Polls 2019-20

[French Rage]

I have worked for people who criticized everyone involved when one person's lack of effort/performance was the proximate cause of failure, and I suspect you have too. They were lousy leaders. I don't parse group leadership into separate styles: one for business, one for sports for example. People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful.

I can't stop laughing at the idea that Schafer coming out and saying "the PK problems are all Cody Haiskenen's fault. He's a real asshole and everyone hates him" would be real leadership.

Haiskenen was the first name that came to mind. I don't think this is his fault.

There's also a difference between what you say in public (to the media) and what you say in private (in practice, to the team or specific players).  If someone has massively screwed up, they already know, so attempt to lynch them in public is not really going to make things better.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

I have worked for people who criticized everyone involved when one person's lack of effort/performance was the proximate cause of failure, and I suspect you have too. They were lousy leaders. I don't parse group leadership into separate styles: one for business, one for sports for example. People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful.

I can't stop laughing at the idea that Schafer coming out and saying "the PK problems are all Cody Haiskenen's fault. He's a real asshole and everyone hates him" would be real leadership.

Haiskenen was the first name that came to mind. I don't think this is his fault.

There's also a difference between what you say in public (to the media) and what you say in private (in practice, to the team or specific players).  If someone has massively screwed up, they already know, so attempt to lynch them in public is not really going to make things better.

+1 (or more)

[ugarte]

I have worked for people who criticized everyone involved when one person's lack of effort/performance was the proximate cause of failure, and I suspect you have too. They were lousy leaders. I don't parse group leadership into separate styles: one for business, one for sports for example. People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful.

this is as if the wall street journal wrote for fortune cookies

[Trotsky]

I have worked for people who criticized everyone involved when one person's lack of effort/performance was the proximate cause of failure, and I suspect you have too. They were lousy leaders. I don't parse group leadership into separate styles: one for business, one for sports for example. People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful.

this is as if the wall street journal wrote for fortune cookies

People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful in bed.

[marty]

I have worked for people who criticized everyone involved when one person's lack of effort/performance was the proximate cause of failure, and I suspect you have too. They were lousy leaders. I don't parse group leadership into separate styles: one for business, one for sports for example. People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful.

this is as if the wall street journal wrote for fortune cookies

People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful in bed.

Isn't that a proverb rather than a fortune?

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

I have worked for people who criticized everyone involved when one person's lack of effort/performance was the proximate cause of failure, and I suspect you have too. They were lousy leaders. I don't parse group leadership into separate styles: one for business, one for sports for example. People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful.

this is as if the wall street journal wrote for fortune cookies

People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful in bed.

Shouldn't that be hole, not whole?

[TimV]

you only get so many hrs to practice these days cant spend it all on the ice working on this one thing

Very true.  There were no such limits then.

[Swampy]

I know as a coach of youth lacrosse and soccer, I would notice and write down things during games. (We didn't use film, although I've seen that.) Then at practice, if I hadn't taught them about similar situations, we'd practice how to handle them. If I had taught them, or if we'd covered similar issues, I'd ask the players what else we could have done. And then we'd practice fixing our mistakes.

But that's just me, at a much lower level. I'd be interested in really discussing what a coach of Harkness's caliber would do in Mike's situation. E.g., does anyone know (or even remember) if he used "we" or "you" in such situations?

I love how you make it sound like Mike Schafer hasn't been doing this for 25 years, and hasn't had a perennial top 5 national PK all those years.

No, I'm certainly not of that impression or trying to give it. This season is an anomaly in that it is the first time since I've been following Mike's teams that the team has top-5 ability and excels in almost all aspects of the game yet in one aspect is often terrible. Mike obviously has tried to address this, and for a time it looked as if he had. Now it's come back. Reading the article quoting him, one gets the feeling he's scratching his head.

As for Schafer vs. Harkness, Schafer is a great coach. But he's still chasing that white whale. Ned, on the other hand, killed that whale at two different schools, four different times, and would have killed a fifth time had NCAA lacrosse been decided by performance on the field rather than by Baltimore votes.

If Ned Harkness were alive and around, I'd be surprised if Mike wouldn't discuss this with him, much the way Cornell lacrosse coaches sometimes chat with Richie Moran. I thought opening the subject this way would bring in people's experiences, with Harkness and other coaches. Looking at the discussion, this was successful.

[Trotsky]

Harkness will never be bested.  For one thing, his record is impossible for Schafer to supercede -- he would literally need something like another 30 years of perfect seasons to top his winning percentage.  For another, Harkness coached during a time when there were around 4 nationally- and 8 regionally competitive teams, and everybody else sucked.  Schafer has 8 nationally- and 16 regionally-competitive teams to deal with, and even the worst opponents are still competent.  Nobody is getting beaten 10-0, let alone 17-0, now, and that would happen frequently during Harkness' era.

But Harkness is also our George Washington, and there is no way to even replicate let alone surpass that.

My wristband reads WWSD, for Schafer.  He's the standard for mortal coaches and will be for my lifetime.  Less signs of actual dementia, he has earned the proverbial blank check.  The statistical likelihood that I have an inkling of a problem he is not aware of is less than the likelihood that I have gone insane and merely imagine I do.

[jkahn]

I sat right by the Cornell bench my senior year.  If a player made a mistake, Ned would immediately address it with the player very directly explaining what he should have done, then pat in on the back and send him back out for his next shift.  How things were handled between games I can't address.

[osorojo]

Thanks.For a while I feared that C.U. hockey fans had lost touch with reality - the best part of it!

[osorojo]

Jeff: Speaking of "Wholes" I am pleased to see another Cornell hockey fan whose interests go beyond statistics.I was worried the dweebs had completed their conquest.

[Swampy]

I sat right by the Cornell bench my senior year.  If a player made a mistake, Ned would immediately address it with the player very directly explaining what he should have done, then pat in on the back and send him back out for his next shift.  How things were handled between games I can't address.

THIS is how a good coach deals with a player who screws up. Publicly blaming an individual player is not. But during a game, or even during the season, the instruction needs to be something the player can learn and implement: e.g., "don't cross your feet while playing defense" (in lacrosse) or (I would guess) "keep your stick on the ice when defending." Saying something like "you have to be a faster skater (runner)" is not helpful. OTOH, at the end of a season saying to a player, "you need to run stairs and work on your technique over the summer to pick up a couple of steps with your speed" is perfectly appropriate. And for the player who habitually repeats certain mistakes, the bench may get their attention. And if, during practices or stints in games against weaker opponents, the player eliminates the mistakes, then that may be their ticket off the bench. But I think the hardest thing must be the player who simply doesn't have the size, speed, quickness, skill, or whatever to stand against the other team's best, but who nonetheless is the best player you have to fill the role. In this case, encouragement and teaching may be all a coach can do.

[abmarks]

I have worked for people who criticized everyone involved when one person's lack of effort/performance was the proximate cause of failure, and I suspect you have too. They were lousy leaders. I don't parse group leadership into separate styles: one for business, one for sports for example. People who mistake the whole for the part are seldom successful.

You are proving my point for me in a bunch of ways.

-this isnt related to my point precisely, but you are taking a personal example and generalizing it in unsound ways.  

Further, take your example above where everyone in the room knows that Joe Smith is the precise weak link.   If JS really is the weak link, predictably so, and not redeemable or trainable, etc, then the boss is a shitty leader for not firing the weak link in the first place, regardless of how he addresses the group.  

(Just as any  coach would be a shitty leader if they are putting players on the field or ice in situations where that player doesn't have what it takes to succeed).   Replace them or double shift someone else, but don't sink the team because you don't have the balls to do the hard personnel stuff.

Case in point is Belicheck.   He gets more out of players that other teams discard than probably any other coach I've ever heard of.  Read interviews with any journeyman that stocks with the Pats.  To a man they all say that things have worked out better with the Pats because Belicheck figures out what you're good at and then uses you in situations or positions where you have a chance to succeed.

He also cuts guys ruthlessly, and quickly.  And if he can't bring in a replacement he figures out who already on the roster can learn a second position-and gets serious production.


Back to the original you versus we:

If the boss tells an assemblage of the entire team that "the X process sucks, it fails too damn much " and as he points and shakes a finger in everyones general direction says "you guys all suck, you fucked up and you're all fuckups, it's your responsibility, get this shit fixed." That boss is an asshole, it'll never get fixed, and noone is going to lift a finger to help the weak link (assuming they don't quit immediately)

However, in the same situation, if the boss says "the X process sucks, it fails too damn much " and then continues by saying "we've got to get better at this.   It starts here (pointing to self). You can't just blame this on the players, were all responsible for it, to a man. The coaches are gonna have to coach better, game plan better etc.  I'm gonna have to dig deeper b cause at the end of the day I'm responsible for this team.   And each of you out there (players) need to look inside yourselves and figure out what you can do to make *this team* better."

Well if he gives that speech, the fucking Marines will charge up over the hill.

Again, Belicheck.  The speech I used as an example is, as closely as I can remember, one ive heard him give to the press as well as the team a number of times in recent years.   Love or hate the guy as a fan, the results speak for themselves.

[osorojo]

If Belicheck is a paragon of coaches Carlo Ponzi is a paragon of investors.