By Gil Gullickson, 2019-2020 AAEA President, Successful Farming
John Wooden could have basked in the afterglow following his UCLA Bruins capturing their fourth NCAA basketball championship in 1968.
Instead, there he was, at a press conference in which the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers announced they had acquired Wilt Chamberlain in a trade. Think of three versions of LeBron James rolled into one rumbling across a basketball court akin to a buffalo herd, and you can garner a glimpse of how dominant Chamberlain was in this era.
Chamberlain, though, had a reputation as a headstrong player. A reporter at the press conference asked him if his coach would have trouble handling him.
“I am not a thing,” replied Chamberlain. “You handle things. You work with people.”
Wooden had explained his back-to-basics coaching philosophy in a book called Practical Modern Basketball. After the press conference, Wooden reviewed a section in the book titled “Handling Your Players.” He crossed out “Handling” and wrote in “Working With.” He contacted his publisher and asked this change be made in all future editions.
This lesson was just one of many that Wooden learned took while winning 10 NCAA titles in 12 years from 1964 to 1975.
“John was a better coach at 55 than he was at 50,” said Pete Newell, a former college basketball coach who had known Wooden for decades in a Sports Illustrated story written in Wooden’s lifetime. “He was a better coach at 60 than at 55. He’s a true example of a man who learned from day one to day last.”
Ag Media Summit
I know a lot of John Woodens in the AAEA/Ag Communicators Network. They are always learning, always striving for the best. I know they’ll be at this year’s Agricultural Media Summit (AMS) slated for November 16-17.
Jennifer Carrico been doing a bang-up job of lining up educational programs on all things ag communications for AMS. Highlights include:
- 15 Ways to make your writing life better. Holly Spangler, a Farm Progress executive editor, will lead a session stressing writing attributes like writing tight and forming relationships that lead to valuable sources.
- Photography: Visual Storytelling with High Quality Images. Lindsay Kennedy with Texas Tech University will lead this session on how exposure, composition, equipment ,and technique can help tell powerful visual stories.
- Great E-mail Marketing in 2020 and Beyond. This session, chaired by Jessica Best–self-declared email marketing nerd and permission-marketing evangelist—will detail how to better use this valuable marketing tool.
Even though we are meeting virtually this year, I guarantee you will pick up something from AMS that will help you become a better agricultural communicator than before. And, please mark your schedules for our AAEA/Ag Communicators Network awards program on November 2 that’s open to all.