As this Sports Illustrated article points out, Maradona’s recent experience as a World Cup coach ended far less successfully than his stint as World Cup player.

And so it is with many athletes. So often the great coaches and managers are people who had to scratch to survive during their playing careers. Phil Jackson, who recently won his 11th NBA title. He was far from a legend as a player.

Same for Tommy Lasorda, who led the Los Angeles Dodgers to a pair of World Series titles.

By contrast, it’s difficult to name many superstar athletes who matched their playing achievements after crossing over to the other side of the bench. Joe Torre is one of the exceptions, putting together a stellar managerial career after being a star player.

Those who must work hard to be great managers bring to mind the subject of praise, and how important it is for coaches to focus on the right thing when they praise their athletes.

This article in New York magazine  – it’s called “The Inverse Power of Praise” — looks at the work of Stanford researcher Carol Dweck, who says that praising a child for intelligence can backfire. It’s better, says the article, to praise hard work, progress and achievement.

And that’s perhaps how average athletes become great managers. They understand hard work better than superstars. They must work harder than the stars to progress and achieve. They can never rest, which is good practice for when they coach!

Phil Jackson’s team won, and he gave credit to the players. Larry Brown’s team lost, and he took responsibility for it.

It’s a good management strategy. Give credit to the workers when things go well, and be careful with the blame when they don’t.

With the victory, Jackson passed Pat Riley as the winningest coach in Los Angeles Lakers history.

“It’s been a really good run,” Jackson said. “Having this opportunity to coach this team is always special. The fact that we’ve had some great teams, great players, is always a credit to them. It’s not really an individual record in my mind.”

Larry Brown of the Charlotte Bobcats took responsibility for a sloppy inbounds play that helped hand the game to the Lakers.

“I had everybody confused,” Brown said. “That was my fault. We had another timeout where I don’t think anybody really understood what we were trying to do, so that was on me. I told them all afterwards that that was just an old coach doing a stupid thing.”

Perhaps the play was stupid, but deflecting the blame was not. No wonder Brown ranks in the top 10 in career victories by an NBA coach.

Now that Phil Jackson has coached his NBA record 10th championship, some people are calling him the greatest coach in league history.

The Positive Coaching Alliance is calling him something else — a great role model.

“Watching the Lakers win the NBA title, last night I began to count the ways that Phil Jackson is a model for youth coaches,” PCA founder Jim Thompson wrote in his Youth Sport Spotlight blog.

Jackson, the PCA National Spokesperson, is among that group of coaches who exude strong values while winning. Tony Dungy and Joe Tore also come to mind.

But they coach (or coached) professionals, grownups who can fend for themselves (or have agents to do so). Young players need support and guidance all the more.

So the next time you win (like Phil Jackson), ask yourself if someone would point to you as a role model (like Phil Jackson).

This is Day Two of the Gold Medal Squared coaching clinic in Catonsville, Md.

Though the sport is volleyball, the principles and ideas apply to coaching any sport. Two such ideas came across powerfully yesterday.

The first concerns feedback, and the urgency of providing quick, specific information on an athlete’s performance. One coach cited research saying a coach has only eight seconds to give athletes feedback on a skill just executed. After that, the athlete loses the connection between the feeling and the feedback.

Of course, verbal cues from a coach are only one type of feedback. There are, for instance, film and statistics. Those two, coupled with immediate, precise information on what the athlete did right or wrong, represent formidable tools for improvement.

The second powerful idea concerns focus. How do you get your athletes to concentrate, laser-like, on what they must do to improve? If you use a whiteboard or blackboard in your gym or on your field, write down the athlete’s name and then what that athlete should be concentrating on that particular day.

This idea works both ways: The coach can either assign an area of focus to the athlete, or invite the athlete to write down what they think is most important. Either way, the information is posted and public — making it more likely that there will be follow-through.

With increased feedback and sharper focus, improvement will come.

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Team-building coach Gary Pritchard and I have just released Part 7 of our podcast, “10 Things Great Coaches Know.” The theme this week is how to speed up progress and improve team results.

You can hear it here: http://www.willbeatskill.com/-Coaches_Podcast_.html

Once on the web site, scroll down and hit the play button.
Did you miss Part 1-6? click on the link below, then select “Listen Now.”
http://gar49nj.podbean.com/

Enjoy! See you next week for Part 8 (only 2 more left).

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One final thought. Since we mentioned that in the NBA and NHL playoffs every game has been won by the home team, both games have gone to the visitors. The Los Angeles Lakers won in Orlando to take a 3-1 lead in their final, and the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup in Detroit last night.

A few days ago, Kobe Bryant was discussing his team’s situation after it lost Game 1 of its playoff series against Houston.

“To win a championship, you’re going to have to face some adversity,” said the Los Angeles Lakers’ superstar, shrugging off the results of the first game.

Bryant, of course, is right. And we know that he is right. There are no shortcuts to championships.

But on another level, deep down inside, this lesson has not yet sunk in. We still think that somehow everything is going to go well.

It doesn’t work that way. Never will. So players, coaches and athletes must develop the toughness necessary to meet the adversity that inevitably will arrive.

How?

Every practice brings a chance to become tougher.

Perhaps the toughness will grow in relentless competition, the kind used so effectively by North Carolina soccer coach Anson Dorrance.

Perhaps it will grow through milestones like the ones that legendary quarterback Sammy Baugh pursued. Baugh forced himself (and his receivers) to complete a certain number of passes before they could go home every day.

Whatever the method, the toughness must grow, because it will be needed somewhere along the way.