Culture

Leadership isn't tested when things are calm. It's tested when the pressure rises, the ego gets invited in, and someone has to decide whether the standards still apply — especially to themselves. Two of the most respected coaches in basketball just gave us a live demonstration. After a heated Final Four moment between Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley, Auriemma later apologized publicly and said he had "lost himself." The apology, however, didn't name Staley. It address

Leaders love to talk about motivation. How to create it, how to inspire it, and how to get more of it from their teams. But here is the reality many leaders miss: by the time performance is being tested, it is usually too late for motivation. Years ago, while commanding at Fort Lewis, I was out for morning PT when I came across a soldier taking his Army physical fitness test. He was on the two-mile run, grinding through the turnaround point at the one-mile mark. Running besid

How Great Leaders Build Consistency in an Unpredictable Environment Every leader wants consistency. We want consistent performance, consistent habits, and consistent results. That is the standard. But most leaders chase it in the wrong place. We try to control the environment. We try to eliminate variables. We try to create predictability in a world that does not cooperate. Rosters change. Injuries happen. Rules evolve. The environment refuses to stay still. So the question i

Culture Isn’t a Slogan. It’s Behavior. In athletics, culture is often discussed but rarely defined. Real team culture is not about slogans or locker-room posters. It is the cultivated behaviors that leaders reinforce every day that, when aligned with purpose and standards, create a powerful competitive edge. Every coach is searching for a competitive edge. Coaches study new schemes. They invest in technology. They analyze performance data and look for any advantage that might

Leadership accountability requires clarity, composure, and respect. The Jerome Tang situation offers a powerful lesson in holding standards without damaging culture.

The scoreboard doesn't lie. Neither does the film. Yet too many coaches fall into the trap of measuring success by the volume of drills run, hours logged, or plays installed rather than the quality of execution and actual game-day performance. Championship cultures aren't built on busyness—they're built on precision, purpose, and relentless focus on fundamentals that matter. Competitive greatness, as Coach John Wooden defined it, is "performing at your best when your best is

Sports, man. What a game. And yes — coaching matters. Leadership matters. Previously, I wrote that “if you want to win championships, you need to build a championship culture — on purpose.” The 2025–26 Indiana Hoosiers just demonstrated that lesson with a clarity that should force every athletic director, business leader, and sports fan to recalibrate their thinking about what winning really takes. They didn’t just get better players. They didn’t just get richer boosters. The

Why do we assume coaches must choose between winning games and developing people? This reflection challenges that false tradeoff and shows how trust, purpose, and discipline create teams built to last.

In December 2021, Vanderbilt football entered the offseason with one of the toughest starting points in college athletics. A 2–10 record. An 0–9 campaign the year before. A roster thin on SEC-level depth. The program had spent decades and was labeled a conference doormat. Competitive confidence wasn’t something Vanderbilt had misplaced — it was something the program had never truly possessed. So when Clark Lea took over, he wasn’t reviving an old contender. He was building a

Spend any time on a practice field and in a motor pool, and you’ll notice similarities in language. We rally around the mission, refuse to let our teammates down, preach next man up, and dig deep when it’s the fourth quarter. We leave it all on the field and trust the process. The vocabulary overlaps so naturally that it almost goes unnoticed. But the real connection isn’t linguistic—it’s foundational. The language is the echo. The roots run much deeper.

Let’s be real—the word "culture" gets tossed around so much these days it’s almost lost its meaning. But here’s the thing: most people talk about culture without agreeing on what it actually is, let alone how to build a good one. So, before we go any further, let’s check what the dictionary says (yeah, I know; cliché, but hear me out). “The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.” Nah. “The customs, arts, social institutions, and

A case study on Brian Kelly, Jimbo Fisher, and what their stories say about program leadership. When Brian Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU and Jimbo Fisher jumped from Florida State to Texas A&M, both hires looked like slam dunks. Proven winners. National-championship pedigrees. Command presence. Every athletic director’s dream: “Let’s get a sure thing.” Still, both tenures ended the same way. They fell short of expectations and lost the excitement that accompanied their arriva