Blog Post #67, July 26, 2009

A Journey to the Heart of the Pyramid of Success

Many of you are familiar with John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success.

It is a structure because all elements are essential to maintain and improve its integrity. This is not surprising as Coach Wooden’s preference for his major at Purdue University was Civil Engineering.

Although all blocks are important, as we noted above, there are two that are more important than the rest: the cornerstones. Without “Industriousness” and “Enthusiasm,” it will matter little how well the rest are developed; the structure will weaken.

For the next four postings, we will focus on the three blocks that are rated as having secondary importance. They are “Condition,” “Skill,” and “Team Spirit,” the collection Coach Wooden calls, “The heart of the Pyramid.”  There will be four postings because this one will serve as an introduction to all three.

Deeply absorb the meanings of all three and deliberately apply them to any endeavor, and you will get positive and measurable results. How do I know? According to Wooden, the “Heart of the Pyramid” is the main the reason for his success. I’m going to explain why in a basketball setting, but as I do, feel free to use it as a template for anything else you have in mind (i.e. classroom teaching, management, laborer, civil worker, student). What follows are introductions. In the coming three blog postings, I will go into much more detail.

Condition
Condition is a trinity. Simply put, it is nothing more than training the whole person so that, for the duration of the contest, no physical, mental, or emotional fatigue will negatively influence peak performance.  You and I have seen well-conditioned players, able to physically perform at their best in the last two minutes of the game, that fail to do so because they allow their emotions to get the best of them and/or they fail to concentrate on what must be done to win the game. All three of these can and must be developed in practice.

Skill
Skill means the quick and proper execution of the fundamentals of the game. During my basketball years, the best shooters I saw did our halftime shows. As amazing as they were, none could have played in our games because, although they had the “proper” form, they were not “quick” shooters. In other words, they would have had all their shots blocked. When I teach offensive post play, I teach how the great NBA post players (past and present) score. I never got my hook shot blocked, not because I could rise above my defender (I couldn’t against Kareem and Lanier for sure.) but because I shot “by” the defender, not “over” him. By the time they thought about blocking it, the ball was already at the basket. In all areas of basketball, or any other sport for that matter, you must be able to use perfect form and do it quickly or you’ll never be able to do it against the best. “Quickness” implies the “proper” methods have been drilled into automaticity—acting without conscious thought.

Team Spirit
It’s impossible to do something for someone else without doing something for yourself at the same time. The paradox of effective individual success in team sports is, when you eagerly sacrifice self-glory for the advancement of team performance, your best talents will be featured and your weaknesses will be hidden. In other words, the key to stardom is the rest of the team.

Conclusion
If you develop these three areas to the best of your ability, for yourself and also your team, you will put your players in a position to win most games because they won’t beat themselves. I mentioned above, Coach Wooden accredits his success in large to the heart of the pyramid. At UCLA, we never beat ourselves; it took a very good team to win against us.

So there’s the introduction. Are you ready for the journey? I am too. I’ll have to be honest. I believe, as I write for the next three weeks about “Condition,” “Skill,” and “Team Spirit,” I’m going to learn things I never thought of. My advice to you is, no matter how much you think you know about these areas, it’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.