yelled at Brett to go after it, and he crashed into the sponsor banners while popping it back onto the court. I put it in play, and although the other team put it away, you could just tell there was no way we were losing. After both team had set-points, we put it away at 26-24.
In the round of 16 we ran into 6-seed Brendan Enright and Jason Marenette (spelling on both those names are questionable). Enright is about 6-5 with LONG arms, and Marenette had a pretty nasty jump serve. They start out serving aggressively and keeping us on our heels, and we found ourselves in a 13-9 rut. Enright proceeds to argue Brett's skyball with the refs and the legality of it, at which point we realized they were nervous and started playing better. We pulled out the 22-20 win, and kept our momentum with a 21-17 set 2 victory to make it to the quarterfinals.
The quarterfinals put us against Van Rees/Sullivan, and we made their job easy. Sullivan was a BIG block that set the pace with like 4 blocks to start the game, and the only way I can describe Van Rees was like a lefty Sean Rosenthal - arguably a top 3 defender at the tournament, very explosive with his hits, and even looked a bit like Rosie! They thumped us in the first set, and although we started playing better on our side of the net the second set, we just could not seem to get points on the serve.
This sent us to the loser's bracket, where the name of the team escapes me, but they had just beaten Brian Kramer and his partner Vince to face us, where the winner would make it to 7th and lock in a check for (sit down for this one) SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS. They were nice guys and a decent team, but I was shocked that Kramer hadn't beaten them. That's the beast of an all-day tournament I suppose. We disposed of them in straight sets to secure a 7th place finish and a re-match with Masud/Wilson, who were waiting all day for a chance to get revenge.
Revenge was an understatement. My serve-receive started to fall apart, they dug everything we hit, and I ended the match with the ugliest set of the day, capped off by a sky ball that found no sky (I swung a little hard, barely made contact, and it went about 10 feet in the air).
So we finished 7th out of 27, which is my best finish of my brief career playing pro events. I'm happy that we did well, but am excited to move forward with more training and get a better finish!
(Sidenote: Talked with Eli Masud after, really nice guy with a good head on his shoulders. If you follow Midwest sand volleyball, expect him to stay on top for the next 5-10 years).
One last thing before I wrap this up: Was hanging out at the apartment while the person hosting me is working and caught Bobby Knight doing a commencement speech at Trine University (apparently you can find info on it at Trine.edu). PHENOMENAL speaker. Aside from his great style, he had some great stuff that I found myself writing down so I didn't forget it. I'll share:
*The way to win is eliminating ways to lose: As someone that's always worked on the weakest part of my game, I thought this was a great way of talking about how consistency is important.
*Satisfaction is the first step towards losing.
*When you kick a tiger in the ass, you better have a plan for when he turns around: Definitely stealing that one!
*The will to prepare to win is more important than the will to win: Probably the most valuable thing I got out of his speech - and I couldn't agree more.
*See instead of look, listen instead of hear.
That's about it for now. Hit the website and see if you can find it - he had some great stories of coaching Jordan in the 84 Olympics as well!
Enjoy the weekend everyone.
As usual I'm terrible with updates, but I'll do my best to catch everyone up. I've been practicing every day that the weather has allowed for the last 2 months, and I can definitely see the payoff. Opened up the pro season with the MPVA event last Saturday in Grand Haven, Michigan. Although it was hard to lock in someone to play with as USAV Indoor Nationals was going on during the same weekend, I was lucky and pulled in Brett Benfield 2 days before the tournament. He's a seasoned veteran that definitely brings a lot to the table, and after a basic practice session on Thursday, we set out to Michigan to do some damage.
It wouldn't be easy. As I had no points on this tour as I've never played an MPVA event, we were seeded 22nd out of 27 teams. That gave us a 1st-round match-up against 11 seed Eli Masud/Travis Wilson, another team from Chicago. They had won an EVP event 2 years ago, and Travis partnered with former D-III opponent John Kessenich to make the AVP Muskegeon Main Draw last year, taking a game from Olympians Sean Rosenthal and Jake Gibb. Our work was cut out for us, but I felt they may come out flat, and it's all about who's better that match.
Before getting into details about the tournament, let me give a shout-out to the MPVA - Rick and his staff were on top of everything being organized, and kept things moving better than any sand tournament I've played in previously. I have no issue continuing to travel 3 hours each way to these tournaments knowing the quality they're going to put out (hopefully I'm not jinxing them!).
Weather was gorgeous, and we arrived early to warm-up. Travis shows up about 15 minutes before first serve, and Eli runs up about 5 minutes beforehand. Brett and I both had a feeling they weren't going to be crisp, and sure enough we were able to sideout well and serve aggressively. Brett was very effective with his skyball, and I resorted to floats as I had NO timing jump-serving in the deeper sand (Nothing in Chicago compares to this stuff - I was always early as I wasn't hanging in the air is long, and the one jumper I made all day was a waffle). We won the first game 22-20, and the second was a barnburner.
I was confident we would pull the match out the whole time, but I KNEW it at 20-20, which actually was after a point for them. Brett overpassed a ball and I moved up to about 8 feet off the net to take the TKO ball from Travis. Luckily, it hit me right in my platform, but the force of the hit shot it off the court to the right. I yelled at Brett to go after it, and he crashed into the sponsor banners while popping it back onto the court. I put it in play, and although the other team put it away, you could just tell there was no way we were losing. After both team had set-points, we put it away at 26-24.
In the round of 16 we ran into 6-seed Brendan Enright and Jason Marenette (spelling on both those names are questionable). Enright is about 6-5 with LONG arms, and Marenette had a pretty nasty jump serve. They start out serving aggressively and keeping us on our heels, and we found ourselves in a 13-9 rut. Enright proceeds to argue Brett's skyball with the refs and the legality of it, at which point we realized they were nervous and started playing better. We pulled out the 22-20 win, and kept our momentum with a 21-17 set 2 victory to make it to the quarterfinals.
The quarterfinals put us against Van Rees/Sullivan, and we made their job easy. Sullivan was a BIG block that set the pace with like 4 blocks to start the game, and the only way I can describe Van Rees was like a lefty Sean Rosenthal - arguably a top 3 defender at the tournament, very explosive with his hits, and even looked a bit like Rosie! They thumped us in the first set, and although we started playing better on our side of the net the second set, we just could not seem to get points on the serve.
This sent us to the loser's bracket, where the name of the team escapes me, but they had just beaten Brian Kramer and his partner Vince to face us, where the winner would make it to 7th and lock in a check for (sit down for this one) SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS. They were nice guys and a decent team, but I was shocked that Kramer hadn't beaten them. That's the beast of an all-day tournament I suppose. We disposed of them in straight sets to secure a 7th place finish and a re-match with Masud/Wilson, who were waiting all day for a chance to get revenge.
Revenge was an understatement. My serve-receive started to fall apart, they dug everything we hit, and I ended the match with the ugliest set of the day, capped off by a sky ball that found no sky (I swung a little hard, barely made contact, and it went about 10 feet in the air).
So we finished 7th out of 27, which is my best finish of my brief career playing pro events. I'm happy that we did well, but am excited to move forward with more training and get a better finish!
(Sidenote: Talked with Eli Masud after, really nice guy with a good head on his shoulders. If you follow Midwest sand volleyball, expect him to stay on top for the next 5-10 years).
One last thing before I wrap this up: Was hanging out at the apartment while the person hosting me is working and caught Bobby Knight doing a commencement speech at Trine University (apparently you can find info on it at Trine.edu). PHENOMENAL speaker. Aside from his great style, he had some great stuff that I found myself writing down so I didn't forget it. I'll share:
*The way to win is eliminating ways to lose: As someone that's always worked on the weakest part of my game, I thought this was a great way of talking about how consistency is important.
*Satisfaction is the first step towards losing.
*When you kick a tiger in the ass, you better have a plan for when he turns around: Definitely stealing that one!
*The will to prepare to win is more important than the will to win: Probably the most valuable thing I got out of his speech - and I couldn't agree more.
*See instead of look, listen instead of hear.
That's about it for now. Hit the website and see if you can find it - he had some great stories of coaching Jordan in the 84 Olympics as well!
Enjoy the weekend everyone.
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