700 Wins

Just returned home from a banquet honring the coaching achievements of long time friend Mike LeDuc. He passed the 700 win mark this year for varsity High School basketball. I estimate around 400 people gathered for the 4.5 hour dinner and roast.

He graciously invited me to share a couple brief words and offer the Invocation.

You can quickly do the math. If you win 30 basketball games per year how many years does it take. He began in 1980. Before we sat down I offered my personal congratulations. He quipped "have to be pretty old to get that many wins and they should be remembering all my losses." Mike's self-deprecating attitude is one of his trademarks. One I enjoy as do many others.

I like basketball. I have some Clipper tickets. Shows how sick I am. I am even more enthralled however with excellence in leadership. Coach Mike is a far above average leader. I watched it as my son played for him during the late 1990s.

A few of his leadership traits were extolled throughout the evening. I extracted what seemed most important to me. The word choices are my own.

1) Passion and persistence
2) Know how to motivate players. Coaches do not score points.
3) Have a plan. Work your plan.
4) Develop the ability to get good people to work alongside of you
5) Don't take yourself too seriously. Take what you do seriously
6) Life is about people not things or wins
7) When you find something which works keep doing it. Do it long enough and the exponential curve works in your favor. Note: How do you win 700 basketball games? One game at a time.

Suspect all seven of these leadership principles for success are glocal.