Brad Edelberg
Case Study #1
Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Belichick, and Sir Alex Ferguson are all great coaches and fantastic leaders; some may say the best in history in the respective sports. They each took a different path to get where they ended up and they each had their own set of influences and experiences from which they drew, or still draw, the perspectives with which they coach. Despite the differences between them, many aspects of their coaching intertwine with each other, as is often the case with great leaders and great winners.
Bob Knight is one of the most controversial figures in all the world of sports. The word “intense” barely begins to describe his personality. He spent the majority of his coaching career at Indiana University, where he amassed one of the greatest coaching records in the history of college basketball, including three NCAA national championships. Throughout his tenure at Indiana, he was always straddling the line between the acceptable and the unacceptable. Remembered by most for chucking a chair across the court on, what he saw as, a bad call by the referee, Coach Knight certainly knew how to get the most out of his players as is proven by his record and it started with one word, discipline. The problem was, sometimes he went too far. In fact, he was once caught grabbing a player by the neck and accused of trying to choke him. Once thought untouchable, Knight’s controversial tactics eventually led to a dismissal from the job that was synonymous with him. But while many of his players may have been afraid for their lives around Bobby, he also would probably kill for them. His passion for the game and for leading young men was matched by very few in sports. One coach whose stats and thirst for the game might rivals Knight’s is someone who learned to coach from the man himself, that man being Mike Krzyzewski.
One might say Mr. Krzyzewski, or Coach K as he is referred to by the loyal Blue Devil nation, started on the path of coaching while playing basketball for West Point. At the time he was playing under another one on this list, Coach Bob Knight. In his time spent playing for Army, Knight taught K the meaning of being leader. In Coach Knight’s mind, leading was all about getting the best out of those you are leading and his method was heavily reliant upon discipline. Knight passed on the concept of discipline to Coach K and to this day, his simple words of wisdom, “We have only one rule here: don’t do anything that is detrimental to yourself, because if it detrimental to you, it’ll be detrimental to the team and to Duke University” greet every new team he coaches. His model of discipline is much more toned down than his mentor, Coach Knight, and doesn’t involve throwing of chairs or violence toward his players. He is much more of a lover than a fighter and even goes as far as to use the words “love” and “heart” when talking about his players, something I don’t imagine Bob Knight saying. However, as with any good coach, he can be intense when he needs to be.
The two previous coaches both were involved in the college sports, while the next two dealt with a whole different monster in professional sports. In this level of sports, coaches often have to deal with athletes making many times more money than they are, and many have egos to go along with that. Bill Belichick is one such coach. Belichick preached hard work and discipline and often stated that he would rather have a guy with less talent that works hard and does what he is told than a superstar that does not listen or put in maximum effort. In fact, it can be argued that none of his super bowl winning teams in New England had any superstars, at least not until Belichick turned made them that way. Not only did he preach hard work, he was the hardest working one in the organization, often pulling extremely long days and even sleeping in his office. It can also be argued that Bill is the most meticulous