This is my first attempt at photoblogging. So, here goes. The picture you see in this post is from last Saturday's St. Louis Sportsmanship Summit at Maryville University. Our keynote speaker, former Rams great and future hall of famer, Aeneas Williams provided a teamwork example made famous by the legendary John Wooden.
Williams had five coaches from the audience stand in a circle. He then explained how Wooden would get five of his players to stand in a similar circle. Their assignment was to look the next man in the eye and explain why he was important to the success of the team. Granted, Wooden coached many future NBA and hall of fame players, but what about the kids he coached that didn't make it to the next level?
I imagine it would've been easy to look to your right and tell Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) how important he is to the team. But what about the guy at the end of the bench? Every team at every level has that player - the one who gets in the game only if you're winning by 40 or losing by 40. What do you say to that player to make him feel he's really part of the team? The point of the exercise is to make each player value and trust one another. Try it with your kids and see how it works.
You'll also notice our new photostream in the upper right corner of this blog post (email subscribers click the Sportsmanship link at the bottom of your page). The new Flickr photostream includes photos from the Sportsmanship Summit. Please have a look and enjoy. Feel free to leave comments as well. Until next time...
Be a Good Sport!
-Sol
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
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