How To Lead With Character! Feat. Coach Gary Waters

Welcome to the Unscripted Authentic Leadership podcast, a podcast where seeking to lead change while also seeking to understand. We're also here as a platform for leaders to come together to unite to develop in the power other leaders and their small business, family and community. We also love the amazing job of my co-host, John LeBrun. And today we are joined by our special guest coach Gary Waters. Put those heads together, put this clapping in the comments section because coach feel right at home. He has joined us today to have a conversation on how to lead with character. Coach Gary Waters spent 11 seasons as the winningest coach in Cleveland State University's program history. As the head coach he led Cleveland State University to six postseason invitations during his tenure. He also reached the second round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament in 2008. Coach Waters was named the Horizon League coach of the year. In addition, all seniors who were in the program during Waters tenure have graduated with their degree. That's amazing. And the program received four consecutive public recognition awards from the NCAA Double-A for having an academic performance rate that was in the top 10% nationally, with over two decades of experience in coaching. Waters has seen many changes within the profession over the years. It has worked tirelessly to instill the core values and integrity both on and off the court. It's a day coach has joined us right here on the script, off the Leadership Podcast Coach, thanks for coming on. I'm excited to be out of the job and it's a pleasure. My honor to be exact. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Where? What, what? What a bio. What what an achievement that you have achieved. And of course, we could talk about the the sports accolades and those are amazing. But I think what stuck out to me was the seniors in your program all graduated with degrees. Oftentimes, I think college and athletic sports gets a bad rap like Kentucky with a lot of the wanted dons. You think, you know, they're not interested in the kids education. And then them getting their degree just there to get them to make the program do well and go to the next level if they are able to do that. But with you, it seems like there was an emphasis there not only on the sports athletic, but also on the academic side. Can you speak to how you got to those senior and still that level of importance of academia into them and how you got it to where all of them graduated with their degrees? Well, you know, they have a choice you go play before wherever you go, after you get your degree. That's the key factor. But now, you know what it was instilled in me earlier in life, you know, and that's where we do things in our society today because we gain that knowledge from someone or our parents or someone. And that's exactly what happened here. And what what I have learned since I came up during the time, you know, I'm one of the old schoolers, I came up where you had to teach and coach at the same time. You know, you couldn't just be a coach on a on a collegiate team without being a teacher as well or or in high school. Now, high school is still the same. So, you know, I believed in education even before education was a part of it. And then, you know, when I got my degree, I came back and I worked in psychology, education the whole thing. So all that was important to me. And I wanted to instill that in our players. You know, I'll give you an example. One thing we used to do, which I thought was paramount in our success is that I taught them a class called Success Class. And the whole purpose of the class. You didn't get a grade for it or anything of that magnitude. What you did is we just sat down once a week, and our whole objective was to try to teach success to them, the importance of success. And I had and I and the whole key to that was for them to define success for themselves. Don't let the world do it and not let the people around you, because if you do, then you may end up on the opposite end of that thing. And so, you know, each year we would take a book and we decide on the book we want to use. I mean, we use totally dungeons, all kinds of books for these kids to learn. And what we ended up doing is we talked to them about success. And like my first one was on from John Wooden Pyramid of Success. And so you got to if you remember anything about that, John Wooden had a pyramid, and in the pyramid were blocks. And these blocks led to the point to the point period. And it and it talked about how you got you keep moving, you keep moving and you be successful. So what I do with our kids is I had them build a pyramid themselves. I mean, we got we had blocks and everything and they had to put their they had their own individual block that they had to add to it and it had to relate to success. And they ended up doing that. And and I just turned out very good. But let me tell you, they make this about we we during that first season, I said, let's let's come up with a way we can be successful this year. You decided players, you tell me what you want. And they came up with the idea they wanted to win senior Beijing. Okay. Now and still sound like very much. But at this school they had one thing you they game in eight, nine years. So every year you have senior day game parents come out, everybody's happy. They lose go home, feel sad again. So so what we ended up doing is we, we said, OK, we're going to work on that. Now, that was my first year there. And those players weren't very good. I mean, you know, it just it wasn't it was what it was. But but we didn't have a great year that year. But every time something happened, I said, hey, that's not our goal. Our goal is to win the game. We got to senior day game and I mean, they were excited and everything. And we played the number two team in the conference we ended up just beat them by, I think about 15 points. Those kids were so happy they were jumping up on tables like they won a national championship. There was Jeopardy. They were excited and I said, Man, this is what see, this is what this class is all about. However, let's take it a step further. Those young men that had that ended up having that success during that period of time. It ended up being our biggest money givers in our program. So they really gained from that experience. So it was brought full circle. Then if you had everything that you put on them, it came back full circle you reap what you sow. That's really. That's right. That's exactly right. Go ahead, bro. That's amazing. They helped them to find their own success. But what's even better is you kept them from getting off track. Yeah. My son wrestles and this past year was his first full year because he started doing covert wrestling. So he made goals going into it. And one of them was to place in this regional tournament placing first and third. And in a second match, he lost. And the thing is, once you lose, you go to a losers bracket and now you can only get third place as long as you win all the rest of your matches. And I said he was kind of like, oh, it stinks. And I said, buddy, it's OK. You're still in. Your goal was to place one through three is placing you can't get one in two weeks to get three. You just can't make any more mistakes. So he went the rest of the day. He won every match place he was ten years old and he came running off the mat, jumped up in my arms, arms in the air, like some kind of Rocky movie. And you thought he won the whole tournament because he hit his goal. That's what he wanted was to play the year before. He only won one match. He's got his butt kicked for a whole year. And so it was really cool. Well, Dad, you're teaching him a great thing there that you got to do. You got to compete. And you may not be successful, but you got to keep fighting. You got to keep being strong in what you do. You know, I got my second book that I just finished and it's probably be out in the year. It's called Coaching Millennials from a character perspective. And I'm talking about millennials and China is about character him. And when I taught when I wrote this, you know, I had to I had to research the whole area of generations, not just, you know, the generation that included the millennials of generations go back. I mean, we went all the way back to industrial age, baby boomers everywhere to see how did the millennials get to this point in their behavior. And so one of the things I you know, you identified in there with with the millennials is about the success. And one of the success is it didn't matter if you succeeded, you got a trophy anyway. So participation trophies, you know, we didn't grow up that way. If you lost, you lost in the office forever with you lose and now all of a sudden the kids are really getting rewarded for it, not for not achieving. And that's not the real world. And that's what you know in this book. I define some of that. And how important that is, is that we face these type of things. How did you how does one cool thing you said there was that you kept your team focused on that goal, which was senior night. And I'm sure every year you redefined success for that season with the team did. And then there was always something, an early loss or a player injured that was a key player, something that could derail the thought process of achieving that goal. How did you, as the leader or a leader on the team, help that team stay focused on the goal? Well, the first thing we had to do is allow them to decide on the goal so we could, you know, think about coaches, do this all night day, and they just said, hey, we want to win a championship. Yeah. Half the kids in the program don't even care about winning a chance. It really is happy to be out there on the floor. And so we we all had to agree to it. And I think you have to do that when you bring a bunch of young men together and they're trying to reach an ultimate goal. And so in order to do that, we have to have what I call a intermingle type moments where they they are defined through what's going on during that time period. And so when they when they hit these moments, they know where we're on track toward our goal. And if they don't hit them, then they look at it and say, hey, we got to we got to keep working and find something else to move us closer to, because like you said, you can become derailed and lose and things happen like with your son. And then all of a sudden they're ready to quit. And in in our society today with these young men and women, that they can't quit because, you know, if they quit, all they're going to do is quit again. And it's not going to help them move forward. And that's why we we try to teach that you got to stay committed to the goal. Coach, a lot of what you're talking about is alluding to the character of the individual. Oh, you wrote a. You wrote a book. You know, you just mentioned your own your second book. You wrote a first book entitled The Ten Principles of a Character Coach. There was a lot in just in that title alone. But I want to start with what do you mean by character coach and how you define how do you define character? Well, if you don't mind, let me give you this. I have a definition that I use in the character. Coach is actually a person that strives to achieve high moral and ethical values. In every area of their lives without compromise. Now you hear there's a key word in in strive because you may not reach the goal immediately you so you've got to keep working at it. And then you hope you're going to make mistakes because we're human, we're going to make mistakes. But the key is keep striving toward achieving that goal. And but don't get don't get compromise in the process because it won't be anything. Things try to step it in a way to to compromise and then when I first just to give you an idea of why I wrote this book, I first day in retirement, I said, what am I doing? You know, I big retired what we go by why so well, you got to do something because you just you haven't been around here all this time. All of a sudden, you you hear so so what I said is I'm a I'm a wreck. And that's one of the things I did. And but I really do have something I want to write about. And during that time college basketball was going through some scandals, some issues. And when I seen that, I said, man, this is what we're about. You know, we're really struggling. So I said, how can I help? That was the question I asked myself, how can I help? And I said, I can give them words and encouragement and information to help them move forward. So I started this book. Now, when I started, I said, you know, I got to go back to what this is all about. So I went back to Naismith, who invented basketball and this is in my book, and it says, Naismith believe that if you elected to be a coach, it was also your responsibility to be an advisor a counselor, a father figure, and to act at all times as an example to the athletes in your care. He also envisioned that sport should develop character, foster patriotism, and instill ethical values that would serve participants well in later life. And when I read that, I said, Are we really, really doing this? And this is what he meant. Now, he said this in 1891, I'll think about this and this is what he thought the sport should be. And I said, We're not even close to that in some of these places. So that's why I wrote this book. So what are some of the you thought that any you mentioned ten character principles. Can you give us a couple key ones that I know they're all important, but obviously if someone wants to get all ten, I highly recommend that they invest in the book to invest in themselves. But you have two jobs. Yes. So can we can we talk about a couple of them, though? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you know, the first one and then the last year you like this. The first one, first principle is God over everything but God for treating you like. And if you do, you don't get caught up in yourself and you don't and you don't you don't start doing things you shouldn't be doing. And that's the whole whole gist of that chapter. I'm talking about that and I use examples and everything in it. That's the second principle. And I'll just go through them. So you get an idea quickly. The second one is and then we'll talk about the ones you feel are good. Second one is improve yourself and others. And each and every day you try to see if you're improving yourself, would you improve in others? The third is live with integrity and honesty. And that's it says it says what it says. Do the right thing and believe in the right thing. Principle four Treat others the way you want to be treated. And that's basically respect. And the whole process is about respect and then five principle is the one I really like. This one is called love unconditionally. And then when I when I wrote it in there, I said, Well, why you got that in it? And I said, Because I have players sometimes that come without a father figure in effect in their lives. And so I have to be an example for them, and I have to show them every day how life should be live. And if I show the love and compassion toward my family, my wife, my children, someday when they grow up and they decide to have a family, they have they have a pattern to follow. And that was my whole purpose for that principle. Six Work hard at what matters, OK? In our society, today, we're not working as hard as we used to. Principle seven Value Loyalty is something that we struggling with today. Value loyalty. Number eight Empower and serve and serve others, empower and serve others. The people that work under you empower them to be the very best they can be. That didn't serve them so they can reach their goals and objectives. Principle nine Honor the profession. And I put that in there because all the things that were going on and in the big statement I got in these don't cheat the profession because you are the example in the profession. And then the ten is leave a character legacy you know, when you leave the service, what are they talking about? Are they talking about you've done good things, you help people, you leave loving husband, loving father, or they talk about, oh, he won 58 he's, you know, he won this championship. Is that all they're talking about? Then you decide if you move it in the right direction. Those were all ten amazing principles. And I know John will have his, his ones that he wants to pick out. Hopefully I don't pick the one he's going to pick, but I want to tap into that one you said about valuing loyalty because as a millennial, you're a millennial. You talk about millennials. I'm a millennial. John's a millennial. Oh yeah. We, we have lost. We don't really know what that is in my generation, a lot of people, because we're only loyal until something else better comes along. Right or what. We deem is better or the grass looks greener on the other side when really it's only greater because it's fake. We don't know that until we get to the other side. Right and so how do we just speak to my generation, those that are in their twenties in the thirties, and the working professionals, and when this fast paced environment that we've lost the art in value. I like how you stated that the value of loyalty and being value is sticking to that, that loyalty, whether that be in friendship or your career or whatever that may be really getting back to the art of valuing loyalty. Can you speak more to that? Yes, yes. You know, loyalty is so key in our society. Now, what I have done in this book, I'm talking about the individual principle, but I'm relating it to a time and date and the time and date I'm relating here. And what went on was when I was like, sleep OK. And so, you know, and to a lot of people that would see this, the that's the basketball metaphor involved in it. OK, but when you talk about love, it is so big and it's it's so important because that commitment you make to someone is vital in any and I call it an obligation to someone or some something and if you don't have that, then you don't you don't stay in it very long. So think about our marriages. You know, I'll give you an example. I was in Britain. I was in Paris, France. One time. And my wife and I, we we were we had a little cafe we were eating. And then when we got there, there was some people already in there eating and they struck up a conversation with the guy. And I said, I love you guys. Been in here. He said, Well, we've been here 2 hours. And I said, 2 hours, you maybe 2 hours easier said, Yeah, we'll probably stay another hour, hour and a half. I said, Whoa, whoa. So you got something else you got to do or What's going on? They said, he said, No, no, this is what we do. We sit down, we relate to each other and we sit and speak and fellowship with one another. And I said, and I said, Well, that's actually pretty good. I said, And you should take that. And he said to me, You should take that home because you have less devotions if you take that. Oh, that's good. He's good. Well, I think that commitment to loyalty. You know. Helps extend or helps enrich relationships or commitments through the tough times. No. Goes so often and so easily. We will you look at colleges right now at the transfer portal, and I'm not necessarily necessarily against the transfer portal. I don't think it's new. I haven't made my opinion, but it's so easy now to say I'm not starting here, transferring here. OK, that's fine. Maybe maybe someone just with more talent was put in place there or whatever. But that same feeling goes into. So I, I met my wife in high school and so many people like to say, hey, it's so amazing that you found you all found each other in your high school. I wish I would have happened to me. I feel like it would have been so much easier. And I used to just say, maybe. And then one day I started thinking I think it's harder because when I was 17 and we started dating, I'm now 38 and we have both changed multiple times over the last 20 years. And so it takes a lot more commitment to adjust to the other person. We don't even look the same. I'm heavier than I used to be. All of the things, right? I'm probably a little more rigid than I was when I was 17, all the, the older stuff. And so the same thing though I feel it goes with just leadership in general. How would you how does that commitment to loyalty to you? How do you how does it how do you use that within building your group? Or your team to help them stay committed to the process, committed towards the goal without wanting to just jump to the next winning group. Well, you you hit it all, John, because that's why I wrote that chapter. You know, I was talking about other things, but I wrote the chapter. When you read it, you see that in there because what occurs is you get players that come to you and and you know, then you have the portal now. And I think the portal was about to happen because I was on the board of NABC. And when and being on that board, I realized that there were certain things going on. And at that time and this is about 2017, that 2016, we were considered the poster child for the fifth year transfer approval. We had, we had a lot of success. And what would happen is the major schools would come in, play our best players away because they have and I did it as a goal for our players. What I did was, you know, some of them that either redshirted or something happened, you know, my goal was to move them forward in their lives so they could be working on the Masters. They get a degree but they still would have some time left to play. Now they were using it against the saying, hey, how you can leave any time you want once you graduate and go to another school and that's where the loyalty comes in because you put all that time and energy into that player and you want that player to say, OK, you know, I can go there and in my mind, think I will do something better, meaning have success and go to the pros. But it doesn't always work out that way. It can turn out to be a bad situation. And I've had a couple of guys when that happened and we've talked about it afterwards because see, I don't change the relationship once we start the relationship is, well, a lifetime. So and I stay committed to even though, you know, they make mistakes. And and I'm telling you, and this goes back to what I told you about my new book. One of the issues in the new book you find is the parents. The parents are different today than they were yesterday, and now they'll jump ship in a minute, OK? Because they feel the grass is greener on the other side and things don't work out the right way. You want it or they're ready to leave and they don't realize there's more to it than just playing basketball. You know, the whole thing is growing and developing and maturing and someone pouring into you to make you the very best you can become. And if you don't have that person doing that, it's all about basketball, then that's all you're going to see. I think it also speaks to the difference between somebody who will look in the mirror and say, yes, it's something. Maybe there's something I need to improve on versus always saying It's the coach, it's the team, it's whatever that players favorited. I saw it with a higher state quarterback who was drafted early, sat for a couple of years, then went to Florida, and then I think he just went to another school again. Oh, yes. I don't remember his last name, Ewers or something like that. Anyways, he was a stud in high school that that now is somewhere else. What at what point can somebody sit down and say, hey, it's not the school, it's not the player's fault. You need to sit down and evaluate what is going on with you. To be successful. I mean, you've already been successful. You were a killer high school quarterback and you've been on the bench for some amazing schools. 90% of athletes, 99% of athletes will never sit on Ohio State's bench. And so to me, that is a success. Right, right. Maybe he thought, oh, I thought I would be, you know, round one in the 20, 23 draft. And obviously it probably won't happen. Well, you know, with that whole thing scenario you just talked about there, that's one of our biggest issues today in our society. And when they brought out the portal, which I think is you don't know how I feel about that, I think it's go with the game really tough. And then the NRL, I mean that that's going to another level and so everything is about what I say the financial side instead of the human side of helping this person be successful and what's so bad about this is what the in lie is that they're not, they're not, they're not prepared for this. The players aren't prepared for this, the schools aren't prepared for this. And the NCAA wasn't prepared for this. And so now it has hit us and everybody's emotional and they don't realize they don't know the aftermath that could happen afterwards. You know, think about it. One player on the team making all this money and nobody else making anything, and everybody's looking at that person and they say, and he's getting to do what he want to do. And that's that's totally counter to the team concept. That's a good point. I had a different perspective on that. I hadn't heard that perspective on that. In our in. Ally situation. We'll have to talk about that. Another time, but that's that was really good. Well, now, I think when you look at this whole thing, you know what? They're trying to correct the problem that's been on for many, many years. And I underwrite them. And I and I think it's going to be hard to do something out there. What do you call it? The cat is out of the hat or whatever. It's out you've got guys you're going to have to deal with this. And it's a big struggle for them right now. Hmm. Absolutely, Coach. We have John, did you have any more questions for Coach Course during the last segment? We have as we wrap up our show with the last. Segment called. Off Script where you leave our audience with whatever's on your heart. It could be something related to the topic or whatever you feel left feel led to leave our audience. Give our audience whatever's on your hearts coach that you want to leave. Them with the last word on this off. OK, OK. You know, one of the things I have thought about and I kind of wrote this in my other book, I said, you don't have to live, you don't have to lose to learn. And in our society today, everything is about winning. You know, and that's so valuable to everyone. But I wrote that in there because in within the generations, they're there making mistakes in life because they're when they lose, they don't they understand why they lost. And then I said, in the message, you don't have to lose to learn. So you don't have to lose if you listen to others, if you listen to wisdom, people trying to tell you the right way to go and the right things to do, and that's where character comes in, then you won't make that mistake later on in your life or immediately in your life. And that's if I can give someone that I think that's very, very important. Listen to the wisdom out there from from the different generations, different people that are telling you to try to help you be the best person you can be. Listen, this has been an amazing conversation. We want you all to go pick up Coach Gary Waters book Ten Principles of a character coach wherever you can get your hands on that book. How are you going to buy it? I'm going to read about those ten principles and apply it to my life as what I love about it. Those principles are transferable. As you said, beyond sports. Those are life principle that you can take with you on your daily journey. Thank you again, Coach Waters, for coming on to have this amazing conversation with us on how to lead with character to our audience and those that may be listening. Stay connected here with us, unscripted. You can join our patron family, support our mission here at patron dot com, backslash, unscripted leadership. You can follow us on all social media platforms and unscripted leadership scripted that's leadership dot com. And of course you can get this podcast wherever you get your podcast available all streaming platform forms. Thank you, coach Gary Waters, those of you that are listening. As always, we pray that you be the leader that God is calling you to be. We're here to build bridges and not walls. Bridges connect, walls divide until next time. God bless you.