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How Does Leadership and Organizational Culture Shape Success, Performance, and the Long-Term Wellbeing of Athletes?
Across every level of sport, from recreational sports to professional organizations, leadership and organizational culture dictate how teams operate, athletes are treated and perform, and how organizations respond to success, pressure, and adversity. For decades, many organizations, leaders, coaches, support staff, athletes, and fans have celebrated performance while overlooking the cultural systems that produce it.…
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It’s Time to Level Up
Athletes understand the importance of challenging themselves to reach the next level. Yet, the organizations that support them are stuck in complacency. As a sports fan, I continue to be amazed by the athletes in the events I watch. Whether the competition is amateur or professional, individual or team, local, domestic or international, you see…
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What is Your Why?
In January of 2021 Ryan Smith, the new owner of the Utah Jazz announced that for every Jazz win, they would award a 4-year full ride scholarship to a Utah high school senior to attend a Utah University. They have since awarded 30 scholarships and the Jazz have risen to the top of the NBA…
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The Weighty Issue of Corruption
“Wherever there is power, greed, and money, there is corruption.” ― Ken Poirot Media coverage and money have turned sport into a ‘life-and-death’ situation where cheating to get ahead becomes more and more attractive. Cheating in sport has become an artform of creative innovation, intricately designed schema hell-bent on securing ‘a win’. Match-fixing, illegal betting, doping,…
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Is It I or We?
When you start a sentence about your team, do you start with an I or we? But let me ask two further questions: When you are speaking about your team’s successes, do you say that we (As in all coaches and athletes) have made it this far, or do you say something to the effect…
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Collision Course- Collegiate Athletics & Campus Sexual Assault- Challenges in Recognition
Two American universities were caught up in the same crisis over the last few weeks, that itself is unusual. Louisiana State University (LSU) released a report by the law firm Husch Blackwell reviewing shortcomings in LSU’s reporting and management of sexual assaults related to its intercollegiate athletics program. As a result of the Husch Blackwell…
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The Standards and Ethics of Leaders in Sport
The Telegraph Sports Book of the Year 2019 – Sevens Heaven by Ben Ryan – chronicles the ups and downs of a coach who moved his life to the other side of the world to coach some of the most gifted athletes, the Fiji Men’s 7’s team. Without doubt some of the most skillful players in…
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Sport: A Platform for Advocacy
The influence of top athletes; their ability to amplify important debate allows advocacy on a global level. Sport is unique in that it can bring together people of different cultural backgrounds; different nationalities; different religions to become global citizens. Imagine having such a platform on which to stage a campaign for civil rights; justice; environmental…
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Stamping Out Intolerance
In just a few short weeks, on April 15th, Major League Baseball will celebrate the 74th anniversary of Jack Roosevelt Robinson’s debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The man, better known as Jackie Robinson, was the first African American to play baseball in the Major Leagues when he started at first base for the Dodgers. While…
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Are We Rooting For Laundry?
“The sea was angry that day, my friends.” Suppose you are, like me, a Seinfeld fan. In that case, you immediately recall this line and remember George Costanza’s speech at the diner explaining how he overcame his fears and saved the whale by extracting Kramer’s golf ball from its blowhole. Jerry Seinfeld has a gift…
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Sailing into a Synchronous Culture
Have you ever noticed the incredible synchronicity of a yachting race team in action? They are perhaps only comparable to the astounding coordination of a pit crew during a formula one race. The finely choreographed movements of the crew are vital to sailing success. But there’s more to this ‘dance’ than just a taught procedure…
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Use Your Powers for Good or Evil
Do you remember listening or watching coaches, teachers, or other adults when you were a young child? Do you remember when they would tell you to do something, you just assumed they had the authority, and you then followed their direction? Or maybe someone told you something and it was “factual” because they were your…
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Remember We Are Human Too …
We feel and we perceive like any other normal functioning human being. We are the ever inwardly optimistic brigade of finding the next olympic hopeful with heads swirling in big dreams and emails and parent concerns and committee meetings and planning and researching and what to put in next week’s newsletter … our to-do list…
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Fear is Never an Efficient Motivator
This week Sara Davis, in her article What Are You Afraid of? Your Fear May Be Keeping You From Your Destiny, we were reminded to not let fear limit our possibilities. When there are unchecked egos and bullying and aggressive behavior prevail, there is a negative impact on performance. Far from inciting greater effort or…
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The Power of Inclusivity
In the summer of 2015, I had the opportunity to be involved with the Special Olympics World Games based in Los Angeles, California. I spent the whole week working the volleyball portion of the whole tournament. Teams came from all corners of the world to participate. I have never seen more excitement or joy from…
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What Are You Afraid of? Your Fear May Be Keeping You From Your Destiny
What are you afraid to try? What has been ringing in your ear for the last couple of weeks, months, days, that you are dying to try? My second question is, what is stopping you? Maybe this is something you have never directly addressed, but I challenge you to think about this for a couple…
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A Two Year Suspension From Sports Is All Someone Got for the Sexual Abuse and Intimidation of a 13 Year Old Athlete
U.S. Center for Safe Sport and U.S. Figure Skating have just made a bold statement: You can intimidate a 13 year old girl that was sexually abused by a coach, and cover the sexual abuse up, and only be suspended for two years from a sport. That was the strictest punishment for any of the…
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International Women’s Day- Sports & Equality
Just yesterday, on this site, Denise Harvey took on the “Tradition of Classism & Racism in ‘Elite’ Sports“. It is true that sports have historically been one of the areas of society where barriers to full participation have been erected to keep others out. Whether those others being kept out were of different classes, ethnicities,…
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A Winning Culture that isn’t Winning
Currently in the English Premier League the defending champions, Liverpool FC, are struggling to win games. Following their weekend defeat to a Fulham team near the bottom of the table, Liverpool recorded their sixth straight home defeat – an unwanted new record in their storied history. There are mitigating circumstances of course. Due to COVID-19…
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A Tradition of Classism & Racism in ‘Elite’ Sports
Ever since the formation of modern sports in the 19th century, certain sports have been assigned to particular socio-economic groups. Non-contact sports have been associated with the upper classes while the ‘rougher’ sports were relegated to the lower classes who were considered more uncouth and less refined. This situation has reinforced the class distinctions and…
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The GOAT and the Golden Eggs
I wish Tiger Woods well in his recovery. The news of his accident was shocking. Coming just a little over a year after Kobe Bryant’s tragic death, we all wondered if we had lost another of our sports heroes too soon. Fortunately, this time, the accident wasn’t fatal. However, questions are starting to arise about…
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Endure, Learn, and Move On
I apologize in advance to all of you haters out there. I am an Astros fan. Still am. Let me explain. I live in The Woodlands, Texas. It is a suburban utopia just north of Houston. As the name suggests, there are lots of trees. It is a master-planned community with excellent schools and great…
