BEHIND THE MICROPHONE

On Coaching Behavior

Post-Game Saturday night. Vanderbilt Stadium, Nashville. Vanderbilt coach James Franklin and Georgia assistant Todd Grantham get nose-to-nose in a nationally televised shouting match.

Post-Game Sunday afternoon. Ford Field, Detroit. 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh and Lions head coach Jim Schwartz nearly come to blows after Schwartz took exception to Harbaugh's post-game congratulatory handshake.

OK, you've seen the video dozens of times. There's a lot of wrong here. But here's the leadership message that is getting lost in who is right and who is wrong: guys, you have to dial it down.

As the leaders of the football team, you have to keep your cool. They call it poise under pressure. If you expect the players to keep their cool when all around them are losing theirs, then you, too, must abide by those rules.

College and pro football are ultra-competitive. There are nights you would like to rip someone's head off. But you can't, at least in public. You are the leader and your conduct sets the tone.

And, if you need a reminder, there will be plenty of video after the fact. A frame-by-frame replay of your behavior will be made available within seconds on You Tube.

Let your coaching and your team speak for your success. As ticked off as you get, you must have the discipline to walk away.

Just like you tell your players.

The Care and Feeding of Your Brand

I've been spending the last few weeks watching endless pre-season college football media days...those staged events where every coach and select players preview their teams' up and coming season.

And it struck me how easy it is for an "accredited" journalist to open up his smart phone and start broadcasting YOU--Mr. Coach, Mr. Wide Receiver, etc.

How that brand---your brand---comes accross is so important.

It is imperitive that these opportunities be taken very seriously. The image that you portray helps define you. Do you come accross as intelligent? Thoughtful? Insightful?

Mr. Executive, do you answer the questions with genuine interest, or do you rely on "coach speak" just to get through?

Ms. Athlete, do you go back and watch the tape of yourself? How did you do? What kind of a grade would you give yourself? Speak in cliches? Repeat verbal crutches as you tried to come up with the right words? Did you offer anything original?

These are very important questions. Because social media is EVERYWHERE, 24/7/365. And much of today's sports news is being generated by reporters who use only new media, espcially the blogs.

What should be your responce to this? Embrace it. Become one with it. Start your own website. Write your own blog. Get out ahead of the pack. Set the tone.

If you are in a positon where you might be interviwed, take the time to prepare yourself and put your best self out there. Treat all with diginity and respect. Leave the interview space better than you found it.

More on this in the days ahead.

Have a great weekend!

My Meeting with Coach Wooden

The date was November 11, 2002. The place, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Marina Del Rey, CA.

 

Then Atlanta Hawks GM Pete Babcock arranged a meeting for the team with Coach John Wooden.

 

The entire traveling party made its way to a small banquet room, and in came Coach Wooden. He sat with us for over an hour. He knew our coach, Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkins very well. (How incredible to have two men in the same room who were selected as Hall of Famers as both players AND coaches.) But for many of us, we were stangers.

 

That did not matter to Coach Wooden. He spoke to us like we were an extension of his UCLA teams, reviewing his Pyramid of Success. He stressed conditioning (physical, mental, moral), skill (do it quickly), and team spirit (be considerate of others on and off the court).

 

Coach spoke of how winning was a by product of all of those characteristics. He stressed how the game was OFF the ball, both offensively and defensively. I was taking notes as fast as I could write.

 

We were all mesmorized. At the end, coach Wooden took the time to autograph each person’s copy of his book, "Wooden. A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court".

 

“For Bob. Best wishes John Wooden.”

 

An unforgettable moment in time that I will take with me forever.

The moment we've all been waiting for...

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The 2009-10 Atlantic Coast Conference basketball schedule released today by Commissioner John Swofford is highlighted by 281 television appearances by the league’s 12 member schools, including 162 appearances on national television networks. This year’s schedule also includes 173 televised games involving ACC teams and marks the sixth-straight year the ACC has had more than 250 television appearances.

The Conference will provide an updated 2009-10 ACC schedule with additional television selections at a later date.

In addition, the league also unveiled the 2010 ACC Tournament logo today. The 57th annual ACC Tournament is set for March 11-14, 2010, and marks the 22nd time that the four-day event will be held at the Greensboro Coliseum.

ACC Basketball by the Numbers

162 - ACC teams are scheduled to make 162 appearances on national television networks, including 118 appearances on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, 35 on Fox Sports Net, and seven on CBS.

24 – ACC teams are scheduled to play a total of 24 games against 22 non-conference opponents that earned NCAA Tournament berths in 2008-09.

19 - Fox Sports Net and affiliates will televise 19 Sunday afternoon and evening games on a national basis, starting with North Carolina hosting Nevada on November 29.

11 - Headlining the league’s non-conference schedule is the 11th annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge pairing two of the nation's premier conferences in a regular-season challenge series. Last year, the ACC won the Challenge for the 10th-straight time, winning six of the 11 games played. The ACC (.640) and the Big Ten (.613) are the two winningest conferences in NCAA Tournament history.

Welcome back, Coach!

Below is a reprint from today's Orlando Sentinel. It's a column written by George Diaz on ESPN's Lee Corso. Lee and I worked toegther at ESPN in 1987, first with the inagural season of Arena Football and later that fall on college football. He is one of my favorite people on the planet and one of the most loyal friends and partners that I've been lucky enough to work with. So happy that he is coming back strong!

Lee Corso won't let the stroke he suffered in May slow him down

Lee Corso won't let the stroke he suffered in May slow him down

George Diaz

COMMENTARY

12:34 AM EDT, August 2, 2009

Lee Corso stepped outside his home in Heathrow around 8:30 a.m. on May 16, and disappeared.

Somebody else came back into the house. That person, newspaper in hand, grabbed a glass of orange juice and sat down in the patio. He felt woozy. He then tried to talk.

"Gaaagggh, baaahh." Pure gibberish.

Corso — the loquacious Mad Hatter on ESPN's College GameDay — vanished that day, replaced by a man engulfed in dark silence.

The diagnosis was a mild stroke. The adjective was a life-saver. Corso saw it for himself, as he began his rehabilitation to heal his body and mind. Others in that room, scarred for life, weren't so lucky.

"I read this book that said 'if you survive a stroke,'" Corso said. "Hello — if you survive a stroke. They used the word survive. That scared the crap out of me. You don't read, 'if you survive a broken leg.'"

Corso is surviving. One day, one word, one sentence, one conversation, at a time.

Nearly three months later, Corso is piecing his life together again. He's graduated from physical therapy but remains in occupational and speech therapy. The stroke affected his right side. He is learning to write all over again, just like he's learned to talk all over again.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the stroke, Corso sat down outside a Starbucks in Longwood a few days ago, took a few sips of an iced tea, and told a story etched in transformation.

A man who has reinvented himself once already — going from a struggling football coach to a glib gridiron guru — is plotting another magnificent makeover. He will be back on TV once fall football begins. The ironic twist in the challenge is obvious: A chatterbox got silenced by a stroke. His voice, as he says, is "the ultimate thing for me."

He speaks fine now. There are a few quirky moments when things don't quite connect, like when he's trying to recall precise moments through the fog of recovery. A critical step was passing a swallow test, he says, "inside the hotel (pause), inside the airport (pause), inside the hospital." It took three times, but he finally found the right word.

But don't feel sorry for Corso. He doesn't. He knows he's blessed.

Blessed from the moment he was rushed from Florida Hospital Altamonte after the stroke, and then transferred within hours via helicopter to Florida Hospital Orlando for more extensive tests that revealed a stroke caused by a blockage to a small artery.

The diagnosis was the easy part. The hard work came next. Beyond the struggles with speech and writing, Corso lost comprehension skills. He couldn't remember anything he had just read.

He was in the hospital for a week in critical care, then another five days in the rehab section before his release.

"The brain heals at its own pace," he said. "If I had a shoulder injury I could rehab it 10 hours a day for five days and it would be great, but not the brain."

He's piecing it all together slowly. He works out every day. Gathers strength in his right hand by squeezing Silly Putty. Twice a week, it's speech therapy. "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr," he says, mimicking one of the tongue exercises, then moving his tongue side to side, cheek to cheek. "When I first started I felt my tongue weighed 80 pounds. And I slobbered. I'm getting better at that. I'm trying to get the brain to realize that you can do this."

The blessed part? Like most people who suffer trauma, he's gathered perspective and appreciation for life. Blessed by a family, including his wife, three sons and a daughter. Blessed by his "day job" if you will, as director of business development for Dixon Ticonderoga. It's the company's No. 2 pencils you see when Corso waves them at Kirk Herbstreit to make a point on GameDay. Blessed by getting to know people who cared from him unconditionally. Doctors, nurses, and the orderlies who bathed him during the first days of his hospital stay.

"The people who used to bring me my food and ask how I was," Corso says, tearing up for the only time during our conversation. " ... They got your back and they do a good job. They care about you and they want you to get better. They didn't care who I was."

They likely know Corso for his ESPN gig, which began in 1987. They might not recall a few other significant details: He was Burt Reynolds' roommate at Florida State. He stumbled for success in three head coaching gigs in college. His résumé read more like P.T. Barnum than Paul "Bear' Bryant, a fair assessment for a man who once rode an elephant to help sell season tickets for the University of Louisville in 1969. He has strong ties to Central Florida. Born in Lake Mary, Corso had a run as coach of the Orlando Renegades of the United States Football League in 1985.

Corso's voice is what matters most now. Part of the soundtrack of college football, it's informative and analytical, glib and gregarious. Putting on a mascot head to pick a weekly winner of the game, live on campus, is his pièce de résistance. It's a shtick that has endeared him to generations of football fans, from the college freshman to the 70-something grandfather who is his peer.

Just five days shy of his 74th birthday, Corso is not about to let no stinkin' stroke spoil the fun.

He's marked Sept. 5 — the Alabama- Virginia Tech game in Atlanta — as his coming out party for 2009. That's his goal. He will be there. Live TV. First stop on ESPN's college football traveling circus.

He's turned down various speaking gigs that would have prepped him for the moment. He won't entertain his buddies at the annual Florida Citrus Sports kickoff dinner. He admits to a bit of fear, afraid he might embarrass himself before he's ready.

Instead, he's heading straight to the big room. National audience. No safety net.

Typical Corso. You gotta love it.

Way back when he was a struggling football coach, Corso once crawled out of a coffin on his local TV show to give his players the ultimate pick-me-up: Don't ever count yourselves out.

Same deal applies today. Lee Corso refuses to be silenced.

Not so fast, my friend: Mr. Corso is popping out of that coffin again on Sept. 5.

George Diaz can be reached at 407-420-5533 and gdiaz@orlandosentinel.com.

Toe Meets Leather

Seven SEC football games added to Fox Sports South

By Tim Tucker

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

9:04 p.m. Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The proliferation of SEC sports on television continues.

Fox Sports Net said Wednesday it has reached a deal with ESPN that will put 91 SEC sporting events per year on FSN regional cable networks in the Southeast, including Atlanta-based Fox Sports South.

The package will include seven football games, expected to air on Saturday nights, as well as 20 men’s basketball games, 24 women’s basketball games, 16 baseball games and 24 other events per year.

The package comes from the massive inventory of events ESPN controls under its new contract with the SEC. Since there is not enough room on the various ESPN networks for all of the programming, some is being sold off to other outlets.

One place or another, all SEC football games and all non-conference home games involving SEC teams will be televised this fall.

The deals will mean an increase in the number of SEC games played at night. The seven Fox Sports Net games likely will kick off between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Fox Sports South general manager Jeff Genthner said. He said there might be as many as three other SEC games televised elsewhere on any given Saturday night.

Genthner said selections of FSN’s first two or three matchups should be finalized next week.

He said Bob Rathbun will be the play-by-play announcer on the football games, with Dave Archer as analyst, Jenn Hildreth as sideline reporter and Fred Hickman as halftime host.

FSN also plans a live one-hour SEC football show on Wednesday nights this fall, “SEC Gridiron Live,” airing from the network’s Atlanta studio. The show will debut at 10 p.m. Sept. 2 and run for 12 weeks.

Genthner said the studio show’s cast will include Charles Davis (host), Randy Cross (analyst), former Georgia star David Pollack (analyst) and Cassidy Hubbarth (“social media reporter”). Hubbarth’s role will be to facilitate live interaction with fans via sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Genthner said.

Fox’s SEC programming will air on Fox Sports South in seven states, Sun Sports in Florida and Fox Sports Southwest in Arkansas and Louisiana. The programming will be available in more than 24 million cable and satellite households.

FSN had direct TV deals with the SEC for the past 18 years, but those did not include live football games except on rare early-season occasions.

The Emmy goes to...

A great night for FOX Sports South/SportSouth last night at the NATAS Southeast Regional Emmy Awards. FSS walked away with a grand total of 10 Emmy Awards!

It was a thrill for yours truly two be nominated for two Emmy's in the same category--in two different sports. Our college football broadcast, Central Michigan at Georgia, and our NBA telecast, Boston at Atlanta in Game Six of the playoffs last year EACH won last night for Outstanding Achievement: Television News and Program Specialty Excellence; Sporting Event/Game-Live/Unedited.

It was a thrill to join Executive Producer Hammond Reynolds and Co-ordinating Producer Rohan Backfisch on stage to accept the dual Emmy's.

On the SEC football game, it was a pleasure to work with one of the game's top analysts in Dave Rowe, plus our great production team of producer Joe Vencius and director Ric LaCivita.

My Hawks team also won for the second year in a row with a telecast from that thrilling Hawks-Celtics seven-game series from 2008. Kudos to Steve Smith, producer Jay Hoover and director Gary Lehman.

More pictures and stories to come!

Congratulations to all of the nominees and Emmy award recipients.

One Long Day

The Hawks are back home this week after a grueling five-game, Western Conference swing.
How grueling?
Here’s how the Hawks spent last Friday and Saturday:
10:30pm PT: After a thrilling win against the Golden State Warriors, the Hawks begin loading the busses for the short trip to the Oakland airport, and their awaiting flight to Salt Lake City for Saturday’s game with the Utah Jazz. Halfway thru the TSA screening at Oracle Arena, the traveling party learns it is spending the night in San Francisco, as the aircraft the Hawks are using is unable to land in Utah because of weather problems.
12:00am PT: The Hawks make it back to their hotel in San Francisco and check back in.
“8:15 BUS!” we are told.

Saturday, 7:30am. The players and staff, bleary eyed, start lugging a week’s worth of luggage back out of the hotel to the busses.
8:15am. We leave San Francisco for the Oakland Airport.
9:30am PT We depart. “How long is the flight?” “An Hour 20”. That’s good news. Oops. Forgot that we lose an hour going to the Mountain Time Zone.
12:00Noon MT. On the ground, safely, in Salt Lake. As we are ready to pull away from the plane, the first bus dies. That’s the one with the players and coaches.
Here comes Mike Woodson. “DOUBLE UP!” he bellows, so now we must make room for another 25 people and their belongings.
12:30pm MT We finally leave the airport for the hotel, less than seven hours before tipoff.
Mid-afternoon MT: The players and coaches head to a breakfast meeting to talk about tonight’s opponent, the Utah Jazz, winners of 13-straight home games and tied with Dallas for the best home record in the NBA.
5:00pm MT The first bus leaves for the arena. Followed by the second bus. The only problem is, the second bus is empty. It is not supposed to leave until 5:15. This comes as a surprise to those of us who are taking the second bus.
5:25pm MT The second bus returns, but cannot leave because Joe Johnson’s luggage cannot be located.
5:45pm MT Now all of the Hawks are at the arena, just 75 minutes prior to tip.
7:45pm MT Things are not going well for the visitors. Only 28 points on the board with 1:20 left before halftime.
7:50pm MT A dramatic change of fortune! Mike Bibby and Josh Smith combine for four three’s in the final 1:17 of the second quarter and the Hawks are back in the ball game!
9:45pm MT In the end, Utah just overpowers an Atlanta team that understandably ran out of gas. Except for Josh Smith and Mike Bibby. Smith goes for 30 and Bibby, playing on a severely bruised right heel, continues to show that, when healthy, he will be a huge addition to the Hawks.
11:15pm MT Back on the plane, headed to San Antonio. A long flight, and we lose another hour going to Central Time.
3:00am CT At the hotel in San Antonio, and ready to hit the sack. With the team dog tired, Woody has canceled practice for Sunday. Now the Hawks have a day to rest and recharge and prepare for the World Champion San Antonio Spurs.
The Hawks knew this was going to be a rough trip when the schedule came out. It proved to be all of that. Now the fight is on for the Eastern Conference playoffs. Philips Arena never looked so good.

Getting to the Point

You’re going to have to stay up late this week, but it will be worth it.

The Hawks embark on a five-game Western swing starting Tuesday night in LA against the Lakers.

That game will be your first opportunity to see Mike Bibby running the show for the Hawks.

Atlanta was able to secure the services of Bibby, not Cleveland, and the Hawks fortunes have taken a dramatic turn for the better.

The five-for-one swap, announced last weekend, shook up the Eastern playoff race. The Hawks hit the break having lost four in a row, including just an awful overtime loss in Charlotte.

Atlanta has dropped to seven games under .500, and had lost their enthusiasm for the game. There were a lot of long faces and dejected looks when the club disbanded for the all-star break.

But as the team reconvenes in Los Angeles Monday, there is a new spirit. One of hope that only a quality point guard could bring to this team at this time.

But let’s be clear about this---Bibby has to be given time to achieve quality results. This five-game Western trip would be daunting to the best teams in the league. And for Bibby, he’ll have only one practice with his new mates under his belt before the trip begins.

We also are not sure of the extent of the knee injury suffered by Josh Childress in the Detroit game last week. Chills was to be checked again early Monday morning before the team departed for the West Coast.

With a new roster, a new rotation must be worked out. Guys like Salim Stoudamire and Solomon Jones would probably find themselves playing new-found minutes. The team certainly cannot afford any injuries to the top seven.

But this much is clear: the Hawks are relevant again this season. They have a chance to recapture the positive buzz that surrounded the club after its big home wins in November and its great run of success in December.

As for Bibby, the Hawks are getting the proven point guard that the fans have been clamoring for, really, since Mookie Blalock left.

Just two seasons back, Mike averaged a career-high 21.1 PPG. He holds the Kings franchise record for consecutive free throws made (51) in the 02-03 season.

He is one of 61 players in NBA history to amass 10,000 points and 4,000 assists in a career.

Bibby was selected by Vancouver with the second overall pick in the 1998 NBA Draft. He went to the Kings in June of 2001 (with Brent Price for Jason Williams and Nick Anderson.)

Bibby is in a Hawks uniform. And the stakes have been raised accordingly. We have what we wanted Hawks fans: a legit point-guard, a real shot at the playoffs, and for the first time since Philips Arena opened the anticipation of meaningful games in March and April.

Hey, the Hawks are now must see TV!

Never, Ever

It was incredibly exciting. A double-overtime thriller at the Smith Center. Yet, when the finally horn sounded, we all said the same thing.

They will never win in Chapel Hill.

The Clemson Tigers blew a game Sunday night that confirms the above statement. Clemson held a 11-point lead with less than four minutes remaining and still managed to lose in Chapel Hill for the 53^{rd consecutive time without victory.}

All you needed to see was the body language. North Carolina knew it would win. Clemson knew it would not. It was only a matter of time. And when Clemson could not get off a game-winning shot in the final seconds of regulation, the feeling going into each overtime was not that Carolina would win, but by how many.

Add the fact that Clemson is also the worst free throw shooting team in the country (1-7???) it’s a wonder they were able to build such a tremendous advantage on the road.

I, for one, was hoping the streak would end.

I don’t like long streaks like this, losing streaks and games played streaks. They seem to take on a life of their own, and what does it really mean, anyway? These kids that played their hearts out for Clemson Sunday night had nothing to do with all those losses. Yet, they carried the weight of history with them.

Many a night, I broadcast the Clemson at UNC game, and it seemed that every game ended the same, with Carolina winning by an average score of 83-58! If memory serves, I called five Clemson at UNC games in the streak.

I hereby put in to call next year’s game!

You have to be impressed with the way Duke has been playing. A great win over Carolina on the road, followed by a string second half in taking care of Boston College, the Devils now have the inside track to home court advantage in the NCAA Tournament. No the games won’t be played at Cameron Indoor, but for Duke to get games in Raleigh and Charlotte would be plenty of advantage for Duke….Maryland is coming on strong. When James Gist plays like a superstar, the Terps emerge as a elite-team….why would I not be surprised to see Bobby Knight take over at LSU soon?....I’ll tell you another team that is coming on strong: Kentucky. They could be the sleeper come SEC Tournament time.

The Hawks hit the all-star break this week, staring at a Western Conference trip that will be as tough as any in recent years. At Lakers, Sacramento, Golden State, Utah and San Antonio is a rugged five-games-in-seven-days stretch. But even if the Hawks lose all five, they’ll still be in a position to clinch a playoff berth in the East with a month and a half to play. The way its going, 10-games under .500 will be good enough to make the playoffs in the East. And look at what is happening in the West. Potentially, a 50-win team could miss the playoffs.