Sublime

Commitment and sacrifice are among the personal characteristics I value most highly in people.

Every team needs either a confrontational star player or coach. In San Antonio, Gregg Popovich was that guy and Tim Duncan was not. In Golden State, Draymond Green is the confrontational one; Steve Kerr is not. For us, Phil was not that type of person, so I provided that force.

Playing the guide is more than a marketing strategy; it’s a position of the heart.

During this early period I began hiring personnel with four characteristics I value most highly: talent, character, functional intelligence (beyond basic intelligence, the ability to think on your feet, quickly and spontaneously), and an eagerness to adopt my way of doing things, my philosophy.

Joe didn’t have to talk the talk because he walked the walk. And without really working at it, he found that everyone else was walking the walk right behind him.

Regardless of the size of an employee’s check or the requirements of his or her job, I made it clear that he or she was 100 percent a member of our team, whether he or she was a superstar or secretary, black or white, manager or maintenance man.

Nearly all of my new teammates were egotists in exactly the way Red was. Each of them knew how good he was, but each of them seemed to understand perfectly that everyone had to play his part for us to win.

By spending fifty to eighty hours each week studying the opponent, he knew more about the opposing team than anyone else on the Colts, including the other coaches. And, he had one more advantage: He was always a week ahead of the rest of the coaching crew. If the Colts were going to play the Jets on the coming Sunday and Miami the following Sunday,

You go nowhere without character. Character is essential to individuals, and their cumulative character is the backbone of your winning team.