Heritage athletes learn leadership

By Ted Allen

Published: July 29, 2008

Leaders are not born, they are made.

Leadership involves sacrifice.

These are the messages Heritage High administrators wanted to convey to a select group of student athletes during Monday and Tuesday’s leadership conference held at Lynchburg College, the first of its kind sponsored by an area high school.

“A lot of colleges are doing this now (but) it is new and innovative for high schools,” Heritage principal Mark Miear said. “Leadership skills are taught. Our coaches have expressed concerns of lack of leadership on their teams among players. Specifically, we want to teach leadership, character building, decision making and goal setting.”

According to athletic director Mark Storm, who organized the seminars and wrapped them up with Miear in a final session on Tuesday afternoon, being an effective leader isn’t about scoring the most points or being the best athlete.

“To be a leader, you can’t be about the small picture, it can’t be about you,” Storm said. “You have to be focused on the team around you.

“If you ask the typical high school athlete what (their) goal is in athletics, they’re going to say, ‘To win a championship or an individual title,’” he added. “That can be a goal, but it shouldn’t be the primary goal.”

He said former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who won more NCAA championships than any other coach, placed more emphasis on building character within his teams than on winning itself.

“He had a slogan for every focal point (of his lessons) and never did any of his slogans focus on winning or losing,” Storm said. “They were always about integrity, character, becoming better people. If you do that, winning and losing will take care of themselves.”

On Monday, two motivational speakers from Herff Jones, Inc., based in Indiana, addressed the class of 30 Pioneers, with an average of two members of each of the school’s athletic teams represented, plus several of their coaches.

Former Heritage teacher and coach and E.C. Glass principal Roger Jones, currently the head of leadership at LC, led Tuesday’s morning session which dealt primarily with building character and charisma, ethical decision making, conflict resolution and communication.

Then in the afternoon, Vic Cardwell, a standout athlete in Heritage’s early years who played football at Virginia and now works as a lawyer in Roanoke, gave his perspective on leadership from personal experience.

Storm said the talks, many accompanied by Power Point presentations, left a powerful impression on the Pioneers.

“If they applied this, they’re going to be better leaders, better people in general, and know what it takes to be leaders themselves,” he said. “You have to sacrifice some of the wants and do what you have to do to be a role model or you’re not going to gain the respect of people you want to follow you.”

In the closing session, the student athletes were asked to identify dilemmas faced by past years’ teams, without naming names or making it personal, and to suggest methods they could use to lessen or possibly eliminate those problems. Storm said this helped students learn how to take a proactive role, to be solution-seekers rather than part of the problem.

“Don’t let problems sit and fester and complain about them at the end,” he said. “Do something to rectify them up front.”