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I had the opportunity to shadow and interview Senior Womens Administrator and Head Coach of the University of Mount Union (UMU) Womens Basketball Team; Suzy Venet. Coach Venet has been a head coach for 10 years total, nine at Mount Union and one Manchester University. She spent time as an assistant at Bowling Green State University and Minnesota State University in Mankato, MN. Coach Venet received her bachelors degree from the University of Mount Union in Exercise Science while leading her team as a player to three trips to the national tournament, finishing 2nd in the nation in 1996. Coach Venets most recent role on campus focuses more on the administration side. As Senior Womens Administrator (SWA), she works directly with Athletic Director Larry Kehres and has a main task of overseeing womens athletics at UMU. How did you first get involved with leadership? Coach Venet gave me a really interesting and direct response to this question. She dug back to her college playing day, more particularly her junior year. As a junior Suzy was voted as one of the captain, an honor normally reserved for seniors. On this day she knew she had a large task ahead of her but was more than willing to accept the challenge. As mentioned earlier, she had a very successful career for the fact that she had the innate ability to get people to come together for one

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common goal. Coach mentioned she had always been fascinated with leaders that can steer people into the direction of a common goal. An interesting topic that coach brought up, in a complete leadership and steering a group to a singular goal, is her fascination with Adolph Hitler. Suzy obviously is very much against anything and everything Adolph Hitler stood for but her interest lies in how he could get so many people to not only believe in a certain way of life but ultimately believe in something that was so wrong and detrimental to humanity. Every player is different, every team is different, and to merely apply a formula is not fair to those players or those teams. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University Finding your own personal philosophy for leadership is really the first step in becoming a great leader. Coach Venets philosophy was pretty simple and only implemented two thought processes; set a good example and to have to ability to rally the troops. Are you the strong silent leader who does everything by example or you are an extrovert, who loves to lead vocally? Either way, a leader must be able to get their point across effectively while remembering that everything you do is magnified because of the position (teacher, coach, captain etc)

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The ability to get a group of individuals to come together for one main goal and when something in the ultimate plan takes a negative turn; the ability to rally the troops is just as important. Who is your leadership role-model/mentor? Why? Coach Venet was very passionate about this question and spent no time in answering, Dee Knoblauch, her college coach. Coach cited that a lot of her philosophies now are in alignment with Coach Knoblauchs during her time at UMU. She mentioned that a huge influence on her was that they were so successful during her time at UMU and that success and style of coaching fueled her to pursue the route of coaching after Suzys playing career had concluded. Suzy still converses with Coach Knoblauch on a regular basis. Look, if you guys are going for a 4.0 GPA, summa cum laude status, and a spot in the Michigan Law School, then you dont have to go to weights either. Coach Rick Majerus, St. Louis University, discussing the importance of education over athletic. Resources are an amazing way to gain knowledge and expand reasoning. In terms of clinics and conferences, Coach Venet gave great insight on which were great to attend. Two notable ones

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are the Leadership Academy and Academy for Sport Leadership. Both, per Coach Venet, are great opportunities for young people trying to first learn about leadership and experienced coaches looking to expand their knowledge. Coach Venet is a big promoter of books being the best resource to gain knowledge on not just leadership but life in general. We have talked extensively before on coaching books that we have both read before. Some of those include Beyond Basketball by Mike Krzyzewski, Sum it up by Pat Summitt and Make the BIG Time Where You Are by Frosty Westering. All three of these books have many similarities but convey different messages. Coach Ks book is filled with excerpts and quick stories that promote life challenges as well as overcoming difficulties. Coach Pat Summitts book talks about her life and the struggles she endured as a female. Finally, Frostys book conveys a message for all NCAA DIII coaches. It promotes hard work for a common goal. His book really puts life in perspective it is more about the journey, then the destination. People wont listen to you until they know how much you care about them. Lee Tressel, father of former Ohio State Football Coach Jim Tressel. When discussing skills and abilities of effective leaders, Suzy had three distinctive traits all successful leaders need:

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communication, listening and discipline. As a leader you need to be able to convey your message in a manner that is in detail yet effective. In order to know what adjustments to make in your leadership habits, you need feedback. Feedback is only effective when you have the ability to listen and accept changes that might need to be made. Discipline is possibly the most integral trait to have. As a coach and an educator you want to have a personal relationship, to an extent, but also be able to lay down punishment and hold your students/players accountable. In a profession that pits men and women coaches against each other, Coach Venet was very interested in the question of leadership styles being different and how effective they are across gender. She believes fully that there are differences between the two. Per Coach Venet, there are three types of leadership styles that coaches use; fear, rewards and right in the middle of those two. An example of fear would be someone that uses past success, a daunting figure or a stern coaching technique (quick to punish, always straight faced, etc) these a typically males. A coach that uses constant rewards to get across to players are typically females. They tend to be more caring while still getting the task and goal at hand accomplished.

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Then there is the group that stands right between both fear and reward, this is a spot Coach Venet visualizes herself and I would have to agree. This area spans across both genders and usually contains the most successive coaches. A great example is form Head Football Coach, Larry Kehres. Larry Kehres is a daunting figure, one who strikes fear into his athletes, but also someone who genuinely cares about the well-being of his athletes. Having this balance allows you to get the most physically out of your players but able to have personal relationships with each person associated with his team. Getting 18-22 year olds to be unselfish is a huge accomplishment and something all college coaches deal with. Suzy Venet Failure in athletics is really a common thing. In terms of education and the comparison between education and athletics, if you play 27 basketball games in a year and lose 7 of them you are considered to be a successful coach. When talking education, if you have 27 students in your class and 7 of them fail you have some real issues. In the profession of coaching, results are the overall goal, but there is much more than that. It is about having a group of individuals buying in to a common goal, Suzy mentioned. Being able to balance that fine line of tough love and giving

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your athletes freedom to form an opinion. When a coach does not have the ability to convey messages, trust players or make quick and correct situations; they fail. Again, I believe that education and coaching have many similarities; however, failing holds a different place in the teaching world. Teams lose but kids should never fail in the class room. Leaders do not act dialogically, bit insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The question about training a person to replace the leader of choice was an interesting one for me because I am the assistant coach. Every year Coach Venet gives her assistants a job responsibilities sheet that outlines duties and expectation, so I already had an idea of what this answer may look like. She gave me six words and phrases and she looks for in someone that may eventually replace her: commitment, long hours, discipline, goal oriented, takes charge of tasks and organization. Suzy conveyed that these six ideas more than not lead to excellence. In my personal opinion, I agree with all six but believe discipline is the most important one for me. The grind of the longest season in athletics, next to wrestling, you must have

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extreme focus and diligence. Day in and day out I am asked to perform tasks that present new challenges. Months of 12-14 hour days can wear on a body and mind. Cutting corners is not an option, so discipline to your goals is highly important. What have been your biggest leadership challenges and celebrations? Our jobs as coaches are based on reliability. Daily, we rely 18-22 year olds to convey concepts and complete tasks throughout the week to be successful on game day. This is a huge challenge for us because it takes so much focus. Two instances of celebrations for Coach Venet came very early in her coaching career and two that I would not have guessed. Being as successful as she is, my thought was that it was going to be a Sweet 16 appearance or conference championship but not to that level. Her first head coaching job came at Manchester University in Manchester, IN. She was there for only one year, but accomplished so much. Inheriting a sub-500 team then previous year, she took them to the NCAA Tournament the very next year, a momentous turn around. She said that team had no business being in or winning a tournament game, but I somehow got them to believe they were better than what they actually were. Suzys other extreme celebration involved preparing and seeing a senior grow into a captain. This brought great joy to

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Suzy to see someone that was not a great leader her first couple years, grow into a leadership role. This player got others to buy in to the goals of the team through work ethic, demonstration and conviction. I asked Suzy what exactly allowed this player to demonstrate such great qualities, especially when they needed to be developed? She responded with simply; she needed to believe in her abilities. Steph had great instincts but was just unsure. By me reassuring her, she grew her first three years and eventually became captain as a senior. Captain is the highest praise you can receive from coach. The true measure of a mans greatness is not in the number of his accomplishments, but in the number of peoples lives he inspired while achieving those accomplishments. Roy Williams, Univ. of North Carolina, Hard Work: A life on and off the court As St. Francis de Sales said, Be yourself and be that well. This is basically the message the Coach Venet conveyed when asked about giving advice to a new leader. If you are not yourself, how can you expect anybody else to be truthful with you? A couple other phrases she used was go in tough, you can always loosen up, be accountable and never let up. The section of the interview process that I got the most out of was where we had to ask our own questions. This area

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allowed me to brainstorm a little and ask things that pertained to coach specifically. My first question pitted other sports against basketball. I asked coach if she ever consults head coaches from other sports to advance the knowledge that she has in her own sport. She responded with an emphatic, all the time. In response, it is not all Xs and Os per say. A lot of the time she said they discuss situational elements, captains, bonding and discipline. These specific topics are similar across all of athletics. Who is the most influence on you as a leader that you have not met? Being a coach first and administrator second, Pat Summitt and Mike Krzyzewski. Pat Summitt, Tennessee Womens Basketball and Coach K, Duke Mens Basketball, both have an innate ability to communicate with 18-22 year olds. Though both very successful, most wins on mens and womens side respectively, they care about something much more. They are career oriented; their focus is to not only develop talented basketball players but to develop talented people after athletics. Coach K is still Head Coach at Duke University while Pat Summitt recently retired due to Alzheimers.

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Coach or Administrator, which do you believe has the biggest influence on the students? Coach was the answer I received from Suzy. She said that because you are in direct contact everyday with student-athletes you are able to convey your message more often and shape them as people. What is the best advice that you have ever heard, before you became a head coach? Don Myer was Coach Venets answer. Don Myer is a college coach as well that has a wealth of knowledge. The two phrases that were spoken to her were: Be your best self and Never be afraid. These are two ideas that I see in Coach Venet every day. She works very hard to day in and day out. The way to maintain discipline, commitment and a high level of authority is by being true to yourself and not being afraid to take chances. This is why these two phrases resonate with Coach Venet even to this day. What was your biggest take away from Frosty Westerings book Make the big time where you are at? This was a book that Coach Venet had us read earlier in the year. It is from a legendary DIII football, Frosty Westering, which tells stories about making those little moments count. It

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is about the journey and not always the destination. Coach Venet conveyed the message that it is okay to strive for excellence, but that cannot be your sole mission in life. Enjoy where youre at. As coaches or teachers, we have an obligation to help in any way we can to allow others succeed. Yes, personal gain is nice, but once you reach the top what is left? There will always be coaches and teachers because there will always be those that need to be lead. Suzy Venet was phenomenal during the interview process. She gave me so much great information to not only she with you but to also give me to contemplate what I want my philosophies to be.

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References Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: The Continuum Publishing Group Inc, Ltd. Sleeter, C. (2005) Un-Standerizing Curriculum: Multicultural Teaching in the Standards-Based Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Morgan, Jr, D.L. (2009) More Than A Coach: What It Means To Play For A Coach, Mentor, and Friend. Illinois: Triumph Books. Krzyzewski, M. (2006) Beyond Basketball: Coach Ks Key Words For Success. New York: Warner Business Books Williams, R., Crothers, T. (2009) Hard Work: A Life On and Off The Court. North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill Majerus, R., Wojciechowski, G. (1999) My Life On A Napkin: Pillow Mints, Playground Dreams, and Coaching the Runnin Utes. New York: Hyperion. Smith, D., Kilgo, J., Jenkins, S. (1999) A Coachs Life. New York: Random House, Inc. Krzyzewski, M., Phillips, D. T. (2000) Leading With The Heart: Coach Ks Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life. New York: Warner Books Inc.