John Wooden, Teaching, And Carolina Panthers Head Coach Ron Rivera

Former San Diego Chargers and Chicago Bears defensive coordinator, new Carolina Panthers Head Coach Ron Rivera said, in his first press conference with Carolina, "We're looking for teachers. We're looking for guys that are going to be really good in the classroom and out on the field, and that will make that commitment to the players.”

Hiring teachers is an excellent first step towards overcoming and going beyond, but for sustained improvement, teachers must become mentors. 

Bill Walton, former NBA and UCLA basketball star, says about legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden – who coached Walton – “Wooden did not teach us basketball; he taught us life.”

John Wooden was not just a teacher – John Wooden went beyond teaching into Mentoring. His results on the court, of course, were phenomenal, with ten national championships in twelve years and a career winning percentage over 80%.

But John Wooden went beyond just on-court results. His players, after they left UCLA, now had, as Bill Walton says, “learned how to learn.” Wooden’s coaching, his Mentoring, taught his players, his students, how to Live – and within that, they had both the capability and the ability to go beyond and overcome – to always develop. 

 For more commentary on Wooden by Bill Walton, please visit http://www.billwalton.com/john-wooden

Ron Rivera has taken the first step of identifying the need for coaches to go beyond coaching into teaching – now, the second step of going beyond teaching into Mentoring must occur for there to be development. 

Read more about the concept of Mentoring in Robert Gilbert’s new e-book, Going Beyond: Vision, the NFL, and the 2010 Carolina Panthers, now available at www.explosivegrowthoutreach.com.


This article originally appeared on www.bleacherreport.com