"Are you paralyzed with fear? That's a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it." ~ Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
Communicating scares me.
When coaches say that the hardest part of their job is cutting a player, or telling her she's not starting, they're really saying that communicating is scary. In fact, it's downright terrifying.
When I have to confront a player for not trying hard enough, or when I have to say I'm sorry for a mistake I made, it's terrifying. I'm not sure if it's ever going to get easier.
Recruiting, which is simply a different way of communicating, is scary for me too. It's scary to cold-call a high school coach and explain what value you can provide her and her athletes. It's even scarier to do that day-in and day-out in the face of rejection. It was scary when Johan Dulfer said to me about recruiting, "...if you don't get more comfortable you do it while you're uncomfortable. Because in my opinion it's the only way to win."
It turns out that Wooden was often a poor communicator. Even more often, he had no idea how he was perceived by his players. Consider this scene in 1960, when Wooden decided to put one of his starters, Bob Berry, on the bench for several weeks without any explanation:
" 'Coach Wooden was supposed to be this great communicator, but he didn't even communicate to me why I'm sitting on the bench. It wouldn't have taken much time,' Berry said. 'I mean, Wooden brought me to UCLA, not one of the assistants. If he had just explained to me that he had a sophomore who he wanted to give more experience to, or whatever, I would have accepted it. But he never said one thing about why he put me on the bench. Maybe he felt he didn't have to.
Berry was learning what many past and future Bruins would learn. John Wooden was an intelligent coach and a classy sportsman, but he was not the kind of man who went out of his way to help his young players sort through their feelings of rejection. For all they could tell, Wooden had no clue how they felt. It's not that he didn't care. Quite the contrary. In his own mind, his own heart, Wooden loved his 'boys,' but he had grown up in an environment where love was to be demonstrated, not spoken; felt, not expressed. Now, he was dealing with young men who had grown up in a much different time and place. They had emotional needs he did not, or could not, understand. It was a shame, because Wooden had great command of the English language, yet he vastly underestimated the power of his own words."Wooden was also a poor recruiter, or more accurately, an ambivalent recruiter. His disdain for that part of the job was offset by the prominence of UCLA and the emergence of Los Angeles in the mid-twentieth century. In his situation, he didn't have to recruit very hard to build a powerful basketball program:
"... Wooden disdained recruiting. In his view, students should want to come to a school like UCLA to get a first-rate education. It was not his job to convince them. He often told friends that he missed working in high school, where there was no need for recruiting at all. You simply coached the kids who showed up in your gym, just as you taught the kids who showed up in your English class. 'I hoped each year to get two or three of the top-quality players from Southern California,' he said. 'I probably would have had a rough time at some place where you have to go out and get them.'"One has to wonder if Wooden, who was known to be very shy, spent his career at a school where he could stay inside his comfort zone.
[Note: The book referenced above, The War of Art, is an incredibly insightful read]