Air Garrett: From Dallas to Westwood to Egypt

I'm a proud alumnus of UCLA. Although I spoke to him on three separate occasions, I wasn't lucky enough to be there when John Wooden was coaching the basketball team, but I can tell you that his presence could be felt everywhere on that expansive campus. Long after he had left, Wooden was still a factor in every facet of our lives while in school. It's not that he was a great coach. He was that - in spades. No, he was much, much more than that.

One of the things that, to this day, amazed me about the man is how his players were so devoted to him. I'm not talking about how they felt about him during the periods in which they played for him. In fact, many of them were openly at odds with him during their playing tenure. It's more about how they felt and acted towards him ten, twenty and even thirty years after they had played for him. To a man, they used words like, "second father to me", "most important influence in my life" and "greatest man I ever knew".

Having read several books about him, his life and his methods, I often find myself reflecting on one of his quotes, "Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming". In so few words, so much is said. That too, was a quality about him to which people were drawn. You could not help but hang on his every word. He was a man of great faith and, clearly, a man who saw coaching as an endeavor secondary to the process of helping people gain through his positive influence. He devoted his life to helping lift people up, in some way. to be better than even they realized they could be. There are many great coaches in sports history but, for me, Wooden stands alone in terms of how he achieved greatness through a set of core values that revolved around building people up rather than tearing them down. In that way, he was truly uncommon.

Wooden employed the use of a ‘Pyramid of success' which he himself created. Fifteen blocks that made up the fundamental principles which lead to the apex, success.

via mystayinla.com

In light of the trials that he has had to endure and grow through, I think Jason Garrett could learn a thing or two from this man and, to that end, here are a few principles Garrett could benefit from;

SKILL: Knowledge of and ability to execute the fundamentals. Be prepared. Cover every detail.

One has to wonder, how much practice does it take to line up for a Field Goal in the time allotted an NFL team to do so? How hard is it to get the play call to the QB so he has enough time to communicate it properly in the huddle and get to the line with enough time to go through pre-snap reads? Why are Dallas defenders constantly unsure about where they should be lining up? Dallas continues to struggle in all phases of the game to get their signals between plays from the sideline to the players so they can be ready to go. These are coaching fundamentals. John Wooden never talked about players or coaches failing to execute this play or that play. This isn't a Joe DeCamilis problem or a Hudson Houck problem, it's a team problem and team problems are the responsibility of the coach, the head coach. Garrett would likely get some tough love from Wooden here, as there was no tolerance for those kinds of mental errors in Westwood under his stewardship.

INTENTNESS: Ability to resist temptation and stay with your course.

People talk about Garrett's lack of faith in the offensive line and how that may have affected his decision making. Even when John Wooden was losing games (he lost a ton early in his career) and building a culture, he was never accused of ‘playing scared' or playing not to lose. Dallas' history as a football team is one of being aggressive and putting intense pressure on their opponents to perform flawlessly in order to beat them. Garrett's distrust of this unit or that unit speaks volumes to his players about the kind of man he is and, maybe more important, the kind of men he believes they can be. Wooden would probably counsel Garrett to place more trust in his players to do what they were supposed to do because the upside for that kind of trust has value far beyond that of a single win or loss.

POISE: Just being yourself. Being at ease in any situation. Never fighting yourself.

Dallas threw the football 68% of the time against the Cardinals. While the Cardinals were putting eight in the box to slow down the Cowboys running game, they were still generating 3.8 yards per carry and facing such an aggressive pass rush, there were opportunities to gash the Cardinals and maintain the threat of the run. Late in the game, Dallas completely abandoned the run and, historically, Garrett's offenses have not fared well when doing that. In fact, Garrett has been criticized before about not running the ball enough and now, with one of the game's best backs, a rebuilt offensive line and full control of how the team practices (within the confines of the new CBA), his acquiescence to an unbalanced attack was disheartening. Wooden might say that those situations are the ones where teams learn how to execute even in the toughest of situations and that you can't let an opponent dictate what you do.

COMPETITIVE GREATNESS: Real love of a hard battle. Be at your best when your best is needed.

Against the Cardinals, Garrett had a golden opportunity in the late stages of the game when Dallas had gotten the ball across midfield, to use one of the two remaining time-out's and get things settled enough to move the ball in position for more of a chip shot than the one that Bailey ultimately missed at the end of regulation. Had Garrett been at his best, there should have been no hesitation in making the proper decisions in those critical moments. Those are things that, as we saw, decide the outcomes of games. Wooden would probably ask Garrett how he might handle this or other unforeseen challenges in the future and, by doing so, force Garrett to ensure he could be at his best when needed.

John Wooden is the pinnacle. When people think about the "best ever" in the coaching profession, his name is one of the first to come up. I would never expect Jason Garrett to hold himself to that kind of standard, much less have fans make that kind of unfair comparison. It's to be expected that Garrett will have some growing pains as he learns what it takes to run an organization like the Dallas Cowboys effectively. How easy it is for us to point fingers at Garrett for this mistake or that mistake. Unfortunately, just like it is for Tony Romo and his unenviable comparisons to the great Cowboys QB's, we forget that Garrett's performance will likely be measured against Jimmy Johnson and Tom Landry. Along the way to being mentioned in the same sentence with those men, Garrett would do well to ‘walk like an Egyptian' and learn from the man who not only developed a pyramid, but also a lot of good men along the way.

GO COWBOYS