Rising Coaches Report: California's Marlon Stewart
Marlon Stewart, California - Video Coordinator
I want to get started by thanking the Rising Coaches for giving me the opportunity to share some of my thoughts and give a little background on myself. I am currently in my fourth season as the video coordinator at the University of California working under Head Coach Mike Montgomery. Previously I served as a student manager at Washington State University under Dick and Tony Bennett.
When I got started in the college basketball profession I spent almost 100% of my personal development time studying and trying to emulate successful people within the realm of basketball. Over the past few years I have tried to look to prominent figures in other industries to help better myself and find different ways to contribute to our program. In this report I want to share three statements made by the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs that I feel have improved the way I approach my role at Cal as well as my life. The first quote refers to peoples’ common acceptance of the status quo:
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”
This statement shouldn’t be interpreted as negative towards the people that constructed the life around you (...in this case the basketball community and our specific programs). This comment is about YOU and your power to positively influence the world around you. In many cases we either become “comfortable” and begin to go through the motions or don’t want to rock the boat by trying to present new ideas. Basketball is constantly evolving with technology, society, and many other things. It is important to work with the understanding that you shouldn’t be evolving with it, you should be helping it evolve.
This next quote helps explain how you can assist in the evolution around you, it deals more with acting upon innovative and creative ideas. He was talking about shaping and influencing the life around us when he said:
“You realize that when you push in on one side, something pops out on the other. You can change it. You can mold it.”
This has been particularly helpful for me this year in acting on ideas I have for the program and for my own workflow. I started doing video at Washington State six years ago and have made minor adjustments every year. Looking back, I was stubborn at times when opportunities came to change the processes in which I did things and make an impact on our program. This year I have made a point to not just get my hands on different parts of the program, but create new aspects of our program. I have struck out on a few ideas and projects, but I always want to make sure I go out swinging.
Now that you are fully entrenched in contributing to the evolution
of the world around you, it is imperative to keep things in
perspective. This next quote helps add balance to the first two
quotes.
“Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean, to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
By now I am sure some of you have forgotten about organizing the travel plans for your next road trip and are ready to walk into your head coach's office with your plans to put in your innovative new offense. I like this quote because I think there is a lot of value in working hard to become more efficient. Why take a contested three when you can make the extra pass for layup. You can have a whole bunch of great ideas, but first you need to do your job, and you need to do it efficiently. A major component of the first two quotes is finding new ways to improve your workflow. Figure out a way to make a two man job a one man job or a two step process a one step process.
Once again, thanks to the Rising Coaches for letting me share these thoughts. Hopefully this helps improve the way you approach your position in your program and workflow. I encourage you to start looking at successful people in other industries and throughout history, and challenge you to find a way to do your job more efficiently. Good luck this season, I look forward to posting again in a few months.
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