Diary Series: Ira Bowman, Asst. Coach - NJIT

Hello everyone and great to be part of the series at College Chalktalk.

I am extremely excited as we approach the beginning of another journey.  I have enjoyed reading and listening to all my fellow coaches as they talk about their off-season workouts and their lifting programs as they prepare for another college season. I know that every school faces different  obstacles and challenges but at the end of the day it's all about the mental and physical growth of our young student-athletes. Here at NJIT, I've been fortunate to be a part of a program that was truly at it's initial stage (being a new Division I school in the last five years)

Coach Jim Engles has been meticulous and diligent in his preparation from day one. The culture has truly changed. When we first started we had to teach the most fundamental thing - Playing Hard. We never talked about winning championships, we talked about doing the work necessary to put ourselves in position to be successful. I've been fortunate to be on teams that have won at the high school, college and professional level- and their was one common thread- Sacrifice!

In order to be successful in the game of basketball you must be surrounded by people who are willing to sacrifice. That's what we want our guys here at NJIT to understand. That's the beauty of this TEAM sport. It's not an individual game so to me it's so much more rewarding than sports like golf and tennis, simply because there are things outside of yourself that you can not control and you need others to buy in.

I watched the Ravens vs. Steelers NFL game recently and I listened to Ray Lewis, the emotional and spiritual leader of the Ravens team, talk about Torrey Smith, a rookie wide receiver, who caught the winning touchdown in the last 20 seconds of the game. Torrey had made a few errors and had actually dropped a pass four plays earlier. In the post game interview Ray Lewis just went on and on about the trust he had in Torrey and he never waned even when Torrey dropped the previous pass. He kept telling him "next play". Ray went on to say how all preseason he tried to ingrain in his rookies that you have to sacrifice now, in order to put yourself in position to receive God's blessings... Without getting too religious, we echo those sentiments here @ NJIT. I thought immediately of our senior captain who was one of the first kids recruited when we took over here. He's done exactly that! He has been instrumental in changing the culture here. He puts in the extra work and he believes! Which in turn allows others to believe! 

The young man has all the qualities of Self-Discipline:

1) Doing what needs to be done
2) Doing it when it needs to be done
3) Doing it the best it can be done
4) Doing it that way every time you do it

This is what we want NJIT to embody.

I'm hopeful that at the end of the season we as a program can look back and point tangible examples of all the qualities Coach Engles has built this program on:

- The ability to remain cool and poised under pressure
- A willingness to shoulder personal responsibility
- A tendency to solve problems, rather than gripe about them
- A strong work ethic
- The ability to self-start and self-motivate
- Respect for self and others
- The ability to stay focused on the task at hand
- A WILLINGNESS to SACRIFICE for the TEAM!


Good luck this season to everyone!

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