Wooden's Lesson

Through the use of the text, Hillier transforms the reader into a better leader by the end of the reading. I found a significant amount of the book helpful and realistic. The areas I found most helpful and relateable to my standings were: “Creating Team Chemistry”, “Emerging as a Leader”, “Rebounding from a Loss”, “Demonstrating Sportsmanship”, and “Leaving a Legacy”. From these chapters, I was able to identify areas of leadership I lacked/needed improvement on, how I can make sure my team and I have a significant season, and how I can improve on myself, how I can create a legacy of my own.

Starting out as a high school coach and teacher, Wooden flourished. He held multiple jobs at the high schools where he coached and loved every minute of it. Although having coached for a few other teams, Coach Wooden spent most of his career as the basketball coach for UCLA. This is where John Wooden, the legendary coach, would come alive. They Call Me Coach was filled with inspirational messages and important life lessons that allowed the reader to feel somewhat of a close connection to John Wooden.

Today we are going to review the book called Coach Wooden The 7 Principles That Shaped His Life and will change yours By Pat Williams. The Book Coach Wooden is about his life and the stuff he did to get where he is at right now, Coach Wooden has said a lot of inspirational quotes that have changed and shaped a lot of people's lives. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was one of Coach Wooden's players and Coach had a valuable message for Kareem that made him choose to go to UCLA to play basketball for Coach Wooden and that message was Basketball is temporary but knowledge is forever. Kareem said that was a moment that changed his life forever. One of Coach Wooden’s famous quotes is The best competition I have is against myself to become better.

Connections to the reader’s own life and understanding for the hardships of the characters in the book are easily made, as the characters are fleshed out and

If we were to look back, the leader or coach we respect most is the one who pushed us to be that greatest that we could be. Although we did not like being pushed at the time, being told we could give more is often what teams need in order to succeed. Herb Brooks pushed his players to believe that they had greatness within them. His players, including many other people did not believe at first. But his players later came to believe because their coach believed.

Wes didn’t start off on the right path initially, due to the friends he surrounded himself with such as shea, a young drug runner, and the low standards he set for himself academically, which Author Wes mentions that he was “disappointed with D’s, pleasantly satisfied with C’s and celebratory about a B I allowed my standards at school to become pathetic” (Moore 54). He allowed a fixed mindset of mediocrity along with his environment to almost determine his life path. Without social capital, Author Wes Moore would’ve been doomed for failure but the intervention by his mother, a few of her friends and his grandparents, he was able to attend Valley Forge Military Academy where he was able to benefit from the effects of social capital from his superiors and peers in the form discipline, comradery and leadership. From there, he totally changed his perspective as he developed a growth mindset which was fairly evident when he realized that basketball wasn’t in his long term plans; Wes states “When you step on the court with players like Kobe Bryant or six foot eight point guards who can dunk from the free throw line, your mind begins to concentrate on other options” (Moore 130), that moment of clarity showed the benefits of social capital and a strong growth mindset. Another instance of social capital being beneficial in Author Wes Moore’s life is when he was granted a scholarship to attend John Hopkins University.

The coach that comes to my mind is Phil Jackson, who is one of the greatest coaches in the NBA. He led the Chicago Bulls to win six championships between 1991 and 1998 with two three-peats. Phil Jackson is a phenomenal coach. He always knows what he’s going up against because he studies his opponents. He educates himself on how the team play, who are their key players and what take the opponents out of their comfort zone.

The theme of the story is the

To me the best theme in the story is friendship. I believe that every person needs to show friendship to

Respect, respect, respect for your coaches, for your fellow team mates and for your opponent. You lead by example, you can’t ask for respect if you don’t give it. My family has always been hard on me about giving respect, no matter who it is to. Without the right amount of respect given, not much can be done. I have been a witness to it every year, a mister know it all thinks he is smart than the coaches and likes to run his mouth showing no respect and effortlessly paying attention.

Also , the setting of the story impacts the theme. One of the themes is the transition from childhood to adulthood .

One very eye catching theme that the story portrays is how sometimes words can be more powerful than actions and you should never cave into the power of words. In the very beginning, the details in the story show the power of words

This underlying theme significantly contributes to the overall storyline providing a unique characterization to each character, allowing the reader to really experience the character’s emotional development through the novel. The theme of love can be identified from the very beginning of the novel.

Beginning with the first chapter it stresses how the author

To be a coach you need a certain set of skills. For example a coach needs to have good people skills. A coach has to talk to his team and other people from around the area who want to meet him and talk to him. Another Thing a Coach needs to be arrogant to an extent he needs to be very confident in his ability’s to lead his team to a winning season and he needs to be confident in players that they can execute what he has taught them to do so they can get a win every week. (acient)