Don Meyer: Secrets to Building a Championship Basketball Program

When it comes to building a championship program and doing it the RIGHT way Don Meyer is the best in the business to study. He built his programs with fundamentals and hard work. Every opportunity I get to spend some time reviewing notes from his clinics or program I do so.

Try to get all the good ideas you can, understand you cannot use all the good ideas.

Write everything down that you can and then decide what will fit your program, personality, you personnel, your state, your religion, and your league.

3 Requirements:

1) Everybody takes notes. The richest 500 people in the US shared the fact they take great notes.
2) Everybody is courteous. Must say thank you, please, yes sir, no sir. When you are courteous it pays and when you are discourteous you pay. Every person that is part of an organization that comes into contact with the public is a salesman. Every person in your program is a salesman and you have to teach everyone in your program to be courteous. If everyone is not courteous your program is going to pay.
3) Everyone picks up trash. You leave the locker room cleaner than you found it. On the great teams, everyone does the dirty jobs. Everyone has to do the dirty jobs on great teams starting with the coaches.

Wooden: "You can always do it better." You can never be satisfied. Never let the players or coaches become satisfied becase you can always do it better.

Keeping a Personal Edge as a Coach
You have to have time by yourself to have that edge. You got to have solitude. You got family, you got coaching, and you got that third place where nobody can get to you. This place is where you can study, think, or pray. You pray first for others then yourself.

The beginning of wisdom is to know that you are not so smart. Humilit comes before honor.

Wise people are humble.

You can never retire. You have to find something to occupy yourself for entire life. The saddest day of your life is when you are no longer productive. You have got to keep an edge.

If you do not have leadership at the top, your program is in terrible shape. We know what leadership is by the absence of it.

Talent always rises to the top. Having a team, always stay at the top. A man bent on revenge must first dig two graves.

It pays to be a winner.

Coach Wooden would bring in his leaders of his team and say three things:
1) You have to be our hardest workers.
2) You have to take care of stuff off the floor.
3) Leave everything else to the coaches.

If your best player is not your hardest worker it will be a miserable year even if you win it all.

You need to know on your team who your players would put in a foxhole with them. You do not put someone in your foxhole you do not really trust.