There’s a good interview with Dabo by Travis Sawchik over at the P&C (note: the formatting on their site is a little off, so some of the questions aren’t bolded and it looks like Dabo is talking to himself, or, at least, I hope that’s what’s going on). Having read it, I feel a lot more comfortable with Dabo as the head coach. This paragraph stands out:

I can draw Xs and Os all day on that board; a lot of coaches come in and do great things on the board, but coaching and leadership is really about getting people to do things they don’t want to do, getting them to places they can’t take themselves. Motivating people to be great. … Coach (Bear) Bryant also talked about there are four kinds of players. You’ve got those players that have it and give it, like C.J. Spiller. You have players that have it but won’t give it — you want to get rid of those guys. Then you have players that don’t have it — and this is what the majority of your team is — but don’t know they don’t have it and give way beyond their ability. And then you have the guys that don’t have it, and know they don’t have it. You want to be nice to them because they will make great alums. … You’ve got to be able to motivate all those different guys. … I think that’s what separates good coaches from bad coaches.

Hopefully Dabo’s thoughts are translated to actions. In short, he has to convince the team that winning is more important than they currently believe it to be; this is no small task.

So you’ve got guys who A) have it and give it, B) have it and don’t give it, C) don’t have it but give it, and D) don’t have it and don’t give it. One criticism for Bowden was that he was much better at finding the “have its” than he was at developing the “don’t give its”. Any coach who can do both is going to enjoy a long and successful career.

Via Larry Williams

Posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 7:36 am by Broken Gnome

Filed under Clemson, Coaching, Furman.

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