While I played in college, we had a stairway from our locker room to the gym floor. On the wall at the turn in the stairs, a quote said:
“Practice and Play with the intensity and poise of a national championship team”
Playing for entire college career and seeing that quote every day, you would think that it would have some meaning to us as players. I do not know if my teammates, the players before or after I played thought about the quote very often. Like most things that you see over and over you take for granted.
The college coach I played for was one of the most respected coaches in the profession, Don Meyer, and he is still coaching at Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD. As a kid you do not take full advantage of the things that are available.
Most kids today are just like us when we were kids and do not understand to full blessings of life. We can all fall into the trap of taking things for granted like solid relationships, a caring mate, a friend you can share anything with and being able to be healthy enough just to walk and run around.
I put the sign up in our stairway here at Belhaven College just as we had while in college. What does that mean, “Practice and play with the poise and intensity of a national championship team”? Maybe I could word it different, but in respect for my coach, I made the sign say exactly what he put on that wall over 25 years ago.
Poise
To practice and play with poise and intensity. Poise means self-assurance, composure, self-control, dignity. I know our coach was more concerned with us as people than he was at winning a national championship team.
Coach Meyer was not a win at all costs coach and he did not try to cut corners. He wanted your best. Whatever you could give, that is what he wanted. Was he hard to play for? Did he push us hard? Did he yell? Yes, yes, and yes. Not a player that played for him would disagree, but probably those of us that made it through four years of playing for him would ever say he was unfair, that he cared only about himself, or that he only played favorites.
That is tough to do in coaching, teaching, running a business, pastoring a church or anything else. How do you push, yell, and be hard to play for but you are fair, care about others more than yourself, or play favorites?
I do not know how he did it because I struggle as a husband, parent, and coach to do the things Coach did and coach the way he coached. Our styles are different and our personalities are not the same, but he taught me a lot about myself.
Why am I sharing something with you that happened 25 years ago? I say these things to let you know I was sharing with someone recently about Coach Meyer and how he was hard to play for at times, but always fair. Most people ask what it was like to play for Coach Meyer because he is a well known around the country as a fantastic coach. I usually answer, “It was a great experience” To be honest sometimes I leave out the word “great” and just say “It was an experience, but one of the best of my life”.
It was an experience that I am not sure I have ever fully appreciated or will ever fully appreciate. However, here is the thing I have just recently realized: He never made things personal. We were not “stupid” “idiots” or any other downgrading you can think of to call someone.
He was on us hard and never let up, but I look back and see that you never left practice or a game defeated or dejected. You might not have like the outcome, but he had the ability even when he chewed you out that you the entire time he was correct and you deserved whatever he was going to dish out.
All of his former players laugh now about being singled out and may have caught the brunt of his displeasure a time or two. The funnier thing is that we usually deserved everything he dished out to us and we look back and realize that time he really got us was well deserved. I know this is a real area that I am trying to correct in not making other fell attacked personally. Whether it is my wife, my own kids, or anyone associated with our basketball program. I want to be able to push and motivate others to give their best, but not at the expense of tearing them down.
I hope that I someday turn the corner and not get disgusted when others let me down or do not give their best. I can still find ways to communicate without making others fell lower and making myself look better. Even though he was animated on the sidelines and any one that played for him can give you a great story about being chewed out by him about something he had that POISE.
He had poise to know when to push and when to let up. He had the poise to teach and emphasize with us what it meant to have class and carry ourselves a certain way. He made you want to be better. Even today, he instilled in me the desire to keep trying to improve and not be fully satisfied and to have the poise and belief that I could get better.
Intensity
Intensity means strength, concentration, passion and power. Coach had unbelievable intensity when it came to working. He was relentless. We knew he would always be prepared and if a game came down to coaching, we would have a great chance of winning because Coach was going to put us in position to win.
Even if we lost on the scoreboard Coach would have us leave thinking we were winners because he stressed being intense about how you played. I have tried to bring those positive aspects of intensity in how I am as a mate, a father and coach.
It is amazing how important intensity is to having success. Intensity is the ability to do what you are supposed to do even when you do not want to do whatever that task may be. He taught me how important it was to have that intensity and desire. As I played my four years in college, I looked at the sign too many times to count and walked by it many time without even thinking about the sign.
I was one of the fortunate ones that came through the program and my last year we did win the National Championship. It was not with talent, but with Poise, Intensity, also practicing, and playing like that all the time.
The more interesting thing is that although we had a good team we were not the most talented team coach ever had, nor the most intense, nor the most poised, nor the most athletic. It is just for that season it all came together. The players before us that built the program and the ones that came after to continue the tradition were just as important as our team was in winning the National Championship.
What I learned most was that it took a group of individuals committed to a goal, determined to follow leadership, and a willingness to put aside individual attention. To be able to “Practice and play with poise and intensity of a National Championship team” means to give to something bigger than you. It is like the John Wooden quote "It's amazing what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit"
What we accomplished a long time ago as a player is what I am trying to sell our team on as we build for the future. We have the chance to something special here at Belhaven. With God's continued blessings, good things will continue to happen here for us as a campus and a basketball program.
I know for us we will have big challenges, but the one I will always stress with my team is to "Practice and Play with the Poise and Intensity of a National Championship Team"
