When Loyalty is a No Brainer
When I was a young assistant college basketball coach, I wanted to climb the coaching ladder fast.
My first job was as a Graduate Assistant at Lewis University, a Division II program in one of the best leagues in the country.
After my first year I was fortunate to have a head coach who believed in me enough to make me his one full-time assistant which bore a great deal of responsibility.
I oversaw our strength program, recruiting, travel, and was also the University’s Intramural Director.
We were rebuilding a program together as I came in with him his first season at the school.
Things started to turnaround fast as we signed some great high school players and took a number of Division I recruits who could play.
It was the greatest learning opportunity I could have hoped for out of college, and I was making a name for myself in the industry.
So much so that after our third season I had the opportunity to interview for a Division I assistant job at a state school who had recently been in the NCAA Tournament.
I made it to the final two and from what I gathered from a number of sources; I was going to be offered the job.
One minor detail, our head coach was getting married, and he would be on his honeymoon the week I would have to leave and go to the DI school.
I talked to our Athletic Director about it, and he supported whatever decision I would make if it came to that, and I talked to our head coach.
He wanted what was best for me and would never discourage me even though it would have put him in a bad spot that late in the summer.
Instead, we walked through the whole situation, and he simply said, “you do what you think is right.”
Without delay I realized exactly what I had to do and that was to take my name of the process.
See, loyalty is everything to me.
Our head coach took a chance on me when I was 23 years old and gave me a ton of responsibility which would have a direct impact on how successful he would be rebuilding that program.
He did not have to do that as there were plenty of more experienced coaches who would have loved to have that position on his staff.
Loyalty is a word that we do not hear often enough or read enough about.
Keep doing great things,
This was originally published as a weekly newsletter from Ed Molitor, with The Molitor Group. If you’d like to receive the weekly newsletter, follow this link to subscribe.
