We’ve all had special people influence our thinking that stamped our souls with virtues, principles, beliefs, and life lessons. Teachers, coaches, parents, ministers, bosses, and neighbors. When I was in high school some thirty-plus years ago I had one of those experiences with my sophomore high school basketball coach. His name was Eugene Zuccarini. Everyone called him “Zook”. At seventy-plus years old he’s still teaching golf. Mentors never cease their passion, do they?

Zook had the uncanny ability to take losing freshmen teams and turn them into winners, which the tenured varsity coach then promptly turned back into losing teams. He didn’t do it by taking freshman teams that won 8 games and lost 9, and then won 9 games and lost 8. He took the group of kids a year older than us, who as freshmen won 6 and lost 11, and went undefeated- 17 wins, no losses! Against the very same teams they had lost to the year before. Our class was more of a lost cause: 5 wins and 13 losses as freshmen, but Zook turned us into a 14 win- 4 loss team. Not just winning games in the last second, but thrashing opponents. We won one game 88-15, and we weren’t running up the score, either. The first string played the first quarter, the second string the second quarter, the third string played the whole second half. In case you were wondering, the halftime score was 44-10, which means the third string outscored the opponents 44-5 in the second half. We were all just playing the way he taught us- full throttle the whole game.

If you look at his leadership style, it defies what most coaches and executives do. He cut no one. He gave us three days to quit, and then whoever showed up the fourth day was on the team. But (and here’s the flip side of the no-cut knife), once you showed up the fourth day, you couldn’t quit- he hated quitters. The first three days of practice, we ran. And ran. And then ran some more. Whoever was willing to go through his first three days of hell and show up on the fourth day was on the team, knowing that it was a commitment for the season.

Did Zook look at who could dribble the best? Shoot the best? Was the tallest? Fastest? None of these were his selection criteria. He wanted to see who had the heart to play and the commitment to stay. He knew from that point on that it was his job to take that heart and commitment and make something of it.

I spoke with Zook and asked him why he didn’t cut anyone. He said, “Because I didn’t know who would blossom later. I wanted to give everyone that chance. I had Jim Smith, and they said would never turn into anything. His junior year, he became star player, and senior year he got a Division I Scholarship. I can go on and on about the list of players who blossomed after our season. You never know who will succeed or not- but you want to give every one of them a chance to succeed later. So, why cut them if they want to play? If they’ve got the heart to try, I’ll give them the tools to succeed. That was my job.”

Zook started out by using the right selection criteria. No prima donnas. No quitters. All heart and soul. Show up and try. If you want to point to the success of Southwest Airlines, Houston’s Restaurants, or In-N-Out Burgers, look at their selection process. It is thorough and it focuses on the people they are picking first, their job skills second.

First Day Speech: Laying Down the Law of Zook

“I don’t like to give speeches at practice. Speeches are like meetings: a waste of time. If I have to give a speech again, that means we lost. You don’t want to hear that speech.” Zook was not a win-at-all costs coach, even though his statement implies it. He believed- and he was right- that our problem was not that we had any less talent than the other teams, but that we were susceptible to a defeatist- a losing- attitude. His threat was more directed at the defeatist attitude than it was at losing per se.

Our practices were only ninety minutes- we started after the varsity started and were on our way home before they were done. Lesson: He doesn’t waste time- neither should we. When practice starts work hard, start to finish. Think of Federal Express type of no-nonsense urgency, Southwest Airlines turning an aircraft around in twenty minutes, or Team Penske changing four tires and adding thirty-five gallons of fuel in a twelve second pit stop.

“I’m going to challenge you to change your losing ways. To do that, you’re going to dislike me at some point during the season, and the sooner the better because you lost too damn much last year, and that attitude has to change in a hurry.”

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell put it this way:

“Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off. Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity: you’ll avoid the tough decisions, and you’ll avoid confronting the people that need to be confronted.”

Then Zook told us he’d coach anyone who made it through the first three days and showed up on day four. PROBLEM: There were only fifteen uniforms. What if there were more than fifteen players on Thursday? Zook anticipated that. He said if there were more than fifteen come the fourth day, he’d tell us who the top ten were, and rotate the rest of the uniforms each game. On the fourth day, we had 24 players! He kept his word, and we made it work, rotating the five of the bottom fifteen on a three-game rotation. None of those players quit, none of them missed practice.

The lesson here is Zook was upfront about what might happen (too many players), and what he was going to do about it (rotate the uniforms). He was up front about the problem before it became a problem, and then it wasn’t really a problem. We knew it was coming.

“You can shoot the ball anyway you like to, as long as it goes in the little round thing. As soon as you start missing, you shoot my way.” He gave you enough rope to succeed or fail. If you were a good shooter, he wasn’t going to screw you up like many coaches and managers do by making you do it their way. But if you struggled- well, you didn’t have much to argue about- you shot his way. Which, by the way, did improve many players’ shooting.

Zook hated fade-away jump shots- he believed in a player being able to go right at the defender with the shot, get fouled, and make the basket. He loved that, but he hated fade-away shots. One of my teammates, Dave Wilson, could shoot (and make) fade-away jump shots. Even though Zook hated the shot, he kept his word about shooting any way you want- as long as it went in. In fact, Zook used to send Wilson into games if he thought the opposing zone defense needed a little “loosening up”. Wilson would go in, put up three or four shots from what today is three-point range, and voila- the opponents changed from a zone to a man-to-man defense. Why didn’t Wilson start if he was such a good shot? Because he was a lousy defender, and Zook valued defense first. Lessons: Zook doesn’t let his ego get in the way of allowing players to go outside the guidelines if they are successful, and he isn’t enamored with the appearance of good (a good shooter) versus what is really important (good defense). He also knew how to apply talent in the right situation.

In this same first day speech (people would pay Zook $5,000 an hour to speak today) he told us that we might run into a player on a team that could hit a twenty-foot shot. Then have the ability to fake our defender out, take one dribble and sink the fifteen foot shot. He told us, “Well, there’s nothing you can do about that.” He was a realist. When I worked with Bobby Unser on Winners Are Driven, he thought on the exact same line. Bobby wanted to win, but understood that there might be a faster car out there and he just wasn’t going to win that day. Coming from a Three-time Indy 500 winner, perhaps his realistic approach kept his head on the level to not do something stupid and live through his sixteen Indy losses in order to get his three wins.

Zook told us to stay off the refs. He said, “You can’t get thrown out of a game, but I can because I’m not playing. Besides, if a game is going bad enough I may ask to get thrown out.” Message: He may do something provocative to re-focus our team and the refs at the same time. Another thing he said about refs was quite philosophical: “Heck, if we’re playing bad enough, they’ll make bad calls against us.” If your performance looks consistently lousy, you won’t get the benefit of the doubt.

Our high school team ran a set offense as dictated by the varsity coach. It was called the thirty-two. Freshman year, it was the first thing we learned, and anyone who made the freshmen team knew the offense.  We had two freshmen teams- an “A” team and a “B” team, a total of thirty kids. I remember a friend of mine, Mike Murray, who was cut freshmen year, but sophomore year made it to the Thursday practice, thus making the team. On that Thursday, we actually picked up some basketballs and started practicing. Murray was struggling running the offense, basically because he had been cut the year before and hadn’t learned the offense. Zook asked Murray why he was having trouble, Murray meekly replied, “I don’t know the offense. I was cut last year.” Zook looked at him and said, “You were cut??!!” He didn’t have to say anything else: his tone of voice and facial expression were as though he were saying, “Not here. I’m going to turn you into a winner.” Not only did it lift Murray’s spirits, but we all noticed: He wanted us all to succeed. We started diving for balls, crashing into walls, jumping higher, sprinting harder, and pouring our soul into every moment of practice.

When I talked to Zook about this article, he said, “I got kids to believe they could do more than they really could. And they did.” Lesson: You stretch your employees’ performance by instilling a genuine belief in every one of them from bottom to top that they can succeed. The key point here is this wasn’t a tactic, because it wouldn’t work as a tactic. It worked for Zook because it was a belief.

Game time: The Psyche Master

Before each game we had to sit and listen (no talking, no questions: just listen) to Zook’s pre-game talk. When Zook talked, you listened. This was Patton firing up his troops. No two speeches alike- each speech tailored to the opponent we were playing that night. He didn’t talk to the team- he spoke to each player and their role that game, pumping them up: “They’re talking about how they’re going to blow us out of the gym!” He’d explode, eyes on fire, face turning red. “Heck, if Thimm rebounds like he’s been doing this week (Thimm’s focus for the game: rebound, rebound, rebound.), and Prang sets the press the way he can, with Bouchee stealing their long passes…” and through the whole starting line-up that way. The speeches may have been different, but the effect was always the same: when we came out of the locker room, we were like a pack of mean dogs on a very short leash. Going through the pre-game warm-ups we would pace around like panthers waiting for a meal. It wasn’t cockiness or arrogance. It was focused intensity. We didn’t play dirty or out of control, we destroyed teams by playing the game with a blistering press that put them back on their heels from the start and didn’t let up until the finish.

I was the sixth man- first guy off the bench. One weekend we had two games, and I recall playing in seven of the eight quarters. Zook played everyone- not because he was a socialist, but because he sincerely believed everyone could contribute- we all had a role. Besides, there were one of two ways to get taken out of a game by Zook: Because you were exhausted from hustling so hard, or you weren’t hustling enough. You were coming out one way or another and the choice boiled down to which looked better- coming out because you were hustling hard or coming out because you were lazy? If somebody was coming out, then somebody had to go in. So everybody got to play.

Often, by the fourth quarter the third string was in. That’s when the opponents would really complain about Zook “running up the score”, but that wasn’t what he was doing. He coached the bottom five of the lineup with the same enthusiasm he coached the first string, because his job was to develop his players, not worry about the opponent’s feelings. Not only that, but think of the positive impact on these players- that the coach cares about them as much as he does the starters? What about the confidence builder in them because they were playing well and actually contributing to winning, not just going through the motions? What a great lesson for these kids- a third string playing with confidence, and getting coached by the best in the business. Result: they shredded the opponent as well, making it look like the score was being run up.

Lesson: Involve everyone in the process, and you won’t have to worry if Billy or Suzy get sick and don’t show up. You just plug another player into the lineup and go forward. It’s amazing how organizations think that isolating people in silos is beneficial. One silo missing, and the whole thing falls apart.

During the game, if you made a fundamental mistake or lost focus, Zook wouldn’t yell. He didn’t have to. He’d stare a pair of holes through you. He could also tell when you were having a bad day at the office. One game, we were killing the opponent early, and I was in early. But I just couldn’t get “in sync”- things were not going right at all. He yanked me pretty quick, sat me down next to him, and said, “Relax. You’re too wound up. Let Wilson play for a while tonight.” He could distinguish between a loss of focus and a bad day because he was an engaged leader. He engaged with his players enough so he could sense where they were at. Bobby Unser talked about this in Winners Are Driven when he said, “Leaders have to get involved with their people. They have to get out from behind their desks, go out on the factory floor, and get a real sense of what is going on.”

Strategy: The Big Picture Genius.

Zook never drew. He said his job was to make the other coach call time-out and draw. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a planner. He was the consummate planner. He always had a strategy that he went over with us before the game. An effective speaker, he was able to get the message across verbally. Leadership today requires the ability to deliver the message- to communicate with passion and clarity. I remember one game how he got inside the opposing coach’s head in the first minute of the game. Our team was known for pressing the whole game, then falling back to a man-to-man defense. That game, Zook had us start out in a zone defense. Sure enough, the opposing coach called a time-out within a minute and started drawing feverishly on his board. Zook looked over at the opposition huddle, then told us, “OK. He’s now drawing up an offense that goes against our zone defense. Go back to our man-to-man defense. They’ll have to adjust back to the offense they planned at the start of the game. After two minutes, go back to the zone again because they’ll forget everything the coach just drew on the board. They’ll call another time-out.” Sure enough, things went exactly as he said.

He was pro-active in everything he did. Planning his game strategy was always attack, attack, attack, and do it with a little twist here and there to throw off the predictability of where it’s coming from. Make them worry about you. Looking back on his first speech that, too, was proactive. He anticipated we might run into a tough opponent and was matter-of-fact about it. The rules of practice, expectations, and consequences for not meeting those expectations were laid out. So it was no surprise to us when we actually did lose a game after winning our first five: We got the speech, the wake-up reminder to refocus, and then he ran us into the ground to slam home the point.

Halftime: Time to Re-focus.

This was his mid-course reminder for us to stay on track. No matter what the score was, we weren’t going to take anything for granted. He never let us play “not to lose”. One game, we were ahead 38-12 at the half, and he told the second string (who was going to start the second half), “You’ve got them in a hole, don’t even think of letting them out. As far as you guys are concerned, the score is zero to zero.” He never believed in “playing not to lose”. He never sat on a lead, or took one for granted. There were no slam-dunks in his book. How many people play the game to not lose, and then lose anyway? Or brag about the “slam-dunk” deal, only to see it slip through their grasp?

Finish: The Reward

As much as Zook gave you the glare when you lost focus, he also let you know when things went right. Because of our style of play to pressure the opponent and then run them into the ground, we would get spurts in a game where we would score ten or twelve points in a hurry. We’d get a basket. Then steal the ball, and get another. Then another. The crowd (we played in front of big crowds because our game preceded the varsity game) would start to get louder with each score. It was like a feeding frenzy. We’d make a basket and the crowd would cheer. Then a steal and another basket and they’d roar. Now the adrenaline is flowing and we’re like sharks that smell blood in the water. We would make a steal, and the whole team would fan out breaking and running, the ball passing from one player to the other, never touching the ground. The play would finish with a pass and score and the crowd would explode. But above all this noise, the loudest thing we would here on a play like that was Zook bellowing out, “Looked like a million bucks!!” Now the adrenaline spigot was open wide, and we felt like a million bucks! When you’ve got the team pumping on all cylinders and the stuff is just rolling, it makes all the blood, sweat, and tears worthwhile.

Zook Lessons as Applied to the Leadership World Today

Times are tough now in the world we live in. But are the circumstances beating us, or are we letting them beat us? Are we playing so bad that the calls are going against us? Are we playing not to lose? Are we afraid to challenge people to run harder or do better because they might get upset? Are we engaged and coaching the whole team? Are we winning? Do we make our people feel like a million bucks when they do well? What do you think Zook would do?

The Law of Zook

• Who’s committed to make change and get things done? If you’re in, I’ll lead you all the way. I don’t quit on you; you don’t quit on me.
• The change to becoming a winner will be painful, but the status quo of losing is more painful.
• Take action to solve the problem, don’t talk about it.
• Credentials are meaningless if there isn’t any desire to perform.
• Tell it like it is, not how people wish it to be.
• Give your people a chance to fail on their own. They just might succeed.
• If they fail, fix it by training them.
• Be a players’ coach- earn their respect by being involved.
• Communicate the plan, and the belief they can stretch to achieve a higher level.
• Coach and train the whole team.
• Never play not to lose. Attack continuously.
• It’s OK to dish out praise. After all, if you don’t have a million bucks to give them, you can still make them feel like a million bucks.