It
has always been about the importance of wining. When someone plays on a good team,
a team that is competitive, a team that beats good teams from time to time, he
learns he can do this. Its a real carryover into life.
Athletic
participation is great for kids. It's the best classroom situation a kid could
have in pursuit of his/her education. Yet one ingredient has to be added to that
if its going to provide a kid with the most that it can in background and foundation,
and that's winning.
I think if you don't teach, you aren't going to win.
I think even more today, kids need to know why we're doing this. When I played,
"why" wasn't as important. But "why" is very important today.
There
is no one I respect more in the whole realm of education than the high school
coach who constantly turns out kids that are better prepared to go to college,
to go into life than kids are from the same school system who never had a chance
to play for that coach.
Preparation
is so much more important than anything else. We talk with about the will to win.
I tell kids that the will to prepare to win is a lot more important than the will
to win.
I like to think I'm as good a student of teaching basketball as there ever has
been because I've paid a lot of attention to what other people do. Some of the
very best coaches I've known are high school coaches.
When
I'm meeting a high school coach, I'm thinking…here are the people that have the
best chance of all. The high school coach can develop habits and can also give
the kid a foundation that can be built upon. It's the most important thing in
a kid's future. The college coach has to change habits.
The
teacher is a very special person. We have such a tremendous opportunity as teachers.
Somewhere in front of a teacher today sits the future president of the United
States. There are a lot of other people sitting in front of teachers today that
can add an awful lot to American society. Sometimes, as coaches, what we did with
kids isn't always right and I think you've got to admit when you're wrong.
Kids
today both appreciate and understand a little more time taken with them than we
took 20 years ago and that's important in our approach with kids today.
I don't think there's any occupation that a person can go into that, in the same
day, can be more rewarding or more frustrating and continue to be more important
than what we all do as teachers and coaches. Our greatest rewards are not in games
won and our greatest frustrations are not in games lost. Our greatest rewards
are the kids we've helped reach their potential and our greatest frustrations
are those that we haven't been able to see to it that they got where they ought
to be. Just remember the future of this country sits in front of American educators
and going on three centuries, we've been the best there are in the world and we
have to continue to be that.
There
is a song that's played at half time in all our cities and in that song are the
best eight words put together in the history of the English language and those
words are. "America, America, God shed his light on thee". A part of that grace
is the opportunity that all of us have had to be teachers, and another part of
that grace is the responsibility that we have, in every way we possibly can, to
see that these kids become the best they can be. And for all of you that try every
day to get that done, my hat's off to you.
There's
nothing that during my 40-year career that I'm prouder of than simply being know
as a teacher.
