Extreme Dreams Depend on Teams
Speaker: Pat Williams, Senior Vice President, Orlando Magic

Senior Vice President of the Orlando Magic, Pat Williams, is an impressive individual.    His career has been littered with success stemming from his days as a baseball student-athlete at Wake Forest to the most recent appearance of his Magic in the NBA Finals. He served in the United States Army for seven years, parented 19 children alongside his wife Ruth - 14 of which were adopted from four different nations, has authored more than 50 books and completed more than 50 marathons, is a Sunday school teacher and serves as one of America's top motivational speakers. If anyone should be compelled to discuss the power of the individual - it's Pat Williams - but serving as CEFMA's Keynote Speaker at its inaugural Convention on Wednesday, he went the route of stressing the vitality of the TEAM.

Whether it's from being a member of an Atlantic Coast Conference championship-winning baseball team or assembling championship teams of his own in the front office, Williams knows a thing or two (or eight) about the ingredients of successful teamwork, and he laid them out in detailed fashion to a room full of attendees with their eyes and ears fixated on the front of the room as he delivered his eight keys to formulating a successful team.

1) Talent. Whenever legendary UCLA Basketball Coach John Wooden was asked what the secret was to his incredible success, his first response was consistently, "talent, talent, talent." But with talent sometimes comes hurdles. Talent is only effective in a team setting when it is coachable, teachable and understanding of its role. Williams joked that all it takes to make an NBA player happy is 48 minutes, 48 shots and $48 million. Debates often rage between whether it is easier to coach a team full of superiorly talented individuals or a team full of role players willing to work for the greater good of the team. Go ahead and choose either, but coaches such as the Lakers' Phil Jackson, who has coached the likes of Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, has two hands full of jewelry to prove that talent often wins out.

2) Leadership. Are leaders born or are they made? While doing research for a book he was writing, Williams interviewed 800 people in positions of leadership and asked them this same question. Eighty-five percent felt that leaders were made.

"I was thrilled!" Williams exclaimed. "If it had been the other way around, there would've been no need to write the book, because these people are born this way."

Williams' number one aspect of leadership is vision. "If you can't see it before you see it then you'll never be able to see it," he stated. Being in Orlando, a fitting example of this kind of vision comes from the trials and tribulations of Walt Disney. What keeps someone driven after 12 bankruptcies; two nervous breakdowns; having your work stolen from you, forcing you to start from scratch; and numerous other setbacks? Spell check won't take a liking to the following word, but it was Walt Disney's motto that allowed him to become the transcendent figure that he still is today, even after his passing, and it is "sticktoitivity." Disney, and now Williams, are dead sold on the fact that being able to look over the horizon and see the finished product is the core of what it means to have vision, and consequently, be a true leader.

3) Commitment. Commitment to each other builds trust. Commitment to quality assures that nothing will be done at less than 100 percent. Commitment to competition, as well as welcoming and embracing it only makes us better. And most importantly, commitment to winning guarantees excellence. Years back, Indianapolis Colts Hall of Fame quarterback Johnny Unitas was on a plane and was asked to sign a book for a fan, but it came with a special request.

"Don't just sign it the way you sign all the others," the lady demanded.

"Well how do you want me to sign it then?" Unitas replied.

The lady came back with, "Write down the best piece of advice you were ever given by one of your coaches."

So Unitas signed the book and handed it back to her. What did it read? To Joy, Win. Johnny Unitas. Whether it's in the workplace or on the playing field, if you're not in it to win it, don't waste your time.

4) Passion. Passion stems from loving what you do. When Williams resided in Chicago in the 1960's, three Windy City athletes epitomized what it meant to have passion for their game. Ernie Banks of the Cubs was known to take handfuls of dirt and spread them up and down his sweat-filled arms because he loved the game and the Wrigley dirt so much. Dick Butkus of the Bears routinely tried to behead opponents because he had so much passion inside of him. Jerry Sloan of the Bulls led the league every year in floor burns and technical fouls because he possessed that same kind of passion.

5) T.E.A.M.S. Together Everyone Achieves More Successfully. Curious as to what his response may be, one day Williams asked then-Magic guard and former Duke Blue Devil Grant Hill what his most vivid memory was of playing for Coach K. Hill simply held up his fist, which Coach K famously uses as a metaphor for a basketball team. The five fingers, when separate, cannot inflict much harm. But when they all come together to form a fist, that's when the damage is done.

6) Empowerment. Also known as building up, edifying and providing positive feedback. Everyone needs encouraged, especially in a team setting. If a guy is in an 0 for 20 slump at the plate, struggling at the free throw line, or not seeming to pull their weight on the project at work, a word of empowerment or encouragement can go a longer way in bringing them out of their funk than say tearing them down or verbalizing to them how much they are letting the team down.

7) Respect - Trust - Loyalty - Love - Friendship. Within a locker room, a facility management department or any team setting, Williams feels that this hierarchy of qualities to have as a teammate or a colleague is crucial to building a tightly-knit, successful team. When you have respect for your teammate, it leads to trust. Once trust is built both on and off the court, in and out of the office, the bond gets even stronger and a sense of loyalty is created. Going one step further, love for the people around you that is unconditional and not based on performance or any other factors creates impenetrable team chemistry. Finally, friendship completes the package of what it means to build a successful team.

8) Character. Every team needs to be made up of character individuals for the previous qualities to matter. Honesty, hard working, humble and integrity-filled people are always assets to any team, and those who lack one or more of these characteristics can become a cancer, completely throwing the team off course in its mission to achieve a greater goal than any one individual could dream of accomplishing alone.

Dealing with the Media and Maximizing your Exposure
Speaker: Thorr Bjorn, Director of Athletics, Rhode Island University

The dead horse topic, also known as social vs. traditional media, has been beaten repeatedly over the last couple of years with the emergence of mediums such as message boards, Twitter and Facebook. But with these springing onto the scene, the role of the athletics director in dealing with them has changed, and University of Rhode Island Director of Athletics Thorr Bjorn focused on how he feels is best to handle the sticky situations brought about by members of the media.

One of the first suggestions he presented was to build a positive relationship with your beat writers and members of the local media. One of the best ways to do this is being readily accessible. Giving your cell and house phone numbers as well as direct e-mail address to media you are in frequent contact with lets them know that you are not trying to hide anything from them, which goes a long way in the trust-building process. The more trust that is built, the more comfortable both parties become.

Maybe the number one headache when dealing with the media, according to Bjorn, lies in handling situations where a story has been inaccurately written. Whether it was a misunderstanding, the writer knowingly twisted the facts, or whatever the case may be, being forced to deal with inaccuracies can be stressful and can often lead to one or both of the parties becoming angry. In order to act in the most professional manner possible, one suggestion may be to explain the situation to a member of the university's media relations staff and have them call instead of the athletics director. This way, emotions are set aside and the situation can hopefully be resolved in a smooth and orderly fashion.

Speaking of media relations and sports information staffs, it is often overlooked that members of the local media already reside on campus and are there to help as well. They are the biggest promoters of the institution's athletics program and, along with the marketing department, are well-versed in how to utilize social media to promote the program and its numerous events. Athletics directors along with their sports information directors at all levels are now in the business of tweeting and updating program Facebook groups to ensure that all possible bases are being covered on the marketing and promotions side. Bjorn admits that although he's new to these forms of social media, they have proven to be very effective, and he took it to another level in explaining how things have changed in terms of making students aware of athletics events happening on campus.

"When I was at UMass, one of the most effective things we did was use sidewalk chalk," he said. "It worked amazingly. It was stupid, but it worked...and then it snowed."