August is here! August is one of my favorite months of the year (my deepest apologies to teachers and students everywhere). My wife and I were married in August, so we celebrate our wedding anniversary this month. August also usually means summer vacation for our family (we usually take vacation right before the start of the school year), and it's almost always a trip to the beach for us. Baseball is kicking into high gear, as teams are pushing towards the play-offs (and this season again, the Chicago Cubs look to be in the mix). And finally, August also means that college football is officially here. I now have posted the football schedules of every college football team associated with the Wheeler family (Purdue, Indiana, Navy, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, Boston College, and Alabama), with the exception of Carnegie Mellon (while the word, "Tartans" sounds like a fearsome mascot, it actually is a type of cloth fabric and they are only a Division III team anyway, so they are out; Northeastern University doesn't have a football team, so we will wait until hockey season).
The University of Alabama looks to have another great football team this year, and they are ranked first in most of the preseason football polls that I have seen so far. My daughter would love to finish off her college career at Alabama with a third National Championship! Coach Nick Saban has certainly done an amazing job while at Alabama, and he has positioned himself to go down as one of the greatest college football coaches of all time (he probably won't come close to the all-time wins record, but his overall record of 218-62-1 is impressive and his six national titles ties him with another Alabama legend, Paul "Bear" Bryant). What is just as impressive as the number of national championships is Coach Saban's faith (he is a devout Roman Catholic who attends Mass before every game), his charitable works (his foundation, Nick's Kids, helps mentally challenged children), and what he has accomplished with his student athletes. For example, did you know that the University of Alabama football program received the 2017 American Football Coaches Association Academic Achievement Award (the first in the history of the program) for being one of only 7 programs that recorded a 100% graduation rate for members of its 2010 freshman football class? The overall graduation rate for college football teams going to a Bowl game that year was 77 percent - Alabama's overall graduation rate that year was 79 percent. While there were other colleges that had higher graduation rates, I suspect that most fans wouldn't have guessed that Alabama, one of the perennial football powerhouse programs over the last several years, would have been that high.
I won't completely glorify Coach Saban - he's far from perfect. However, I hope you can appreciate how much leadership it takes to lead a successful college football program these days. Many believe that the days of the true "student-athlete" in football and basketball are long gone, and that powerhouse programs are essentially developmental leagues for the NFL and NBA. I can't necessarily argue. Here's my point though. The kind of leadership required to be a head coach of a highly successful college football program is not unlike that which is required to lead any other organization. The head football coach sets the overall mission and vision and then creates the kind of culture that will lead to continued success. In fact, during the 10 years prior to hiring Coach Saban, the Alabama football team had a win-loss record of 67-55 and had not won a national championship since 1992 (under Coach Gene Stallings). It would take only 3 years (Alabama went 7-6 and won the Independence Bowl in his first season as head coach before going undefeated in his second season, when they lost the SEC Championship Game and the Sugar Bowl) for the team to win their first national championship since 1992. Since that time, Alabama under Coach Saban has gone 127-20 (win-loss) and won five SEC Conference titles and five national championships (2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2017). Coach Saban's players at Alabama have been named as Consensus All-Americans 29 times, and two of his players (Mark Ingram, Jr. and Derrick Henry) have won the Heisman Trophy. Seventy-seven of his players have been drafted by the NFL (26 were drafted in the first round). To say that Coach Saban has created a culture of success is a vast understatement.
Successful leaders are like Coach Saban - they create the kind of organizational culture that leads to success. Next time we will talk about how the coach creates that successful culture.
No comments:
Post a Comment