The Encouraging Leader

Five years ago I was inspired by Mike Neighbors, an assistant coach at Xavier University, to begin a newsletter on leadership entitled THE ENCOURAGING LEADER.  Neighbors was doing a newsletter for basketball coaches and I really enjoyed it.  My entire life as a coach, I studied leadership and felt that I could add value to others with the insights that I had learned.  It started as a monthly newsletter but has since become a quarterly publication.  We have had some great leaders that have contributed over the years and I am so grateful for their generosity and willingness to write articles. For three years, I worked on the newsletter consistently but then in May of 2014 I took a new job.  I left a good college coaching job to become the athletic director at a traditional high school powerhouse in Indiana. It was a very grueling job and I put the newsletter on hold.  I kept coming up with reasons why I couldn't publish another issue.  The main one was "I am too busy".   However, what is in the middle of all excuses?  "U".  It wasn't the job that kept me from publishing more issues, it was me.  I was constantly making choices to push it further down my priority list. 

It takes time to put a newsletter together but every time that I put one together, it made me sharp and helped me learn more about leadership from many different perspectives.  Essentially by choosing to not publish the newsletter, I was taking away an opportunity for me to learn.  Just like Coach Neighbors newsletter, no doubt, keeps him sharp, at the same time helping others.  He is now the head coach at the University of Washington and they advanced to the NCAA Final Four this season.  He is a head coach in the Pac-12 and yet still religiously puts out his newsletter.  How inspiring is that?  That is one of the reasons that I decided to start being an encouraging leader again through the newsletter.  Click here to read the latest edition of The Encouraging Leader.  

Jamy Bechler is the executive director of U-Leadership and a John Maxwell Certified Leadership Speaker and Coach.  Contact him at CoachBechler@CoachBechler.com to find out how you or your team can be more successful.  

Solution to NCAA's Transfer Problems

Wisconsin's Bo Ryan
has come under fire
 recently for the
stipulations he
placed on a player
looking to transfer

This is the NCAA's lucky day because I have the solutions for their transfer policies, which have come under considerable fire in recent weeks and months (e.g. Maryland Football, Wisconsin Basketball, St. Joseph's Basketball).  To set the stage before I give you the solution, below are a few articles that should provide further insight on the topic.

• Bo Ryan Uproar Sheds Light on NCAA's Faulty Transfer Policy (Seth Davis)
• Coaching Changes and NCAA Transfer Rules:  Is the Current System Leaving Athletes Abandoned? (Research study at Williamette University)
• Time to Change Transfer Rules (Dick Vitale)
• College, player divorce in basketball can be messier than the marriage (Terry Hutchens) 
• Transfer Rules Won't Be Easily Lifted (espn.com)
• A Saner Solution to Basketball's Transfer Problem (Brad Wolverton)

Mark Emmert, the NCAA's President, appears to be a very sensible and practical person that talks about his desire for reform in college athletics.  This includes the issue of student-athletes transferring from one school to another.  Depending on who you talk with (coaches, administrators, student-athletes, fans), you will probably get varying opinions on the topic.  In fact, you may even get a different opinion from each person based on their situation.  There is no fool proof or perfect solution. Compromise is needed because neither side is right in all situations and neither side is always innocent. However, I have provided a simple solution to the problem, as well as some remarks in response to the most heard comments.  No doubt, there will be some differing opinions about what I write.  That is fine.  The bottom line is that the NCAA's transfer policies are not working as optimal as they probably could be.  There needs to be some rational and objective discussion about how the student-athletes, the coaches and the institutions can all co-exist as best as possible without taking advantage of each other in this area.

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

(1) Allow the athletic program to scholarship the transfer.  This will probably eliminate a majority of the complaints, since oftentimes a player wants to transfer but find it difficult because of the financial hardship it will place on them.