Page 79 - How to Create a Winning Organization

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GOOD VALUES ATTRACT

GOOD PEOPLE

“The force of character is cumulative.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

hen I began coaching I picked up a little extra money
Wplaying basketball on weekends with a semipro team in In-
diana, the Kautskys, run by a good and decent man named Frank
Kautsky, a grocer. My pay was $50 a game.
I was a good free throw shooter back then, and at one point over
a period of many, many games sank 100 in a row. When I sank the
one-hundredth free throw, Mr. Kautsky asked the officials to stop
the game momentarily. Then he walked out onto the court and an-
nounced to the crowd that he was rewarding me for making 100
straight free throws with a brand new one hundred dollar bill. Of
course, the crowd loved it and so did Nellie Wooden, who was soon
holding the money for safekeeping.
Keep in mind that Mr. Kautsky had no obligation to pay me
anything extra for making 100 or 1,000 straight free throws. It was
not part of our agreement, nor did I expect even an extra penny for
doing my job as best I could. He did it because that’s the kind of
man Frank Kautsky was.
A couple of years later I started the season playing for another
team because it was based closer to home. The pay was the same—

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