Mindset : The New Psychology of Success pdfdrive com

The Growth-Mindset Coach in Action
A COACH FOR ALL SEASONS
Coach  John  Wooden  produced  one  of  the  greatest  championships  records  in
sports. He led the UCLA basketball team to the NCAA Championship in 1964,
1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, and 1975. There were seasons
when his team was undefeated, and they once had an eighty-eight-game winning
streak. All this I sort of knew.
What I didn’t know was that when Wooden arrived at UCLA, it was a far cry
from  a  basketball  dynasty.  In  fact,  he  didn’t  want  to  work  at  UCLA  at  all.  He
wanted to go to Minnesota. It was arranged that Minnesota would phone him at
six o’clock on a certain evening to tell him if he had the job. He told UCLA to
call him at seven. No one called at six, six thirty, or even six forty-five, so when
UCLA called at seven, he said yes. No sooner had he hung up than the call from
Minnesota came. A storm had messed up the phone lines and prevented the six
o’clock phone call with the job offer from getting through.
UCLA  had  grossly  inadequate  facilities.  For  his  first  sixteen  years,  Wooden
held practice in a crowded, dark, and poorly ventilated gym, known as the B.O.
Barn because of the atmospheric effect of the sweating bodies. In the same gym,
there  were  often  wrestling  matches,  gymnastics  training,  trampoline  jumping,
and cheerleading workouts going on alongside basketball practice.
There was also no place for the games. For the first few years, they had to use
the  B.O.  Barn,  and  then  for  fourteen  more  years,  they  had  to  travel  around  the
region borrowing gyms from schools and towns.
Then there were the players. When he put them through their first practice, he
was shattered. They were so bad that if he’d had an honorable way to back out of
the  job,  he  would  have.  The  press  had  (perceptively)  picked  his  team  to  finish
last in their division, but Wooden went to work, and this laughable team did not
finish  last.  It  won  the  division  title,  with  twenty-two  wins  and  seven  losses  for
the season. The next year, they went to the NCAA play-offs.
What did he give them? He gave them constant training in the basic skills, he
gave them conditioning, and he gave them mindset.