Arizona has been playing basketball since the early twentieth century with their initial win coming in the first game the program ever played. A 1904 contest that resulted in a victory over the Morenci YMCA team marked the first of what would become many wins in the storied tradition known today as Arizona Wildcat basketball. Long before joining the Pacific 10 Conference (Pac-10) in 1878 many of the games during their first decade of existence came against local YMCA competition, a practice that was surprisingly common in that era. In fact, the University of Kentucky which has the current record for most men’s basketball wins also began their tradition with a single win over a Lexington YMCA team in 1903.

Coming off the 2008-2009 season the University of Arizona basketball program has a twenty-five year streak of consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament. After getting off to a rocky 12-10 start for the 2009-2010 season many Wildcat fans are rightfully concerned that their impressive streak may be in jeopardy. During the twenty-five year streak U of A has reached the Sweet Sixteen twelve times, the Elite Eight seven times, the Final Four on four separate occasions, and has one NCAA National Championship to their credit from the 1997 season.

Much of the success enjoyed by the Wildcats over the last twenty-five years can be attributed to esteemed former head coach Lute Olsen. Coach Olsen came from the University of Iowa in 1983 to inherit a University of Arizona basketball program that had just come off of a forgettable 4-24 record which included only one conference victory. In just three short seasons Coach Olsen miraculously turned the program around from being in the cellar of the conference standings to being an admired organization of national prominence. After winning their first Pac-10 crown in 1986 the University of Arizona basketball machine would go on to be a Pac-10 power throughout the remainder of the century.

Sadly, on October 23, 2008 Coach Lute Olsen announced his retirement with the cause for the unexpected announcement later being explained by his physician as resulting from health concerns. Olsen was 74 years old at the time of his retirement. Assistant coach Russ Pennell took over on an interim basis after the retirement of Olsen. Pennell narrowly made the NCAA Tournament after the 2008-2009 season with a record of 19-13. The controversial selection by the NCAA Tournament committee raised some eyebrows as skeptics considered U of A to be a bubble team at best that was given the benefit of making the tournament primarily to extend their appearances streak to twenty-five years. Sean Miller took over head coaching duties on a permanent basis following the one year stint of Russ Pennell as interim head coach.

It remains to be seen exactly what will happen under the Sean Miller era. Coach Miller knows that he has very large shoes to fill by replacing legendary Coach Lute Olsen. The one aspect of this situation that can be accurately predicted is that University of Arizona basketball fans will continue to root on their team regardless of who holds the title of head coach.

The Division I program located in Manhattan, Kansas (lightheartedly referred to as the Little Apple) competes in the highly competitive Big 12 Conference whose members include many perennial powerhouse programs including in state rival the University of Kansas. The intrastate rival Kansas Jayhawks are often referred to simply as KU and are located a mere 85 miles to the west with the city of Topeka separating the two schools.

The K-state men’s basketball program has been around for over a hundred years with competition on the hardwood beginning roughly ten years after the game was invented. KSU played its first game in 1902 and would go on to enjoy an impressive seventeen conference championships over the years and enough noteworthy victories to land a spot in a 2005 list by Street & Smith (New York City publication) as one of the top 25 greatest college basketball programs ever.

Although the K-State Wildcats have never had the distinction of winning a national championship they have advanced to the Final Four on four separate occasions. Current (February, 2010) head coach Frank Martin brings an intensity to the court every night that gives the K-State team a fighting chance for a championship run almost every season. With over 1,400 wins and 23 NCAA tournament appearances Coach Martin is building upon past success to put a competitive team on the floor each night.

During the short time that head coach Frank Martin has been with the K-State program he has showed tremendous promise in advancing the squad back to a place of national prominence. In his first year as head coach he advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament after finishing the 2007-2008 season with a 20-11 record. Leading into his first season at K-State he was largely responsible for recruiting and coaching up eventual Big 12 Conference Player of the Year and All-American Michael Beasley (now with the Miami Heat). Despite losing Beasley to the NBA Draft Coach Martin improved upon his record the following season with a 21-10 mark. Through two thirds of the 2009-2010 season the KSU Wildcats are far ahead of pace to again outshine their win total from the previous year and have even broken into the top ten spots in national rankings, a feat that has not been accomplished in Manhattan, Kansas in years.

The K-State wildcats have had their ups and downs over the decades but with an energized coach at the helm and a reinvigorated fan base the team that is often considered the second best basketball team in the state of Kansas (behind KU) believes they are on the road to reversing that order in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Do you know the feeling I am referring to when I talk about being on autopilot? Perhaps you have driven to training in your car and could not even remember the trip? Perhaps your coach has been talking to you and you couldn’t hear anything. Are you just going through the motions? These are all symptoms of being on autopilot. Being on autopilot, for a whole training session means you have not improved.

To ensure you are not on autopilot you simply need to focus on what is going on around you. Listen, see, feel, taste and smell your environment. Get in touch with your surrounds and tune in to them. This is the first part of consciously training.

Once you have done this, engage your brain! Think about what you are doing. The technique you are executing, what this feels like, what results is this creating for you. Are you going better doing this particular technique? What if you tried something different? Do something different and see what happens. Talk to your coach about what you are doing. Engage with those around you.

Try to create an exercise to break down your technique into its individual components. When I was rowing, we would change our grip purely to activate different muscle groups or to isolate movements and exaggerate them. Making these continual changes ensures we were always thinking. We would row and with each stroke do something different with our oar or we would stop at different parts of the stroke purely to break our routine movements up and to check our timing within the boat. The bottom line is, all of these activities and exercises ensured we did not lose concentration.

Most people struggle to concentrate fully for more than 7 minutes. Work with this and plan some mini breaks in your training. It may be a short break each ten minutes or, as we would do, have a switch off time every so often. Then switch back on and consciously complete the training session with high awareness of what you are doing.

I can guarantee, if you do train consciously, then you improve faster than your competitors. Most athletes operate on a relaxed mode of autopilot, switching on and off in an unconscious manner. Most athletes do not improve as fast as their coach likes them to. Be an athlete who controls yourself. Train with a purpose. Train with consciousness.

For those who do not know Lou Holtz, he is a legend in US College football coaching and is the only coach in NCAA history to lead six different programs to bowl games. He is also a multiple winner of National Coach of the Year honors.

These are the key messages I took note of and trust you will also find inspiring and educational:

Note 1: Coaching is about influencing the lives of young people. It is a role of true significance and meaning, never should it be about money. It is fundamentally about building relationships with young people.

Note 2: A great quote about Leadership, “I can name you the coach, but I can not name you the leader. Leaders are named from below.”

Note 3: Coaching is a leadership role. As such, coaches are to have a vision and are accountable for the choices they make. Above all, coaching is about “Obligations and Responsibilities”. Never is coaching about “Rights and Privileges.”

Note 4: Coaches can never be “insecure” in who they are. Insecurity lessens a coach’s ability to give positive feedback and praise to their athletes.

Note 5: Lou made the following assumptions of all his college athletes:

1. You want to graduate.

2. You want to be a champion.

3. You want to perform at your best.

4. You want to help the team.

5. You want to make a positive contribution.

With these assumptions, Lou made it his job to help them achieve in these areas.

Note 6: Above all else, when Lou looked for athletes for his team, he wanted “Athletes who care.” That is, they care about themselves, the team, the college and the results they get. He learnt a valuable lesson in that caring is more important than talent.

Note 7: Lou lived by three rules which also translated into how he coached. These three simple rules are: 1. Do Right! 2. Do your best. 3. Treat people well.

Note 8: Lou believed three questions between the coach and the athletes needed to be answered through both words and behavior. These three questions were:

1. Do you trust me (on and off the field)?

2. Are you committed? (There are to be no pretenders and no imposters).

3. Do you care about me? These questions needed to be answered if the team was to build strong relationships with each other.

Note 9: There are three ways to improve a team.

1. Add caring and talented people.

2. Delete (remove) non caring people.

3. Improve each individual on the team.

Note 10: Lou recognizes that today’s coaches are busy people (as was he when he coached). Being able to continuously prioritize your time is of critical importance to your team and athlete’s success. He had a simple way of prioritizing his time by understanding exactly what the outcome to be achieved is, it was a simple matter of – W.I.N. This stands for: What’s Important Now?

I trust you derived value from the wisdom of one of America’s greatest sports coaches and leaders.

You’ve likely noted the strong theme of caring in Lou’s advice. From our perspective, the fastest and most effective way of showing you care is to show a strong interest in understanding your athletes as individuals and valuing them for what they bring to the team/squad. Ultimately, how well do you know yourself and your athletes? If there is a chance you could improve this, even if only by a few percent, it is worthwhile – particularly as it is such a critical and impactful area.