Jim Jabir was my RA in college, Nazareth College of Rochester, in the early 80’s. I have known him since I was 17 years old. Jim truly cares for those around him more than he does himself. He is the epitome of “selflessness.” His ability to communicate with those around him, to get in touch with who they are and to connect with them is better than anyone I have been around. He is caring; he understands the total student-athlete experience and makes it a priority. He is genuine and real.
Graham Hays does an exceptional job of capturing “who” Jim is and what his relationship is with his players. As you read this one thing jumps off the page… the article is being written about him and all he talks about is his players, the university and how fortunate he is to be part of their existence. Humility. This isn’t just because Jim had a brush with death, it is who he has been since I met him in 1983.
There is no question that if Jim had stayed at Marquette they would be the “UConn” of the Big East as well. Jim has the plan and the process and Dayton is his vehicle. Enjoy this.
Five seasons after dealing with cardiac issues, coach has Dayton on brink of NCAAs
By Graham Hays ESPN.com
HANOVER, N.H. — Kendel Ross embodies just about everything Jim Jabir believed Dayton women’s basketball could be when the school gave the veteran coach a second chance seven years ago. But for any of those plans to come to fruition, Jabir first needed to receive a second chance at something far more substantial than a profession.
Tim G. Zechar/Icon SMI Jim Jabir hasn't taken a team to the NCAA tournament since 1995 (Marquette), but his Flyers are 17-5 overall and 5-2 in the A-10.
Dayton’s coach admits he’s harder on Ross, now a senior, than just about any player on a Flyers team that remains in control of its postseason fate despite a loss last weekend at Atlantic 10 leader Xavier. Coming out of Canada four seasons ago, Ross was, in Jabir’s words, “the first kid we shouldn’t have got that we got.” He expects excellence out of her, and her mistakes pain him more.
For lack of a more accessible comparison, she is Dayton’s Shane Battier. She does everything that shows up in the box score and half a dozen things that don’t. For better and occasionally worse when stubborn will meets stubborn will, she has a motor and a competitive streak that will not shut off. Tell her you need 15 rebounds in a game and the result is predictable.
“She’s gonna get you 15,” Jabir said. “It’s like clockwork; she’s going to do what you ask her to do. Or she’ll die trying. So it’s this great intensity, it’s this intangible — this will is tremendous. I mean, she’s got this will — and sometimes it works against her, but for the most part it’s been beneficial to us. And I tell her this all the time, too, I love her and I hate her. I mean, she’s so stubborn, you know what I mean? I literally love her and I hate her. There are days I want to kill her and days I can’t get enough of her.”
Continue Reading…
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Here are the links to the Arizona Men’s Basketball Newsletters: November through February.
A lot of good stuff… articles, sets, BOB’s.
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Coach Starkey at LSU shares a really good article from the Washington Post on Coach Tony Bennett. If you are not following Coach Starkey on Twitter, do it… always good stuff.
I’ve only been to a couple Virginia Men’s games and a practice, but judging from what I’ve seen… all of this is 100% true.
Coach Bennett & Family
Even going back to listening to him at his press conference, the guy is who he is… genuine, nice, incredibly sincere, while demanding what he believes in – what he is teaching. He speaks of the process of being successful and it is not limited to the court. His process is about being a good person, a successful person with how you conduct yourself, how you approach practice, approach school, approach your personal life. All of it correlates to being a winner and plays a roll in winning.
“The process” is working… a 75-60 win at North Carolina is a gigantic win. The game isn’t on ESPN360.com, but should be. If you can, find it and watch it. The defense is spectacular… I want to know what “The Roar” is… The All-Time record in the UNC – Virginia series?… 124-48 UNC, 63-5 UNC in Chapel Hill… opps, 63-6 now. 1-0 during the Tony Bennett era.
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News to Lead By. Need Some New Ideas?
To stir up some innovative thinking as we enter 2010, take a look at the following articles and posts:
I have not yet been through all of them, but wanted to share. As I work through them and adapt some of the concepts for basketball coaches/players I will add to this post.
- “The advantage goes to those who can outimagine and outcreate their competitors,” writes Bill Breen in a 2007 Fast Company article, The Business of Design. Breen interviewed Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. Martin’s book, Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking, came out in 2008.
- More recently on FastCompany.com: The Most Creative People in Business: Top 25 and Eight Ways to Kill an Idea. Don’t Do It! By Cliff Kuang.
- The Decline of Western Innovation on Newsweek.com by Daniel McGinn.
- Can design change the world? An interview on CNN.com with Warren Berger, author of “Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World.”
- How Do Innovators Think? In a question-and-answer session with Harvard Business Review contributing editor Bronwyn Fryer, Professors Jeff Dyer of Brigham Young University and Hal Gregersen of Insead explain how “Innovators’ DNA” works.
- The Innovator’s Vulnerability. Self-confidence, ambition and a thick skin are the obvious characteristics of would-be innovators. Also necessary? A sense of vulnerability, by Saul Kaplan on BusinessWeek.com
- Redesigning Leadership, a Harvard Business column on leadership and design by John Maeda and Becky Bermont of the Rhode Island School of Design.
- Resonance: a short film about getting to the right idea. Continuum strategists how to guide the development of experiences and products that matter to people and keep them coming back for more.
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