Sport and the Growing Good

Winning is difficult – and maintaining success can be even more challenging. In this session, Coach Jackson and some special guests joined us to discuss the topic of “sustaining success.”1.     Reading your team when things are going well. Understanding them. “Getting out of their way.” Winning gets to be habitual.2.     Little inconveniences bringing a team together in new, deeper ways (hotel example in bad weather). Maintaining a positive orientation: “Life’s an adventure, let’s go get it!”3.     You can’t count on just “replicating what we had before.” Examples of players having off-season surgery that change what you have coming back on a team.4.     You have to maintain vision for your team.5.     “Dance of the wounded egos.” Guys overvaluing their roles on the team.6.     “It’s all of us. It’s about how we all fit together.”7.     As a coach something to think about: “Where does this person think he fits into our team effort? How can I make him feel important but also that we will go on regardless?”8.     Getting away from the game after the season. Focusing on family. 9.     Also using the off-season to envision what the team would look like.10.  “We always held something back.” Reflecting in the off-season: “What are we going to do differently this year?”11.  Allowing veteran players to teach newcomers what it means to be part of the group and “earning his credibility.”12.  Losing assistant coaches to head coaching positions.13.  Dividing players into groups with a particular coach who they’d get to know intimately. A mentor who would help them to get better.14.  Jordan and Kobe having specific things they worked on in the off-season. Setting the model for other players.15.  Keeping pace with a changing game. Growing as a coach. 16.  Phil Nevin on rules changes that affected coaching baseball.17.  Responding to the analytics movement.18.  Mark Sweeney on staying in the game “mentally and physically” as he prepared each game. 19.  Davey Lopes as an important coach to Mark.20.  Maintaining “drive” on winning teams. Finding new motivations.

Sameer Deshpande is an assistant professor of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Much of his work is applied in sports settings, where he has emerged as a leader in the field. Sameer is a BIOS fellow and key partner as we’ve continued deepening the connections between sports and research. In this conversation, we discussed:1.     The type of research Sameer conducts. Using probability to quantify all of our uncertainty. Bayesian Statistics.2.     Sameer’s journey to academia. Math competitions. Mentors and supporters along the way. Early studies that got him started in the field.3.     The relatively small data analytics community in professional sports. 4.     Study on the “plate discipline” of MLB players.5.     Study on surface-type and concussions in the NFL.6.     Study on associations between football participation during adolescence and mental health during young adulthood.7.     Study estimating NBA players’ impacts on their teams’ winning. (Dirk was #1.)8.     Teaching statistics and “meeting students where they are.”9.     Being a BIOS fellow: “It’s super interesting and inspiring…Working in sports research can be isolating…There are people who I’ve met through BIOS who I never would have spoken to and there’s a lot of fruitful collaborative work that can happen…BIOS has been a great way for connecting people…BIOS embraces the cross-cutting nature of this campus.”10.  Research that’s coming up: Spatial variation/heat maps for NBA players – modeling that allows us to use data smartly in new ways; Decathlon – Can new limits be reached and what would it take?11.  The Dallas Cowboys.

We’ve studied many aspects of coaching including having a system, running practice, and forming team identity. Today’s topic will build upon these and other topics we’ve discussed to engage several specific aspects of “leading on game day.”1.            Coach Jackson’s favorite routes in driving thought the Midwest and western US states.2.            Organizing game day so that the players would have mornings of instruction and activity.3.            Game day meetings with coaching staff. 4.            Shootarounds. Basic drills. Activating the body.5.            Mike D’Antonio focusing on offense. 6.            Coaching in the CBA.7.            The heartbeat.8.            Gameday meditation. From five to ten minutes. Changes throughout the season.”9.            “At some point in that team meeting, I would ask a player, what do you think is important in this game?”10.         “’Let’s talk about your perspective, how you feel about how they guarded you the last time.”11.         Working on specials in the last minutes of the shootaround.12.         Pregame speeches. Limited effects. Focuses: information and emotion.13.         “It’s overrated, the ‘Gipper’ speech.”14.         Dennis Rodman’s pregame routines. 15.         Sending assistant coaches out in pregame.16.         Albert Mehrabian rule: “7% words, 38% tone of voice, 55% body language” 17.         Why Coach developed his whistling skills and used hand signals. 18.         Codes for communication.19.         “I think the voice is resilient and authoritative. I think it’s really important for the coach to have a strong voice.”20.         “There’s a locker room voice that is commanding, yet assuring. It’s instructive.”21.         The Horace Grant example. Positive Coaching Alliance.22.         Timeouts. Getting players composed. “I want you to find the rooted nature. Something that you know that gives you solace. And you can go to the bench and think of that space for ten seconds.”23.         Examples of the rooted nature. Where you were nurtured.24.         Others who were not in the game could encourage teammates while planning was going on. 25.         Sitting vs. standing in timeouts. 26.         Communicating with the team during crunch time of a game: Research on best strategies for leading during critical/high pressure times include:-use brief, clear commands-control body language and tone (players look to coach as model in these times)-activate leadership within the team (tie into a player-leader during time-out, etc)-emphasize the next play and focus on the process-encourage deep breaths-reinforce trust and confidence in the team and system-acknowledge the pressure …and frame it as a challenge that we’re ready for27. Red Holzman during crunch time. Defensive berating… then, “What do you guys what to run? What do you think will work?” “He left it entirely up to us…That was a real eye opener for me. I enjoyed that a lot.”28. “Michael Jordan was such a great finisher and so was Kobe Bryant. A lot of that was part of the success I had as a coach.”29. “I think the breath is really important. Take a deep breath and relax. We’re going to go into this. We’re going to be successful. Just be alert and react.”30. After the game in the locker room. “Temperament is one of the things you have to watch for… Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. You need to find that balance.”31. The Lord’s Prayer after the game for calming down.32. After leaving the arena on game day. “I used to take a few minutes by myself.”33. Coach Jackson and Coach Winter continuing to focus on their video analysis even as the plane seemed to be going down. 34. Communicating during the flow of the game with players.35. “Sometimes stopping the activity and getting your players to reset is important. And you have to think of creative ways to do that.”36. Accounting for different players’ pregame rituals. 37. Ensuring that your teams don’t start slow.

Bob Batt is an associate professor in the School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bob focuses on operations and information management. He partners with hospitals and other organizations to learn about service operations. Additionally, Bob serves as a BIOS fellow and has been a valued partners to UW Athletics in recent years.1.     His expertise in service operations. 2.     Emergency department operations. Patient flow and physician productivity.3.     A couple examples of recent studies.4.     The impact of proximity on service operations.5.     Behavioral operations. Small nudges to change behavior.6.     Article: “The psychology of waiting.” “Anxious waits” feel longer.7.     Bob’s collaboration with BIOS on a Camp Randall Stadium project. How can we improve crowd flow.8.     What makes Chick-fil-A operations effective.9.     A partnership formed with Athletics through the stadium project.10.  Working in the Operations and Information Management Department.11.  Relationship with the Department of Emergency Medicine.12.  What’s next for Bob. 13.  Bob’s interest in sailboat racing.

Why should coaches work with compassion? How can they do it? We discussed the science of compassion and how Coach Jackson centered compassion in his leadership.1. Coach’s perspective on coaching clinics and professional development. “It’s a collaboration of thought and ideas.” “You have to go there with intention on what you want to learn.”2. The importance of storytelling in coaching. “We are telling stories to ourselves all the time…So stories are part of our brain’s activity.”3. Cataloguing stories that lend deep insights into key points you want to make.4. Framing a team’s journey as a story: “We have a journey to make…What kind of story are we going to tell ourselves?”5. Why is compassion relevant as a coach. “As a coach, you are called to drive people farther than they think they can go. To give more effort than they are capable of. And, in the process of doing that, they’re putting their lives and limbs in jeopardy a lot of times. They are playing with this controlled abandon…You’re trying to extend that level of energy to a point where they will be able to change the contest that they’re involved in…In the process, players overextend themselves, they get injured, they lose. You have to commiserate in loss and there is compassion.”6. Shaquille O’Neal aspiring to be like Wilt: Being able to play heavy minutes. John Salley serving as a “go-between” for Shaq: “He wonders, do you think he’s doing a good job?”7. Connections between Buddhism and Christianity: “In Buddhism, compassion is the response from the Buddha. In Christianity, love is the response from Jesus. The two come together.” 8. “We all suffer…Suffering is part of human nature.”9.   “It doesn’t have to be the big hug, but it has to be the understanding and the care. It can even be in the eyes.”10.  Compassion: “to suffer with.” It has an action element with it.11. Compassion can “come from some basic things: a touch, a greeting, a ‘job well done…’”12. Acknowledging challenges as a coach is important.13. The critical nature of turning points. 1) newness; 2) injury; 3) not going well; 4) critical incident.14. “Every coach who has done this for a while knows his way around a training room. Being there to support and commiserate.”15. Elvin Hayes’ injury at a critical time.16.  Kobe Bryant ankle sprain during the finals: Handling it with compassion and firmness. “I’m so sorry that you’re not going to be able to do this.” Energy in coming back from the biggest disappointment of his career led to a big victory two days later.17.  Compassionomics book.18.  The details of compassion. Wording of questions. Touch. Physical presence.19.  The team supporting Scottie Pippen after a personal loss. Brought him to the middle of the room and putting a hand on him.20.  Johns Hopkins University study: Compassion reduces anxiety.21.  Showing a team “we’re in it together.” Example from a hostile environment. Sacrificing himself for the good of the team.22.  Virtuous cycles. Virtue compounds.23.  Coaches are “Riding the racehorse…The team is running the race. You can rank at the reins and yell… but the reality is, we’re in this together…You need to do it in a humanistic, compassionate way.”24.  Getting Michael Jordan to be patient with Steve Kerr, who’d been struggling to contend with John Stockton.25.  “Some of it has to be, ‘How compassionate can we be with ourselves?’” 

In this session, Coach Jackson discusses his background with visualization and how he used it with his teams over the years. Visualization is a powerful tool in sports, backed by extensive research on its neurological, psychological, and performance benefits. By incorporating vivid, goal-oriented, and emotionally engaging imagery into their routines, athletes can enhance their physical and mental preparation, ultimately improving performance. Its effectiveness is maximized when combined with physical practice, tailored guidance, and consistent repetition.1.     Coach Jackson’s first experiences with visualization. His mom took a friend into his room: “Watch this child, I don’t know what this child does as a three year old”…She said, ‘it looked like you were catching balls, going through those motions.’ Probably there was something to that. There was some imagery going on in my brain as a child.” 2.     “One of our issues as human beings is that we’re moving on to next instead of living with now. So, living in the now is really the ideal…However, visualization has a purpose when goals are to be attained and things have to be planned, visualization becomes practical at that point.” 3.     Using visualization as a fifth grader in Great Falls, Montana. And later as a pitcher in baseball. “You imagine what it’s going to be like…It became part of my prep.” 4.     Using downtime for visualization. 5.     Coach Jackson’s brother using hypnosis on him to get him ready for pitching in high school after an injury. “I went out and had a two hitter…It was another event that led into the idea that the mind is a big participant in the athletic experience.” 6.     Tex Winter using visualization. What did he visualize?  7.     Pairing video with visualization. Show video and then tell the team. 8.     The learning curve. Developing muscle memory – neurons and synapses in the brain.  9.     A game against San Antonio in the playoffs, when things were tough.  10.  Bringing other senses into practice. Touch. Sioux and the “counting coup.” Example with Pat Riley. “That feeling or touch or using physical presence is beyond the mental.” 11.  Visualizing both success and failure. Gaining perspective and context. 12.  Visualizing what is about to happen. Bulls vs. Jazz in game 6. Talking to MJ. “You know exactly what their go-to play is ... (we will get the steal vs Malone)…” 13.  “We all knew in our mind’s eye what it looked like for our opponent to do what they do.” 14.  “What you’ve been doing is dropping your hand because you’re tired.” On the winning shot, MJ held his hand high. “That was something that was just already an image.” 15.  Visualizing individually. Having a conversation with a competitive skier.  16.  Is visualizing still a part of Coach’s routine? Yes. “One of our problems as human beings is that we’re not involved in the current moment of totally doing the task that we’re doing. And, so, as a consequence, we’re moving on to the next task…And that’s part of human nature. I think one of the things that meditation does is it puts you in the moment doing the task you’re doing fully. So, next has to take a backseat until it’s useful. Until you need to actually be prepping or planning for what your activity is going to be…To always be moving on to the next task means you don’t complete the task you’re doing. And that’s the thing that’s really important, is that you fully engage in the task that you’re doing. So that you’re completing it with nothing left undone…You need to complete the task that you’re doing fully.” 17.  Visualizing the drive from Montana to California.  18.  Metacognition and visualization – how do they interact? 19.  Differences in visualizing as a player and a coach.  20.  How far ahead to you visualize? “I used to do two weeks…There’s a goal and there’s a timeframe.”

Faisal Abdu’Allah is a Professor of Art at UW-Madison and a BIOS Fellow. Faisal’s art has been shown around the world and he’s also a beloved teacher. Some of his recent work unfolds in athletics settings. He’s an important partner for BIOS in our work on “the representation of sport in society.” In this episode, we discussed:1.     Faisal’s work at UW-Madison – balancing art and administration.2.     Growing up in London.3.     The formative influence of home-based barbershops.4.     His early experiences with art, and the important role of his teacher in opening new opportunities.5.     Attending art school. Working as an artist.6.     Faisal’s background as a semi-pro soccer player.7.     Similarities and confluences between art and sport. Dedication. Premonition.8.     How environment affects work. Order. Intentionality.9.     Art projects with UW Athletics. Being a storyteller with art.10.  His current exhibit, “Family Ties.”11.  Developing relationships while making art. Partnering with Ron Dayne and other teammates.

All coaches and leaders face conflict in their groups. We never seek conflict or problems, but these times can be defining times for our teams. Leaders need to have skills in leading through conflict. In this session with Coach Jackson, we discussed the research on leading through conflict and gained Coach’s perspectives based on his extensive experiences. We discussed:1.     Circling back to the Shivas Irons quote on coaching as a “serious and solemn act.”2.     Being settled personally before being able to coach a group.3.     “You never can step in the same river twice…Every incident, every process, every relationship with a team is always new.” 4.     Being flexible and in the moment.5.     Michael Jordan’s competitiveness and the associated challenges of keeping back-up guards.6.     The Lakers wilting when attempting to finish games. Speaking about it directly. No response from team… so directly addressing it again the next day. Kobe defending himself. 7.     “Sleeping on problems.” 8.     Anger as “an opportunity.”9.     Team play emphasis when coming through conflict. “We can do this together.”10.  Role modeling during periods of conflict.11.  Having conversations on the team about world events and things going on in society.12.  Getting rid of ego.13.  Demonstrating putting yourself second to players. “I sat in the front of the bus, but I got in the back of the line.”14.  Self-control is a leadership quality.15.  Knowing when to step back as coach. Bill Cartwright’s example of leadership.16.  Narcissism is challenging.17.  Feeling alone as a leader.18.  Taking care of ourselves physically and mentally as leaders. 19.  Doing the right thing at the right time. “Appeasing the basketball gods.” 20.  Having someone who’s not part of the leadership who can be a valuable sounding board or pressure release.

Jason Lopez joined us for an excellent conversation on his latest research and teaching. As a BIOS fellow, Jason contributes expertise in the areas of sports media and cultural studies. We discussed:1.     What Jason studies as a professor of sports media. Athlete activism and speech. The unscripted nature of sports. Sports games: fantasy sports, sports gambling.2.     Jason’s journey to academia. Philosophy studies. Key people along the way.3.     Being a third generation Dodger fan. Allegiance to L.A. sports teams.4.     Media literacy. How it’s made, how it’s communicated, what’s done with it.5.     New book about sports betting. Gambling has always been a part of the business. “Games are good for sports business.” 6.     The power of education in the area of sports gambling.7.     Student interests shift. More talk about sports betting. More interests in different sports. F1. WNBA. More students wanting to work in sports media. There are more opportunities.8.     Serving as a BIOS fellow. “BIOS has been really inspiring for me…Going to talks and hearing people work on aspects of sports that I never would engage with otherwise, I really come away really energized. Also, it’s helped me have conversations and make connections that I don’t think I would have had otherwise.”9.     A new paper with BIOS fellow Professor Julie Stamm.10.  Sports don’t have to be the way they are. 

Every coach wants a superstar on the team! But coaching and leading a great player is not always easy as leaders attempt to foster an entire organization. Lionel Messi was the greatest player in the history of the game, and his journey illustrates some complex leadership decisions that Barca needed to make in order to sustain success during and beyond his tenure with the team. In this fourth episode on the Barca case with Professor Jordi, we discussed:1.     Review of past weeks – the history of Barca, the impact of Cruyff, and the importance of La Masia.2.     Messi’s journey to La Masia and the club as a young player. “It was a perfect environment for him.”3.     “The talent is enhanced by the system.”4.     Messi’s early success with the club.5.     Messi as a leader. “He was shy…He was a leader in a different way…He didn’t speak very much in the dressing room…but the place where he was speaking was on the field…He created the glue that sustained the team in many ways.”6.     “He understood very well that the system needed to be in place in order for the team to evolve.”7.     Dilemmas that faced the team during Messi’s later years with the team. Balancing salary, fit, and other variables. Long-term vision.8.     Post-Messi, the club re-invested in its values and La Masia – to reach the championship again.9.     The importance of belonging, belief and connectedness. 10.  The enduring legacy of Barca as it plays out through Guardiola, Xavi, Iniesta and others.