John Calipari - Success Is the Only Option: The Art of Coaching Extreme Talent

To my late mother, Donna, the original pay-it-forward,

dream-big-dreams person in my life; and my father, Vince,

a true grinder and gatherer who showed me how to

work hard and bring people together.

CONTENTS

1. 1 Assembling the Talent
   
2. 2 Know the Red Flags
   
3. 3 Unpack Your Bags
   
4. 4 Keeping It Real
   
5. 5 The Metrics Dont Lie
   
6. 6 You Cant Delegate Love
   
7. 7 Just Do What You Do Best... Play to Your Strengths
   
8. 8 Empowering Your Team
   
9. 9 Make It About Something Bigger
   

A s head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky, I work with a small group of prodigies. Theyre like other highly advanced young people who are seemingly headed straight to the top of their chosen fields. But the young men I lead happen to be bigger and more famous, and they do their workand their growing upin public.

They arrive on campus at seventeen or eighteen years old with a mix of confidence, bravado, and anxiety. Their personal highlight reelssoaring dunks and three-point shots (just the ones that go in)have been up on YouTube since they were in middle school. Its a lot to live up to. I never want to make them feel less confident about themselves, but I do tell them: What got you here is not whats going to get you where you want to go. My job is to serve their aspirations, not their egos.

In recent seasons, Ive coached players who left our college program and became almost instant NBA stars: John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, and Karl-Anthony Towns. At Memphis, I had Derrick Rose, who was the leagues MVP before he turned twenty-three. Many of my other former players have quickly established themselves in professional basketball and are now on the cusp of stardom.

They are what extreme talent in my business looks like: a mix of size, speed, strength, leaping ability, court vision, ball handling, and shooting acumen. You dont need to have all of these attributes, but if you combine several of them, it can put you among the elite. Sometimes just one of these traits, in excess, is enough to build on. Devin Booker, a freshman on my 201415 team, comes to mind. He had a reputation as just a shooter, but he used that as a foundation and then put in the work to add other valuable aspects to his game. He demonstrates a sometimes overlooked element of extreme talent: a mental makeup that allows a person to truly self-assess.

Intelligence also matters, much more than some people believe it does in my business. Ive never met a star who could not think quickly on his feet and reason at a high level. Theres only so far you can go in basketball, and most other sports, without being a pretty smart person. My best players, without exception, have been among my most intelligent playersnot in all cases top-notch students, especially if they came from struggling school systems, but they had minds that were fast and nimble.

Every one of the players whom I would categorize as an extreme talent shared one other trait: a strong inner drive to succeed. I didnt give them that. I cant give someone that. They had it already. But I had to understand the source of their drive and tap into it. Were they motivated by a fear that they werent good enough? A chip on their shoulders, because someone along the way had discredited their abilities? A desire to financially prosper and help family members and others back home?

All of them knew they were unfinished products. They needed and wanted to get better, and they put their trust in me and our staff to help them.

T heres an old adage that one sign of intelligence is the ability to keep two opposing ideas in your head at the same time and still function. The saying is a pretty good description of what I confront in my job and I believe it applies to anyonecoach, CEO, military leader, teacher, even a parentwho is seeking to lead and inspire highly talented individuals. Those under your command, by definition, are going to be more complicated. Theyre highly gifted but undeveloped. (Their gifts, in fact, may have delayed other aspects of their development.)

Nothing is more important to me than helping my players reach their individual goals. It is the basis of my players first philosophy. But at the same time, I am the leader of an enterprise that cannot succeed unless we march forward together. For that to happen, I must persuade these gifted athletes to share, communicate, bond, and sacrifice for one another. I have to make them understand that they will not reach their own goals unless they can demonstrate these qualities.

I dont recruit anyone who I believe is inherently selfish. But my players have been, by and large, solo performers until they landed on campus. They were celebrated and rewarded for their individual brilliance. Its what first got college coaches sending them letters, traveling to gyms to watch them play, and sitting in their living rooms. It may seem paradoxical, but one way I get them to commit to team basketballselfless basketballis by making them understand it is in their self-interest to do so.

Its not easy. You are dealing with a kid who has just chosen your program over countless others, all of which are also led by well-known, successful coaches. He may have announced his decision in a press conference inside his packed high school gymnasium, which was covered live by ESPN. Or maybe he skipped that ritual and just put the news out to his tens of thousands of Twitter followers. Either way, hes coming to you straight from a pedestal.

Im competitive, of course. Every coach is. I want to win every time we take the court but the reality is that almost every season ends with a loss. At that final moment, Ive lost not just a game but a team I wanted to keep coaching and kids Im not ready to let go. It hurts every time and it can feel like a failureeven though I know its not.

It would be far worse, though, to fail any of the individuals I coach, and thats the one thing that I cant ever let happen. I recruit kids who expect to proceed to the NBA, and for most, its a reasonable expectation. If I nurture them correctly, some of them can make up to $500 million or more over their professional basketball careers.