Page 111 - How to Create a Winning Organization

Call Yourself a Teacher
most of the time. The difference usually comes down to the ability 93
of a leader to be an effective teacher of what it takes to “move the
ball” in the process of creating a winning organization.
What is your title? Call yourself a teacher. Put that on your busi-
ness card and remember it well. However, I will confess that just
calling yourself a teacher is not enough. You must also know how
to teach.
In 1933, when I moved with Nellie to Kentucky to begin my ca-
reer, I arrived with great confidence, especially when it came to bas-
ketball. I had been a three-time, all-consensus, All-American guard
with the Purdue Boilermakers—national champions just months
earlier. In fact, I had been the captain of the team during my junior
year. Before that, our high school team, the Martinsville Artesians,
played in the finals of the Indiana State High School basketball
tournament three straight times and won it in 1927. My basket-
ball skills even produced an offer of $5,000 to turn professional
and tour with the old Boston Celtics.
With all that experience and know-how as a player, I thought
I understood basketball pretty well—and I did. Unfortunately, I
didn’t know beans from apple butter about teaching it.

I still recall my first day on the court as a basketball coach at
Dayton. I was a leader who couldn’t teach but didn’t know it. A
leader who can’t teach isn’t going to have much of a team in
basketball—or anything else. And we didn’t.