Lessons from winning coaches: aspiring school leaders can find compelling examples of how to create winning teams by looking to sports.

"I had enough time, for the first time in all the years I've been coaching, to really sit back. I went through a process of reorganizing my thoughts and belief systems." This is USC Coach Pete Carroll talking about the year he spent out of work after being fired as coach of two football teams in the National Football League. A lesser person might have given up on football, but not Coach Carroll.

For the last several years, I have been teaching leadership classes for the Educational Administration program at California State University, Northridge. More and more, I find myself using examples from the world of sports to coach and mentor my students, aspiring school administrators. With this in mind, I have developed five principles that I share with my class participants. Here they are:

1. Never, ever give up.

2. Have a vision.

3. Be a team player.

4. Share leadership.

5. Think positive.

Never, ever give up.

When Pete Carroll came to USC as the football coach, the school had several years without a winning team. In fact, it had been more than 20 years since they had won a national title. He decided he needed to make some long-range plans. He began by recruiting the best and the brightest from high school teams. He let anyone who was good and strong enough play, even freshmen. He made himself available and accessible to his players, and even showed them his own playful side. One hot practice day, he led them all to the college pool and jumped off the high dive himself. And the team kept winning and winning. This past season, they handily beat Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl to claim the honors as top-ranked team in the nation.

When I was promoted to assistant superintendent for educational services, I made a vow to pursue every grant opportunity available to bring money into my small school district. Literacy was an area close to my heart, so I recruited a talented literacy team, and we spent hours writing a reading grant to serve our K-8 students. We were disheartened to receive the news that our grant application was not funded, so we decided to learn more about the grant process, and how we could improve. We contacted several respected colleagues, and we asked them to share their grant applications.

As we pored over these successful submissions, we noticed several similar qualities. Even though the grants were written by members of a team, the final product was the work of one writer and editor. The budget page was clear and realistic, with goals that had specific timelines. Assessments were detailed, listing a variety of measures to determine the success of the programs. Tables and graphs were used to make the information more interesting and accessible. Emphasis was placed on those grant areas that earned the most points.

It has been said that copying from one is plagiarism, but using two or more is research. Well, my writing teams and I did our research, and we structured our applications to mirror those successes. And nearly every grant application we submitted was approved. We received funds to support literacy, our libraries, math staff development, BTSA, technology, the arts and more. We all learned to try and try again, and we gained another valuable lesson. Once we had defined a vision for students, and written strong, clear goals for success, we were able to build good programs for kids even before the grant funding was received.

Have a vision

"I had learned what it means to ride the Tour de France. It's not about the bike. It's a metaphor for life, not only the longest race in the world but also the most exalting and heart breaking and potentially tragic. It poses every conceivable element to the rider, and more: cold, heat, mountains, plains, ruts, flat tires, high winds, unspeakably bad luck, unthinkable beauty, yawning senselessness, and above all a great, deep self-questioning."

These words from Lance Armstrong in his book, "It's Not About the Bike," (2000) tell what it means to believe wholeheartedly in a quest in spite of every obstacle--including, in his case, an advanced stage of cancer. He fought back from his illness and went on to win the Tour an astonishing seven times.

Long Beach Unified is a large, diverse, urban school district that works. I know because my grandkids go there. When I visit for Grandparent's Day, I see students of all ages lined up at bus stops and walking to school wearing sharp-looking school uniforms. Before any other large district decided on uniforms, Long Beach instituted a uniform policy for their schools. Those children look sharp, and parents accept and support this policy.

The district allows parental choice in selecting schools, with specialized programs offering a variety of options. My grandson has been selected to join the Rigorous Instruction for Student Excellence program at Hill Classical Middle School, which provides accelerated students an enriched curriculum that strives for depth and complexity.

Long Beach Unified was awarded the 2003 Broad Prize for Urban Education as the best urban school district in the United States. Much of what Long Beach Unified is today can be attributed to the leadership and vision of Carl Cohn, the recently retired superintendent. His leadership has made the district a model for high standards and accountability. Fortunately, his work continues today under the leadership of the new superintendent, Chris Steinhauser.

I encourage my graduate students to spend lots of time soul searching. I entreat them to read about leadership outside of education, using such diverse books as "Leadership" by Rudolph Giuliani, "The Right Words at the Right Time" by Margo Thomas or Lance Armstrong's book. I ask them to examine their own beliefs and find their passion in education, and to learn to speak about it powerfully. I build in time for sharing and brainstorming on leadership topics, so students can learn to take a position and to support it with evidence from their readings, observations, interviews and daily conversations.

Be a team player

I recently assigned my 23 students their mid-term papers. They had a series of eight questions, and were required to write about any two. Many of the students decided to respond to the one that asked them to identify annoying behaviors on the part of their colleagues. Students were quite specific in identifying three traits that were a source of frustration: Having a negative attitude, doing the bare minimum and resisting and ridiculing change.

Time and again, the students complained that negativity prevented their co-workers from being good team players. They found this behavior the key characteristic that can prevent their organization from improving the educational opportunities of their students.

Phil Jackson knows that frustration first-hand, and expressed his displeasure in his book, "The Last Season" (2004): "Unfortunately, bringing players to this level of team awareness remains a very challenging assignment in today's me-first NBA. Many feel pressured by their families, friends, girlfriends and agents to concentrate on individual achievement, the surest path to 'max out,' to land the big money contract that will enrich everyone in their privileged inner circle."

Share leadership

"Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." This quote by Vince Lombardi could describe the entire Green Bay Packers organization. Green Bay is the smallest city with an NFL team. But more importantly, the team belongs to the city. The Packers since 1923 have been a publicly owned non-profit organization. This unique team has sold out season tickets every year since 1960.

Talk about shared leadership--so many people in town actually own shares that every win is celebrated and every loss lamented. In fact, the first sentence of the packers mission statement reads: "The Green Bay Packers organization is committed to working to improve the lives of people in all walks of life in Wisconsin."

Michael Fullan (2003) says, "The main mark of effective leaders is how many effective leaders they leave behind." I recently ran into two teachers who began their careers when I served as their administrator. One is now leading the district ELD program, and the other is a principal. I don't attribute their success to the time they worked with me, but I do believe they both cut their teeth as leaders when I served as their principal. I had just been assigned to head a large, K-6 school that was undergoing a demographic shift. We were increasing our population of Spanish-speaking students, but our bilingual advisory council meetings were poorly attended, with not much parent involvement taking place.

Luckily, our school was assigned these two new bilingual teachers, so I asked them to help make our BAC meetings more relevant and interesting to parents We identified some areas of need: better parent attendance at school events and conferences, more academic support at home, and enhanced support for literacy.

We decided that our meetings would improve by showcasing our school activities and by serving dinner, since many of our parents worked long hours. We added performances by various groups of our students, and invited community resources such as representatives from the local library and medical professionals who made parents aware of free services available.

Thanks to the intervention of these two remarkable young teachers, our parent advisory meetings filled our large auditorium, and the achievement, attitude and attendance of our Spanish-speaking students improved.

Think positive

Just recently, I saw Venus and Serena Williams on the Oprah Winfrey show. The day's topic was girls and bullies. Seeing those two beautiful, successful young women, it was hard to imagine that they ever had to deal with bullies. Venus shared that when they practiced their tennis in their home community of Compton, they were taunted by a girl who would holler at them, "Are you a boy or a girl?"

The Williams girls tell their story in their book, "Venus and Serena: Serving From the Hip" (2005). The Williams girls learned to play tennis from their parents, who taught themselves to play tennis by watching videos and reading books, so they could then coach their daughters. Lessons took place at the local park, where they had to sweep the courts of broken glass, and play with grass growing through the asphalt. The girls were strong and talented, and soon were winning junior tennis tournaments. As Venus said, "Who was ever going to believe that two black girls from Compton could become the best in the world? But we didn't stop playing, no matter how wacky our dream seemed to other people."

Making our schools more desirable

Moorpark Unified is a suburban district located in the foothills between Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. At one time, this area was largely agricultural, and home to a large number of Hispanic and migrant families. The district served the population well, and was recognized for an exemplary bilingual program.

About 20 years ago, the growth became explosive. As more homes were built and growth spread further and further from the city core, students were being bused across town, while their neighborhood school might be just down the block. The clamor for K-5 neighborhood schools grew.

This came to a head when a school was built downtown, an area seen by many parents as undesirable. A meeting to address parent concerns was attended by a large crowd who vociferously expressed its wish for the reconfiguration of the district into K-5 neighborhood schools. A committee of parents, teachers, administrators and community leaders formed the group Vision 2010, with the goal of creating K-5 campuses while maintaining diversity and balance.

The group decided to focus on parental choice and magnet programs, and set about on a series of meetings and visitations to learn more. After a year of study, the new school was created as a magnet program with an emphasis on the performing arts. The school enticed parents to send their children by offering all-day kindergarten classes, free after-school arts enrichment programs and enhanced technology.

The school once considered undesirable now has a waiting list, and has been recognized as a distinguished school. The success of this program has led to other choice schools, such as a space and technology magnet, a core knowledge school, and another school that is developing a partnership with the local community college.

Jack Welch, the immensely successful former CEO of General Electric, writes in his book, "Winning" (2005): "Good people never think they have reached the top of their game. But they're dying to get there!"

I ask my students, fledgling school administrators, to look at how winning coaches work. Time and again, we realize that they strive to bring out the very best in their players. They motivate, they encourage, they cajole and sometimes they sit them on the bench.

Education is a people business, dedicated to the idea that we can make better people through learning. It is what drives us. Every single skill used by Pete Carroll, Phil Jackson and Serena Williams is used by teachers and administrators every day on every school campus. Our goal is not just creating great teams or players, but in creating great and learned people. It's the most important game in town!

References

Armstrong, Lance. (2000). It's not about the bike. The Berkley Publishing Group. New York, N.Y.

Fullan, Michael. (2003). Leading in a culture of change: personal action guide and workbook, Jossey Bass. San Francisco.

Giuliani, Rudolph. (2002). Leadership. Hyperion Publisher. York, N.Y.

Jackson, Phil. (2004). The last season: a team in search of its soul. The Penguin Press. New York, N.Y.

LaMonte, Bob & Shook, Robert L. (2004). Winning the NFL way. HarperCollins Publishers. New York, N.Y.

Thomas, Margo. (2002). The right words for the right time. Atria Books. New York, N.Y.

Welch, Jack. (2005) Winning. HarperBusiness.

Wharton, David. (2005). "The right fall guy for the Trojans." Los Angeles Times.

Williams, Venus & Serena. (2005). Venus and Serena: Serving from the Hip. Houghton Mifflin Co. New York, N.Y.

Diann DePasquale, retired assistant superintendent of educational services for Castaic Union School District, is a professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at California State University, Northridge.