Coaching:
On this past Sunday I had an activity to do with my son at
his high school, Mater Dei. As I drove
to the event I spoke with Mr. Nick Hays.
This gentleman we didn’t know each other before as I reached out to him
as I am always in search of knowledge of how to be a better coach, a better
leader.
Mr. Hays it turns out grew up in my hometown of Tucson,
Arizona so automatically we hit it off and got to talking about the city, etc.,
before I dug into what I wanted to learn from him. You see Mr. Hays is a former Navy Seal and I
believed that I could learn something from him as another coach in the NBA and
NCAA told me to reach out to him.
Mr. Hays has an incredible story, one that I will never
forget. It began with me asking what
does it take to be a Seal. We all think
it’s just the “Hell Week” but it takes much more than that. He stated that you know today we want things
quick, there is an App for that, a pill for this, microwave for food. But the true perspective for him becoming a
Seal was this: boot camp: couple
months. A school for a job: 3
months. Then N doc: a month long. Then “Hell Week” for a week, 200 miles, lack
of sleep, etc. Diving 2 months long, 3rd
phase: diving and shooting, 2 months.
You still don’t get to wear the Trident until you learn how to jump out
of planes and then Seal Qualifying school which is another 4 to 5 months where
you are now doing tactics, then cold weather training in Alaska, then…you get
to be a Trident. But you haven’t proven
a thing…only that you’re not going to quit.
Which is really the number 1 thing that you should be proud of.
At the end, now you join your Seal Team. Time to train. There are new guys and experienced guys. 3 or 4 months of professional development,
specific training. Then you work together
as a team on various projects, very specific stuff.
A year and half before you ever go out on deployment: 3 or 4 years of preparation before you even
step foot on a battlefield. That’s preparation.
That’s what it takes to be elite.
But the best part of this entire conversation was when I
asked him, what about as it pertains to me being a coach. What could you share? This was where I sat in my car in the parking
lot of Mater Dei and literally shed tears because of how powerful this message
was to me.
Coach or mentor? In
his first platoon, he shows up cocky.
Not humbled yet, showed up 2 minutes late to morning meeting. Walks in late, but the platoon leader asks
him to stay after the meeting. He
proceeds to tell Nick, not a big deal, but everyone had to wait on him for the
meeting but that he wanted him to do him a favor and after all things were done
for the day, to fill a backpack anyup to 50 lbs., of weight and run up the
tower, 5 stories, 1 time for every guy in the platoon to call it even. He said he was furious, he has to run up
tower, 20 times, he didn’t feel the punishment fit the crime. But he does anyway…but he is told that he has
to do it after the work was done for the day.
That night they had a nightdive routine, late night, recover late at
midnight, then clean the equipment, rinse down, etc., by the time that is done,
it’s now 1am, and he heads over to the tower but he sees his platoon leader
there and he is now livid because he believes the platoon leader is questioning
his integrity. Does he not trust me to
do this?
But as he gets closer he sees his platoon leader with a
backpack filled with 50lbs and proceeds to tell Nick, you prepared to do
this? He proceeds to tell Nick, that we
are doing this together, your failures are my failures, your successes are my
successes. I’m your leader, we are in
this together. They ran every single
flight of stairs for the next couple of hours.
The leader never gave Nick a hard time, they talked about life and he never
brought this up to Nick again. What Nick
learned, he grabbed him and made him feel special. He committed himself as his mentor!
From that point forth, Nick said that he made every single
piece of equipment that he had for any type of training, to be just like his
platoon leader. He trusted him. He learned about parenting, being a father,
about character. That is what a leader
does!
The next thing was great and certainly affirmed what I
believe. Character vs. talent. I can relate to this as many teams are
assigned more to those with talent and not concerned that much with the
character too much. Be concerned more
with culture than potential cancer.
Surgery is tough, but it’s better than dying of cancer. Place a higher value on those that you wish
to coach! Character, teach ability, the
ability to work with others, then the sky is the limit. Then you bring in young talent and they have
the influencers above them who will show them the way with the culture.
These were just a sample of this type of conversation that I
try to have almost daily with people in life.
Awesome!
Coach John Saintignon
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