MARCH MADNESS: HERE'S TO THE GUYS ON THE BENCH

The contribution of these guys should NEVER go unappreciated!!!

It's March Madness time again.  Through strength of season or automatic bid 64 teams will attend the Big Dance. Each team includes guys who spend most or all of each game on the bench.  I know from my work with several such players that the excitement of the season can sometimes be matched by a considerable measure of frustration.

However the contribution of these guys should NEVER go unappreciated!!!

A while back I served as sport psychology consultant to a college team in Florida. There was one guy on the team, Rob (not his real name), the kind of guy on every team, who gets into games during the last couple of minutes if the team is up by 25 points with the win in sight.  He is the proverbial fan favorite who everyone roots for to get into the box score. But when all is said and done, most people underestimate the importance of a player like Rob.

Most of these guys (and gals) are cheering their teammates on loudly from the bench. They've got a hand or a high five for each teammate who comes off the floor. In practice they give 100%, they hustle and they dive after loose balls like nobody's business, setting a standard for the starters.

Shortly before the season was over, with a couple of games left in conference play and the post-season tournament still ahead, we did a team exercise focusing on leadership. As player after player was asked to rank his teammates for the leadership they brought to the team and how they manifested it, one name was consistently mentioned alongside the top scorers - Rob. The

guy who was last on the stat sheet was - in the eyes of his teammates - among the first in terms of key leadership qualities he brought to the team in its quest for success. 

There is the flip side, of course, the marquee players who make it all about themselves. There was such a player on one college squad, his league's leading scorer at 23.2 ppg, who was named to the All-Conference First Team. But for all his individual stats, his team finished their season so poorly (13-16 overall, 7-10 in conference play) that they were the lowest seed in the conference tournament and sent packing after the first game. 

"We had a player like that some years back," said Coach Joe Niland, who during his long tenure at Spring Hill College and the University of Mobile has taken several teams to the NAIA Final Four. "He had to be the star, had to be the leading scorer. He simply didn't understand the concept of having your own needs subservient to the team. He made his whole senior year all about him. He cost us getting to the national tournament. He had been the leading scorer in his high school, the leading scorer at his junior college. Yet none of these teams ever won a championship."

"A good player helps his team to win. He might not be a big scorer, he might set picks, he might take charges, he might hustle for rebounds. Look at Bird and Magic. They made the players around them better. We had a player a couple of years ago, he didn't make All Conference Team, but all the coaches in our league told me they would take him on their team any day of the week."

So here is to all the guys going to the Big Dance who won't see action on the court, but without whom their teams might not have made it there!  Here's to everything they did all season long to make the guys who will get playing time better! Even without making it into the box score, they are champions!!