Yes Ma'am, No Sir: The 12 Essential Steps for Success in Life

ISBN-13: 9781455502349

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Publication Date: 02-20-2012

Pages: 256

Product Dimensions: 5.60(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

Ken Carter was previously Head Coach for Richmond High School (Richmond, CA), from 1997 - 2002. Coach Carter is best known for locking out his undefeated Varsity basketball team in order to push them to improve their grades, which was later featured in an MTV film, Coach Carter. Ken Carter is an advocate for Richmond's youth and is active in his community. In addition to coaching, Ken Carter is owner/operator of Prime Time Publications and Prime Time Sports. Coach Carter attended George Fox University, Oregon and has to his credit the following awards: Harvard Club's Distinguished Secondary Educator Award, NAACP's Impact Citizen of the Year Award, California State Lottery/Governor Gray Davis' Heroes in Education Award, San Francisco Mayor, Willie Brown's Leadership Award, California's Unsung Heroes Award, the A.N.G. California Boy's Coach of the Year Award, and has been presented with a Proclamation from the City of Richmond. He was recently honored as a recipient of CityFlight Newsmagazine's the "Ten Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area" for 2000 in the Sports category.

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Yes Ma'am, No Sir

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Chapter One

Why Leadership Matters

It was a surreal feeling to see part of my life played out on celluloid in the 2005 motion picture Coach Carter. The feelings from those years came rushing back, like water over a breached levee. With every scene, a sense of pride and accomplishment covered my body.

The apex of the movie, in particular, brought me right back to the emotions of that time and place: I locked out my Richmond High basketball team from the gymnasium, causing much upheaval. We just so happened to be the top-ranked team in 1999 in California at the time, making my decision all the more dramatic.

The reason I went to such an extreme measure? Not all the players were maintaining a 2.3 grade point average.

As a former athlete, I knew how much they lived for game day. It was everything. But I locked them out because, as their leader, I had to make them understand that what they did in the classroom was more important than on the basketball court.

I had given them a contract that called for them to maintain a 2.3 GPA, to attend all their classes, to sit in the front of the classroom, and to wear a white shirt and tie to school on every game day, among other edicts. They signed it, meaning they were bound by it.

My academic challenge was significant in this way: To get into college with a 2.0 GPA, the students would have been required to score 850 on the SAT. With a 2.3, the requirement on the SAT was about one hundred points less. And because scoring more on the SAT is harder than raising your GPA in school, it made sense to me to make that a contractual goal for the players.

But some of the players basked too brightly in our 13–0 record, and their grades dropped. When I received the progress reports, I was devastated. The team’s play had galvanized the school and the community. But I was also determined to use it as a teaching moment. So I locked the gym and canceled practices and games.

I was really tested then because the parents and even some of the faculty and administration at Richmond High were livid and did not agree with my actions. All of the kids had made the 2.0 GPA required by the district to be eligible to play. But not all of them had met the standards of the contract.

Some argued that the players who’d maintained at least a 2.3 average should have been allowed to play. But that worked against everything I was instilling in the players about being part of a team: We win together and we lose together.

Although my actions in pursuing the “lockout” stirred great controversy and initiated a national media firestorm, it seemed to be a simple matter to me.

My players had given me their word, and now some of them had broken it. And when I became their basketball coach, I had given the players my word that I would uphold the standards of behavior and classroom performance that I had established for membership on the basketball team. The idea of controversy had never occurred to me. I was simply doing what my father and mother had taught me to do: I was living up to my word, and I expected my players to do the same.

But my actions did attract controversy. Lots of it. Sadly, it was rare that an adult would go to extremes to teach young men the value of upholding their word. That is a sad, but true, fact. Because it was pretty much unheard of that a coach would lock out his players, my exploits were written about in newspapers and magazines and discussed on television talk shows across America.

I received thousands of letters of congratulations from parents, young people, teachers, and civic leaders everywhere who believed in my stance, and I was on national news shows talking about my position.

All that attention came down on me, but everything was about the young men. Even though we had won thirteen games in a row to start the season, I had to teach them the lesson of accountability. And I knew that lesson hit home when the school board voted, 4–2, to end the lockout and reopen the gym.

I was prepared to quit my position as coach. I was that committed to my beliefs. But when I got to the gym, the players—these young men who love to play the game—decided they would forfeit games as they worked to pull up their grades. I knew for sure how special they were—and that they were growing as young men.

We forfeited four games before the grades were raised to the standard. California Governor Gray Davis attended our first game after the lockout, and I was later named Educator of the Year by Harvard University. Still, I never lost sight of who the real stars were: my players, who were growing into leaders from the leadership they experienced with me.

That was the most satisfying element of our journey. To see their growth was amazingly rewarding. I said many times: I went to work at Richmond High, and Richmond High worked on me from 1997 to 2003. We grew together.

I remember being at odds with the producers of Coach Carter for months during filming. They kept saying, “Coach, you’ve got to win the last game [in the movie].” I was like, “No. If you lose in the playoffs, that’s the end. We wanted a storybook ending, but the reality was that we lost in the playoffs. And I wanted the movie to ring true. Plus, sometimes there is a bigger lesson in losing than winning.

They were saying, “How do we make this a winning movie? How do people leave the theater feeling good if you don’t win the last game?” I said, “Sir, look at what my boys have done off the court, in the classroom.”

And that was it.

That was bigger than anything else. That drove home the essence of leadership and the true purpose of our experience. Every player who played for me graduated. Every one. You come into a situation like I did, and you have to know it was bigger than basketball.

Sure, we wanted to win and we won a lot. But as the coach of the team, I had to be a leader. I had led in other areas of my life, and I had led myself. But this responsibility was enormous.

Richmond High was my school, in my community. I could see myself in those boys. It was important to establish that I cared, which was why I had them all sign the contract.

A significant part of the job was psychological. The boys were somewhat defeated in how they looked at life. They were unaware of the potential they possessed because few people let them know there was more out there for them.

This is why leadership matters—because someone needs to be led.

The contract they signed gave them parameters to work within, and I knew if they honored it, their self-esteem would be bolstered. I let it be known that it was a privilege to be a part of the team, to wear the uniform, to have the access that comes with being on the team.

It’s like anything big in life that you acquire: a car, a home, insurance—you have to sign a contract that gives you parameters to work within. See, I ran my team as a business. And the business was to get them to the next level.

Since I was the basketball coach, everyone thought the “next level” was all about getting the kids into college as basketball players. And no question about it, that was important in the scope of what I was doing.

But in this case, the “next level” meant growing as young men, being responsible, respecting themselves and the community, taking pride in doing for others. That was the “next level” of life for those boys.

People talk about finding a better life, but you first must find a better minute and then a better hour and then a better day and a better week and a better month on up to a better year. It is a process that does not happen rapidly. There are incremental steps that lead to overall growth.

My players took those steps, and it shows up in the great fathers they have become.

And see, that’s what leadership can do. It can make followers become leaders. That’s the reality. Everyone can’t be a leader at the same time; we would bump heads all day long. But you have to be a good follower to become a good leader.

More Than Just a Father

Chris Dixon was the toughest player I ever had. That kid was tough. And I’m tough. But I’m also an emotional coach. So I used to hug him. And at some point I stopped hugging him and he said, “Coach, you don’t love us anymore?”

I asked, “Why would you say that?” He said, “Because you don’t hug us anymore.”

I was like, “Wow.” That show of affection really mattered to him.

At the end of our practices, I used to take my son to the other end of the court and have some one-on-one instruction. Years later, Chris told me he was jealous of my time with my son because he never got that with his father.

But he also said, “You showed me how to be a good father.” I tell you, that is the best thing I can hear from those young men. Above all, that is the most rewarding part of coaching—helping boys distinguish between being a father and being a dad.

At the conception of a child, a man technically becomes a “father.” He contributed to the birth of a newborn and thereby earned that title. There are way too many “fathers” in the world and not enough dads.

A dad, I tried to instill in my players, was someone who took responsibility by being there for his child, providing financially and morally. Single moms have been incredible and, in some ways, the backbone of inner-city communities. My job was to arm my players with the strong reality that when the time came, they had to be “dads” and not just fathers.

That’s what they have become, I’m proud to say. Those who have fathered children have been incredible, committed dads, which is critical.

On my team, only seven of the forty-five young men I coached had dads in the home.

Those are alarming numbers. And when you throw in the fact that sixty-five percent of the young boys in inner cities believe they will play some type of professional sports, then we are really talking about the value of preparing them for a harsh reality.

This is why leadership matters. Everyone cannot be a leader of others. And many do not realize they can lead themselves.

But once they experience leadership, they are then able to take ownership of their own lives and lead it where they want it to go, where it deserves to go.

The direction your life takes should be led by you! In the grand scheme of life, everyone can have leadership of his or her own life.

Everyone can, but not everyone does.

If your family is anything like mine, you have at least one relative that grown folks talk about with misguided admiration.

“Your cousin Michael is so smart and so talented. He can do anything he wants to do.”

The problem is, Michael has not done much. He seemed smart enough and blessed with a particular skill set. He showed enough effort for his family to speak proudly about his potential. But Michael is twenty-nine years old and still has not distinguished himself as a professional beyond his family, which means he has underachieved.

But why?

As a kid growing up in McComb, Mississippi, that was a question that pricked my young brain: Why do some people achieve and others don’t?

The question puzzled me for years. Finally, I understood.

The difference is distinctive: It’s all in the way we think.

Receiving What You Deserve

We all are good at something, and yet all of us do not cultivate our strengths. Forget about weaknesses. Why waste time on weaknesses when we have strengths that we can build on?

I’m inspired each day by life. I’m blessed with the start of a new day, which is an opportunity to do something great. That’s all about leading yourself to what you deserve. The way you think.

That’s an important thing because life is less about wanting what you want and more about having a sense of accomplishment to desire what you deserve and the will to achieve it. If you work hard and put in the effort and extend yourself, you have earned the rewards of such a commitment. That’s true whether you achieve your goals or not. But I believe you will find that with the proper mind-set and a commitment to put in the work, attaining the goals is realistic. It is important that you not let anyone tell you differently.

And that’s all about how you think. Do you really want more for yourself? Most people are complacent about life, unwilling to think beyond doing what they always have done.

It would be one thing if what you wanted rang your doorbell and waited for you to come outside to get it. But of course, it does not work that way.

The way it can work with gratifying results is to establish a mind-set of accomplishment, of success. Do something.

The first game I ever coached was my son Damien’s team when he was in the fifth grade, in 1992. He was playing in a CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) league. I was content going to the games and seeing my son have fun playing basketball.

But one day the coach got into a car accident. They had lost the first five games, and the people drafted me out of the stands to take his place. “You were a star in high school and college—come on and coach these boys,” they said.

There wasn’t any room for me to refuse. We were about to play the No. 1 team. So I took those boys outside and found a flowerbed and put dirt on their faces. I said, “This is magic dirt. As long as you have this dirt on your faces, you can’t be defeated.”

And I got them all riled up and gave them a little instruction in the dirt outside, put them in certain positions on the court. When we came back into the gym, all the mothers called their boys over and had their handkerchiefs out. “Come here, baby,” they said. “Let me get the dirt off.”

I said, “No, let it alone, that’s magic dirt.” And the boys said, “Ma, Coach Carter said I should keep this on. It’s magic dirt.”

I told the kids, “If you can plant a seed in the ground and it grows beautiful like this rosebush here, if we put some of that on us, we’re going to be like the rosebush.”

So we went out and ended up winning the game by ten points. And one of the kids had never made a shot all year, not even in practice. He came down and threw up a shot from almost half court and it went in. And you could not tell him that wasn’t the magic dirt working.

That was all about the way I think. Everybody needs something or someone to believe in. The only thing around was a flowerbed. I thought about that flowerbed and what it could mean for those growing children so quickly and so effectively that I taught myself something, which was great because I thrive on learning something new.

What I learned was this: If you plant a good seed in fertile ground, you’re going to get something good from it. That’s the way our lives are. Our lives are fertile, so it’s all about what we plant in them. The universe doesn’t care. It’s going to give you back an abundance of whatever you plant.

There are Universal Laws that, in general, represent a set of principles that govern every aspect of the universe and are the means by which some believe our world and the entire cosmos continue to exist, thrive, and expand.

I have my own set of principles, which I call Coach Carter Laws:

• Law of Wisdom: We must use our experiences to build knowledge.

• Law of Harmony: We must get along with others.

• Law of Personal Evolution: We must understand our shortcomings and grow.

• Law of Free Will: We must take advantage of the opportunity to impact others.

• Law of Fellowship: We must respect the power of convening with friends.

• Law of Attraction: We must understand those people and/or things that appeal to us.

• Law of Unconditional Love: We must give love freely.

• Law of Divine Order: Some things are beyond your control.

• Law of Cause and Effect: We must understand the ramifications of our actions.

• Law of Compensation: Time is money.

COACH CARTER CARROT: THE NICKEL AND THE NAIL

As a kid, when I was able to earn a nickel, I would put a nail in my pocket with the nickel in there so they could rattle, make some noise. It was just a nickel’s worth of money in my pocket, but it made me feel better psychologically because it sounded like more. Sometimes we just need something as a slump-buster to make us feel better.

We have to plant things in our fertile minds and bodies and let them grow in us to be successful.

Success many times is built on experiences. My players at Richmond High did not have many positive experiences on which to draw. In fact, most of those kids had never been outside Richmond, which meant their view of the world was foggy at best, totally distorted at worst.

So there were times when I would cancel practice and take them to Silicon Valley and meet millionaires. At that time, in 1999, my third year at Richmond High, Silicon Valley had two hundred millionaires per square mile. So it was fertile ground for my players to see living examples of wealth and potential.

We would ride out there—forty-five strong—and I would see a businessman on the street and introduce myself. I would let him know I had the freshmen, junior varsity, and varsity players from our school with me and we wanted to come in and see their offices and how they work. Or we would just show up at an office. No appointment. No warning. Just show up.

And I was never once turned down.

My thought process was simple: You sometimes have to see it to believe it.

Stepping Outside the Box

They saw the possibilities that lay ahead for them if they took the proper course and went about it the right way. In fact, some of my players ended up having internships at those very companies we visited.

We also would visit Redwood National Park, where the bark literally is a deep red and the trees grow so huge you can actually drive a car through some. One of the kids said, “I didn’t know there were forests here.”

They learned that redwood trees grow as tall as three hundred feet and twenty feet in diameter—and that California is the only place in the world where they grow. It was an adventure to take them to that serene setting—something totally opposite the strife many of them faced daily at home.

In another way to relieve the players from what at times could be chaos in Richmond, I used to take the boys out for team dinners. At the first one, two kids picked up their steaks with their hands. They were used to everything they ate coming out of a fast-food bag. But we didn’t laugh. We taught.

The next move was apparent to me: Set up etiquette classes for the boys. I wanted them to know how to comport themselves in particular situations. The classes were thorough and beneficial—and the players loved it. They learned about where the silverware should be placed on the table, the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork, and so on—things they never knew mattered and things that would serve them well in the future.

All of this came down to one thing: The boys were underexposed. And if you’re underexposed, then you are limited—in what you do and how you think. How could I, as a teacher and coach, allow them to stay unaware and uneducated? I couldn’t.

So we got them exposed. I took them to San Francisco to work on the reelection campaign of former Mayor Willie Brown—another experience that had nothing to do directly with basketball but everything to do with life and the spirit of working together for a common cause.

Mayor Brown was the ideal figure for our kids to see. He was regal; when he walked into a room, all eyes were on him. His presence demanded your attention. I had this expression I used with our players: “If you’re talking or thinking about talking, you’re not listening.”

But this was one time I did not have to worry. Not one of our kids said a word. They felt the magnitude of his presence. Everyone did.

He was bigger than the mayor of the largest city in Northern California. More than that, he showed everyone what success looked like.

He wore what had to be a tailor-made dark suit with a crisp, heavily starched white shirt that was monogrammed with his initials, elegant cuff links, a beautiful navy-and-red-striped necktie, and a pair of the most fashionable, shiny black shoes that likely came from an exclusive shop on Union Square in San Francisco. He topped his ensemble with a black fedora hat with a light brown, white, and red feather on the side.

Then there was Mr. James Brady, a technology executive who was a part of Mayor Brown’s campaign. He was just as magnetic, but in a different way. Mr. Brady wore a button-down white silk shirt, black flowing slacks, and stylish black shoes. He sported an eye-catching watch, an understated gold necklace, and a pinky ring. He looked straight off the pages of GQ magazine. He was very subtle, but sharp, and you could tell he was an athlete in his day.

A very intelligent man, Mr. Brady spoke to our kids in a language they understood, and he and his wife, Deborah, were always there for us. Deborah Brady, in fact, gave our kids another perspective on success. Dressed elegantly in a beautiful dress, with complementary pearls around her neck, Mrs. Brady personified style, class, and status. She was perhaps the only female executive the boys had encountered at that point in their lives. Through her they received the first understanding that there are women of power, too.

So our kids were happy to work on the campaign, traveling through precincts distributing literature, and generally being a part of something special that they will remember all their lives.

Prior to that, we had juniors and seniors on our team who had never even been to San Francisco, which from Richmond is twenty minutes by car, thirty minutes by bus, thirty-five minutes by BART (the train system), and forty minutes by ferry. There were four ways to get there, but the kids did not know how—or even know to aspire to go anywhere at all.

From the Richmond shore, you can see the prodigious Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, and the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. And yet they seemed so far to our kids. They basically lived in a six-to seven-block radius in Richmond.

So, my job was more about teaching than coaching. We traveled with forty-five kids because there were fifteen players on all three levels of teams: varsity, junior varsity, and freshmen. If you were in our program, you were in our program.

The next year we had the team dinner, there were freshmen who picked up their steaks with their hands, and the two who had done it the previous year schooled those kids on what to do. That’s why leadership is important—kids learn how to become leaders.

One of the things that really hurt me when I returned to Richmond High was the obvious lack of pride in the look of the building or hallways. The kids simply did not care how filthy or how much disarray it was in. They would be two feet from a trashcan and throw stuff on the floor. Two feet away.

The walls had graffiti on them. The bathrooms were just disgusting. There were leaks. It was a mess. As a test, I put a soda can on the floor in the boys’ bathroom to see if anyone would pick it up.

The can stayed there for three weeks, which speaks to the lack of janitorial services and the students’ disregard for the building.

I then had my players take on some responsibility for keeping the school in order. I assigned the freshmen team the front of the school, the junior varsity the middle of the school, and the varsity the back. They picked up trash and worked to keep things in order. They took on these assignments with pride—they enjoyed being leaders for the first time in their lives.

At the same time, I would not allow my players to take on that responsibility by themselves. The conditions were so bad at Richmond High that I knew something dramatic had to happen to get the attention of government to make much-needed changes.

So in 2000, I created “Scooting for Schools,” an event where I traveled by scooter from Richmond to the state capital in Sacramento—a seventy-two-mile trek up Interstate 80 North. Now, this was not a motorized scooter. It was one of those scooters from your childhood, where you had one foot on the device and used the other to push off the ground to create momentum.

I could have come up with some other way to draw the attention of lawmakers, who needed to hear about the conditions of our school—and others—and do something about it. But I wanted to challenge myself. Also, I wanted to hammer home the point to my kids the importance of making a commitment and taking the initiative on important matters.

It was a grueling adventure, more difficult than I’d imagined. It took me three tough days to get there, but it was worth the effort.

My adventure became huge news. Media outlets from all over covered it—there was even a news helicopter that followed me some of the way—which was the best thing that could happen because it put pressure on legislators and a lot of kind, caring people learned about our plight.

I was just being me. A lot of people talked—or really, complained—about things. I did something. I started out at eight in the morning, before school. I slathered my feet in Vaseline to minimize blisters and donned thick socks and comfortable Nikes, black shorts, and a Richmond High sweatshirt. I also wore a helmet and pads. I was ready.

I started at the school, and my players and some students ran alongside me the first half mile or so before returning to school. Then, it was just me and the road—and a horde of media types that followed.

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Excerpted from Yes Ma'am, No Sir by Carter, Coach Copyright © 2012 by Carter, Coach. Excerpted by permission.
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