Wait gain – 4th quarter, 2016
By Andrew Pastor, portfolio manager
Over the holidays, I read a biography about John Wooden, the legendary college basketball coach. From 1963 to 1975, he won 10 national championships; a record unlikely to be broken. As a fan, I marvelled at his coaching success and wondered how he was able to find that “elusive edge.” Reading it, I expected to find accounts of sophisticated play designs or ahead-of-its-time analytics. Instead the book is filled with simple ideas. For example, at the beginning of the season the players arrived to practice expecting to run drills. To their surprise, Coach Wooden asked them to gather in a circle, sit down and take off their socks and shoes. As the players looked around in disbelief, Coach Wooden proceeded to explain the right way to put on their socks to avoid performance-hampering blisters. It’s a simple routine that any coach across the country could have done, but the idea probably never crossed their minds.
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