Brad Stevens of Butler, Shaka Smart of Virginia Commonwealth and Chip Kelly of Oregon are arguably the three hottest coaches in major collegiate sports right now. Stevens lead Butler to the 2010 Championship final in basketball and Kelly led Oregon to the BCS Title game this year, where both teams came up just short of victory. By this time next week, either Smart or Stevens will have led their team to this year’s championship game in basketball and possibly won a championship.

Historically, all three of these schools were barely on anyone’s radar as far as playing for championships in major sports. So what characteristics do these three coaches have that changed their school’s fortunes? First and foremost, they all started with the belief that they could win and win big at their universities. Nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished without first believing it can be done. Listen to the words of Shaka Smart after his team’s 10-point victory over top seeded Kansas: “Once again we felt like nobody really thought we could win going into the game. But these guys believed we could win. They knew we could win.”

Secondly, all three keep their focus firmly on themselves. They don’t bother themselves with what other teams are doing or what others think of them. They work hard and keep their focus on their own development each day. As Brad Stevens says, “We’re going to be as good as we can be. But we’re not trying to be somebody else. We want Butler to be unique. We want Butler to be something that people look at and say, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s special.”

All three of their personalities permeate their programs. Chip Kelly even instilled a team motto, “Win the Day” complete with it’s own unique logo. “To me, it means you take care of what you can control, and what we can control is today,” Kelly said. “I think people too often look way down the road — you know, ‘I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to be conference champion, national champion.’ If you don’t take care of Tuesday, that’s not going to happen.” By working on the things under your control, players become well prepared and gain a mental edge over a majority of their opponents.

Additionally, players like to play for coaches with a high level of integrity and who possess good character. All three of these coaches, despite their successes, keep their sport in perspective. “I’m a guy who believes in faith and I’ve got great friends, a wonderful family. My validation needs to come from those things, not from what is accomplished in a job,” said Stevens. Or as professor Peter Rutkoff, who served as Smart’s adviser at Kenyon College said, “The thing I think is just amazing is this guy you see on TV and in interviews is the guy he is, he doesn’t act. There’s no pretense. He’s real. And he always has been. There’s so much honesty and so much integrity and so much decency. He’s just, really, a lovely human being.”

Finally, having competed for lower division schools as undergraduates, they all learned a valuable lesson: That it’s not the team with the best players that wins the games. It’s the team who plays the best that does. “We’re where we are because we have unbelievable people. People are greater resources than any amount of dollars,” said Stevens. Hard work builds character and leads to lasting success. That’s why hard work always beats talent when talent fails to work hard.

Posted in The Mind Side Blog