S7 E5: The Man Watching: Soccer Coach Lessons for High Performance Leaders

My guest this week is Tim Crothers, a journalism professor and a freelance sportswriter. He has written three books on leadership from a coaching perspective.

I became interested in his book The Man Watching after my interview with Tom Chaby when he mentioned his favorite book Top Dog by Ashley Merryman. I loved that book, and in it there are several pages dedicated to Tim Crothers and his work on the dynasty of women’s soccer created by the coach Anson Dorrance at the University of North Carolina.

I decided to ask Tim Crothers to come on to the show. I encourage you to listen to this interview, as you will learn so much about how to lead you millennials and work new ideas and approaches into your leadership style. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did!

In this interview we discuss:

• Leading with stats and numbers that don’t lie
• Coaching adaptability
• Recruiting outstanding talent
• Power of creating an emotional connection
• Competitive cauldron
• Giving girls permission to compete
• The Man Watching, poem by Rainer Maria Rilke that is behind the name of the book
• Mia Hamm’s story
• Gift of fury is discussed @41:11
• Queen of Katwe movie trailer
• Offense versus defense mindset
• Make practice harder than games
• Make mistakes and work out a unique formula for your team in order to create your own competitive cauldron
• A part of being a leader is to understand that you can’t lead everybody the same way.

About Tim Crothers

Tim Crothers is a former senior writer at Sports Illustrated who is currently a journalism professor and a freelance sportswriter. He is the author of The Man Watching, a biography of Anson Dorrance, the legendary coach of the University of North Carolina women's soccer team, co-author of Hard Work, the autobiography of UNC basketball coach Roy Williams, and author of The Queen of Katwe, the story of a 16-year-old female chess champion from the slums of Kampala, Uganda.

Crothers lives with his wife and two children in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

How to get in touch with Tim Crothers

• More information about Tim Crothers can be found at his website: http://www.timcrothers.net/

Published Books:

• The Queen of Katwe: One Girl’s Triumphant Path to Becoming a Chess Champion
• The Man Watching: Anson Dorrance and the University of North Carolina Women’s Soccer
• Hard Work: a Life On and Off the Court
  

Important Links and Resources:

• Queen of Katwe movie trailer
• The Great Santini (1979) movie trailer
• Tim Crothers talks about his transition from his days at Chapel Hill to writing about Africa: VIDEO
• Tim Crothers speaking at UNC about Queen of Katwe book: VIDEO

This episode is sponsored by the CIO Innovation Insider Council.

Credits:
* Outro music provided by Ben’s Sound

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About Bill Murphy
Bill Murphy is a world renowned IT Security Expert dedicated to your success as an IT business leader. Follow Bill on LinkedIn and Twitter.