LOOK OF LEADERSHIP
Athletes, coaches develop skills in NWCA course
Bob Bodnar once served as a Vietnam-era Marine. He also has been coaching wrestling since 1977, including the past decade at Pasco (Washington) High School.
So throughout the last 40 years, Bodnar has a good idea what a leader looks like.
“The guy who is a leader is the guy who makes a mistakes and is still accountable for his actions,” said Bodnar, adding, “He also may not be the greatest technique wrestler but he will be out there working on it until he gets it done.”
But more importantly, Bodnar says a leader always puts his teammates ahead of himself, whether there are problems on the mat or in the classroom.
“The leader will say my grades are fine but I’m going to go to the study hall and help others who might need help,” he continued, “while the non-leader will run down to the local Wendy’s and doesn’t care about his teammates.”
Yes, Bodnar has a good idea what leadership is … but he also is looking for new ideas. That’s why this wrestling coach was one of the first ten people to take part in the on-line “Building Leaders For Life” program, an on-line class that was first offered last spring by the National Wrestling Coaches Association.
“Wrestling is unique in that it builds incredible leadership skills,” said NWCA president Mike Moyer. “But we deputize the best athletes to be leaders without training them on how to be leaders. We have an obligation to do that.”
With that in mind, the NWCA contacted Dr. Tom Kane, a former Temple University wrestler, college assistant wrestling coach and current psychology professor at Southwest Missouri State, to create a leadership program that would be offered to coaches.
According to the course syllabus on the NWCA website, “coaches will learn how to merge the best motivational and leadership practices into their own coaching philosophy so that they can become primary mentors of leadership development in their respective school systems.
“Coaches in this course will develop an on-team leadership lesson plan so quality on-team leadership can become a dominant part of their team culture. The lesson plan will be thorough and will include a clear and compelling team mission statement, a specific description of team leadership roles and goals, strategies that team leader-athletes can use to lead well, how team athletes should handle serious team issues and an ongoing mentoring plan.”
his program also caught the attention of the United States Marine Corps, which also serves as the sponsor of the program. In fact the program was unveiled on May 11 on board the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City, where Lt. General Martin Steele spoke about the history of the Intrepid, which played a key role during World War II as the aircraft carrier refused to sink despite numerous hits during the war. Martin also spoke about parallels between the Intrepid’s history and the sport of wrestling, which has taken on a similar unsinkable spirit in dealing with the future of wrestling.
“What better group to partner with than a group that lives on its leadership skills,” said Moyer. “We took our proposal to the Marine Corps and they were very enthusiastic. We designed a program after getting input from them.”
The NWCA is planning on having state chairmen from all 50 states take part in the program with the hopes that they would pass on the idea of taking the program to other coaches in their state. And while the program is open to all coaches, Moyer admits he would like to focus on high school coaches.
“The average tenure of a high school coach is somewhere between three and five years,” Moyer said. “The high school level is faced with a crisis. Schools are forced to hire part-time coaches who are not trained as educators. This can become a very volatile situation.”
That is why Moyer was thrilled when Bodnar decided to become one of the first coaches to take the program, which provides plenty of on-line interaction between the coaches.
“I was impressed with the structure of the course in terms with it being on the internet,” Bodnar said. “I was able to interact with coaches all over the country.”
All coaches are also asked to develop a mission statement.
“Dr. Kane was phenomenal,” Bodnar said. “He went through my mission statement with a Microsoft editor and talked to me on the phone.”
In turn, Bodnar, who also has coached football, baseball and gymnastics during his high school coaching tenure, would like to create a booklet on what he’s learned about leadership and share it with other coaches and athletes. He also believes this leadership course should be required of all coaches.
“Some who need it won’t do it because they come in with the “Little League” syndrome in that they think they already know it all,” said Bodnar.
But in the end, Bodnar also believes leadership training also brings a maturity in the athletes who grow to teach those lessons of life.
“Everyone once in a while I will get letters from former wrestlers; one of whom is now a colonel in the Marines,” Bodnar said. “He told me he didn’t understand what I was trying to teach him during his wrestling days but appreciates it now.”
(This article originally appeared in the print version of W.I.N. Magazine. To subscribe, go to the merchandise section of the Wrestling Mall and access the W.I.N. store or e-mail us at Info@WIN-magazine.com)