Providing Insights on Leadership and Success. Coach Bechler is a John Maxwell Leadership Team Member.
For many of us in the United States, Labor Day is the unofficial end of the summer and is filled with cookouts, pool parties, and college football.
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But Labor Day began as a way to recognize our nation’s workers and their accomplishments.
Do you happen to have a case of the Monday’s?
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Does someone around you have a case of the Mondays?
I hope not.
When the great baseball Hall of Famer and African American icon Jackie Robinson died in 1972, his widow called Boston Celtics player Bill Russell and asked him to be a pallbearer at her husband’s funeral.
When asked why, she responded that Russell had been Jackie Robinson’s favorite athlete.
All of the pallbearers were Jackie’s former teammates with the Brooklyn Dodgers, except for Bill Russell.
It’s likely that Bill Russell was Jackie Robinson’s favorite athlete – not because he was so athletic or talented – but because he was a champion, both on and off the playing court.
Many consider Bill Russell one of the greatest teammates of all time.
My friend Alan Stein, Jr. is considered one of the top performance coaches in the nation. For years he has worked with some of the best basketball players in the world. In fact, when I was a basketball coach, I used many of his conditioning drills for my teams.
He once told me about his first encounter with Kobe Bryant back in 2007 when he was in his prime and considered the best player in the world. Nike flew Alan out to the Kobe Bryant Skills Camp.
Adrian Griffin won a World Championship as the lead assistant coach for the Toronto Raptors in 2020. He played in the NBA from 1999-2008 after a stellar career at Seton Hall University. In 2010 he was inducted into the Seton Hall athletic Hall of Fame. Prior to serving as the Raptors lead assistant coach, he also spent time on the sidelines for Oklahoma City, Orlando Magic, Chicago Bulls, and the Milwaukee Bucks. Next year he’ll have each of his three children playing Division I basketball (Duke, UConn WBB, and Syracuse).
Every athlete has a different skillset and level of athletic ability. Not every player will have the natural talent of a Lebron James, Serena Williams, Lamar Jackson, or Maya Moore. But for every all-world player that makes it, there are countless others that had the talent but lacked the intangibles. Talent can only take an athlete so far. In fact, talent doesn’t equal good. The extra stuff can take a talented athlete and make them good. Likewise, there are plenty of athletes that have limited talent but have excelled at the intangibles, leading to success and them becoming valuable members of their team. Talent is only a starting point. No matter how much or how little talent an athlete has, here are 10 things that every athlete can do.