I followed the Big12 Media Day presentation by Strong, with followup interviews. Finally got a grasp of his principles for building the program. Five stages. Stage One, staff together, assess everything, including players. Stage Two, Spring training and game. Stage Three, summer workouts. Stage Four, August camp. Stage Five, live competition as the season unfolds. From the beginning, the breaking down and building back up. Ongoing. The game plan: Work hard every day. Improve every day. If all those steps are taken, the results follow. Earn everything. What you do every 24 hours is what makes you a better player, person, student. Every day counts. Reminds me of principles behind Japanese Morita Therapy... Dr. Shoma Morita. The phrase I remember from years ago... "Chop wood, carry water." Get busy. Start doing. Get out of your head. Quit thinking, analyzing and philosophizing. If you think about it, a lot of coaching and projection of where a program is going can be too mental, too philosophical, not enough "chop wood, carry water." Just do it. Every day. Disciplined action. (Wax on, wax off??!!) And all the rest regards team building and attitude of taking on the opportunity to be a player here and part of this program. The Horns (logo, hookem of some sort) on the floor in the team facilities is roped off. No one can stand on it or walk over it until game time. Same with throwing up the hook-em. Respect it, earn the right to it. No entitlement. Earn everything. Strong was a walk-on at Central Arkansas. Learned you earn everything you get in life. Over the many years in the coaching fraternity, he was passed over for head coaching jobs (one such, I hear, really chapped Urban Meyer). Finally he landed the gig at Louisville. Now has the reigns of arguably the top program. I think he's going to put it all on the line. Soon. He has a method for building the power and effectiveness of the team and the program as a whole. Perhaps a drive to show the nation a lot of people were wrong passing him over as head coach. He's at the one place where he can make a statement and show a product that will attract the best of the best. I don't think he's going to wait several seasons to put that on the field. One of the ESPN Media Day analyst panels had this prediction today for the Final Four: Auburn, Fl State, Ohio State, UCLA. Horns have two home games, then UCLA. I'm looking forward to these first three games to see what the season may hold. Doc said in "Back to the Future" when the DeLorean hits 88 mph... "You're gonna see some serious ****." Same here.
Gosh it is good to read that - I hope this kind of attitude spreads to others on the team. I suspect Diggs will have a HUGE season in 2014.
I think Diggs is going to be the guy we all thought Byndom would be after watching him go 1 on 1 with Blackmon for an entire game.
Diggs was one of the major underperformers last year....needs to shut it, and do it on the field, not in the papers.
