Baker, Elizabeth

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Loyola Marymount University

Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiryand PracticeVolume 8 | Issue 3 Article 53-1-2005Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a HardwoodWarrior, by Phil JacksonElizabeth BakerFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ceThis Book Review is brought to you for free with open access by the School of Education at Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University andLoyola Law School. It has been accepted for publication in Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice by the journal's editorial board andhas been published on the web by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. Formore information about Digital Commons, please contact digitalcommons@lmu.edu. To contact the editorial board of Catholic Education: A Journalof Inquiry and Practice, please email CatholicEdJournal@lmu.edu.Recommended CitationBaker, E. (2005). Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior, by Phil Jackson. Journal of Catholic Education, 8 (3).http://dx.doi.org/10.15365/joce.0803082013BOOK REVIEWSSACRED HOOPS: SPIRITUAL LESSONS OF A HARDWOOD WARRIORPHIL JACKSONHYPERION, 1996$14.95, 240 pagesReviewed by Elizabeth BakerCatholic school leaders, athletic directors, and coaches can benefit fromreading Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior. The man-agement tools that Jackson employs should be familiar to coaches who usespirituality to focus on success. Coaches and athletic directors are familiarwith the rich traditions of spirituality which can enable a team to focus on asuccessful season. School leaders and coaches interested in the managementand motivation of their student athletes should examine the leadership styleof this successful coach.At the end of the 2003 National Basketball Association (NBA) season,veteran coach Phil Jackson had again brought a team, the Los AngelesLakers, to the championship game. The perennial success of this leader com-pels one to revisit Jackson’s explanation of leadership in Sacred Hoops:Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior. Motivated by a management stylewhich couples the game of basketball with the journey of spirituality,Jackson attempts to account for his “crazy-quilt style of coaching” (p. 186).Jackson emphasizes the selflessness and compassion he learned as aChristian of Pentecostal upbringing. The adults in his early childhood heldsacred the tenets of Scripture and virtue. As a mature adult, Jackson soughtto step away from the harshness of this religious upbringing to look at howother traditions view spirituality. In the process, Jackson was transitioningfrom playing college basketball to playing professional basketball to coach-ing professional basketball. The similarity between the aspirations anddreams of life and the search for a spiritual center were present throughoutJackson’s journey.Movement from player to coach was a learning step in Jackson’s spiri-tual development. Although a slow process, including time spent as a play-er-coach, Jackson learned different leadership styles from each of his men-tors. He also sought spiritual enlightenment in the form of reading materials.Author/ABBREVIATED ARTICLE TITLE 393Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, Vol. 8, No. 3, March 2005, 393-410 © 2005 Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and PracticeIn particular, Jackson mentioned the influences of the books Zen Mind,Beginner’s Mind, Black Elk Speaks, and Zen and the Art of MotorcycleMaintenance. Jackson also tried self-hypnosis, which he considered to be apowerful tool for his athletic success. Jackson was searching not only forknowledge about basketball strategy, but knowledge about life and its spiri-tual purpose.Jackson’s spiritual quest, which also included study in Buddhism and thepractice of yoga, was still ongoing when he became a coach in theContinental Basketball Association and Superior Basketball League. Theexperience of working with talented coaches and mentors combined with asearch for spirituality prepared Jackson for success in the NBA. In particu-lar, Jackson’s coaching mentors included Bill Fitch, who taught “his trade-mark full-court defense” (p. 33), Red Holzman, who offered to Jackson that“the power of We is stronger than the power of Me” (p. 35) and Tex Winter,“the professor of basketball” (p. 86) who offered help to Jackson in formu-lating the triangle offense of three posts. Jackson wisely sought the counselof good mentors to help him improve in the realm of basketball.In 1989, Phil Jackson was named the head coach of the Chicago Bulls.Jackson had spent many years in preparation, developing a successful man-agement style of coaching. Jackson was also exploring many differentavenues of spiritual practices, reflected in his coaching and leadership style.Jackson wanted to lead his team with the sense that “vision is the source ofleadership, the expansive dream state where everything begins and all is pos-sible” (p. 98). Jackson knew that using the “Winter’s system” and nurturinga player’s “concept of selflessness” (p. 99) through the use of spiritual tech-niques would insure the Chicago Bulls’ success.As a leader of a team, he believed that “selflessness is the soul of team-work” (p. 6). Jackson’s visionary style was “values-based,” meaning that hefirst must “enlist the hearts and minds of the follower” (p. 153) to see thedream. In this case, the dream is first a team effort in learning offense anddefense. The goal of winning is secondary. Jackson also knew that people are“motivated by love” (p. 79) and therefore created a supportive environmentfor his team. Examples of the support provided to the team included a metic-ulous approach in practicing repetitive drills in order to learn the game andan articulation of the dream of winning. He also supported the team by “giv-ing the players the freedom to find out what worked and what did not work.That meant putting them out on the floor together in unusual combinationsand letting them deal with treacherous situations without bailing them out”(p. 106). Jackson felt that this support helped the team find success in realgame situations.One approach that Jackson used was to look at basketball with the eyesof a spiritual leader. In order for players to realize their potential, Jackson felt394 Catholic Education/March 2005that “players need to connect with something larger than themselves” (p. 64).Jackson called this connection “mindfulness” (p. 118) or “being fully pres-ent in every moment” (p. 4). Jackson called on all teammates, coaches, andsupport staff to be fully present during game situations. Players then “devel-op an intuitive feel for how their movements and those of everyone else onthe floor are interconnected” (p. 91). Jackson knew that for this feeling tohappen “it must be owned by every single member of the group” (p. 100).Jackson had to turn the team into “dreamers to expand their vision of whatthey could become” (p. 105). Jackson felt that one way to develop this senseof clarity of vision was to share with them the Lakota war chant, hanta yo,which means “the spirit goes ahead of us” (p. 112). Jackson was beginningto share a personal spirituality with the team.To attain a sense of spirituality, Jackson used a “crazy-quilt” (p. 186)approach mixing different philosophies of religion and spirituality to createfor himself and the teams a “stillness of mind” (p. 117). Through Zen prac-tices, meditation, and a study of Lakota Native American warrior ways,Jackson personally and professionally created a leadership style rooted in a“sacred quest” (p. 12). From creating a Lakota themed room for team meet-ings to relating Taoist principles of “yielding to an opponent’s force in orderto render him powerless” (p. 136) to basketball, Jackson tried to help indi-vidual players attain a “subtle shift in consciousness” (p. 91). The textachieves Jackson’s goal of showing the link between the spirit of a playerand the performance of a team. Jackson’s strong leadership and strategies forcreating championship teams continues to succeed year after year.Catholic educational leaders, athletic directors, and coaches could bene-fit from the advice given by Jackson about management style. Unfortunately,the goal of being centered and mindful is disconcerting because of the eclec-tic variety of methods used by Jackson to attain this spirituality. AsCatholics, centeredness comes from sacraments, especially in the Eucharist.Our traditions of prayer become our foundation. To pick and choose one reli-gious practice from one tradition and merge it with many others from othertraditions is not only confusing but also takes away from the vision. Jacksonmentions that some teammates practice visualization while other choose notto. Michael Jordan maintains that “he didn’t need any of that Zen stuff” (p.174). Principals and those involved in athletics, whether athletic directors orcoaches, should remember that team members, whether faculty members,students, or players, do have a need to find centeredness in their respectiveroles. Often teams participate in liturgies or prayer services to prepare them-selves for a game. Faculties attend retreats each year. Prayer is prevalent inCatholic athletic activities. The power of Jackson’s message reminds us tokeep focus as part of our winning strategies whether in the classroom orcoaching our teams to victory. Our Catholic heritage tells us that the focusBOOK REVIEWS      395should be on Christ.Catholic educational leaders have a call to promote the faith develop-ment of a faculty or a team. Jackson’s management style, concentrating onvision and teamwork, is powerful and has proven successful. As leaders, theuse of these tools to achieve autonomy and focus are lofty goals shown to beattainable by Jackson, and Catholic religious practices and traditions cen-tered in Christ can act as a comforter to replace the “crazy-quilt” (p. 186)spirituality Jackson uses to motivate winning teams.Elizabeth Baker is principal at Nativity of Mary School in Independence, Missouri.THE SCHOOLS WE NEED AND WHYWE DON’T HAVE THEME. D. HIRSCH, JR.ANCHOR BOOKS, 1996$15.95, 317 pagesReviewed by Daniel TullyAcross the nation, workshops, professional development seminars, and col-lege courses are teaching educators to use inquiry learning, cooperativelearning, hands-on learning, discovery learning, and constructive techniquesto educate their students. The current emphasis on pedagogy is in teachingstudents how to learn how to learn. Teachers are called facilitators and mod-erators and any notion of rote learning or memorization is largely frownedupon. It is against this educational backdrop that Hirsch intends to bringabout a renewed emphasis on content–based learning in schools in TheSchools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them. With failing schools across the country, especially in minority and lowersocio-economic neighborhoods, the problem of inadequate education iswidespread. The reason, according to Hirsch, is not because of diversity,socio-economic status, or creativity in the classroom, but rather the fault lieswith European Romantic-era beliefs ushered in during the 19th century. For396 Catholic Education/March 2005

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