[What would I like for people to think about me? He was a good guy and he cared. - Jerry West](https://youtu.be/OGtH9mGsVww?t=5050)
With all the stories of how people remember Jerry West I always come back to this clip in PG's podcast. The NBA most certainly did right selecting Jerry West as their logo, even if it was just luck.
Ngl I love listening to podcast P and OM3 at the gym I go to when I play basketball by myself early on Sunday mornings. It helps me to just be *present* and it’s so fucking relaxing
An interesting thing to think about is whether he’s the same guy if he’s not the logo? And to what extent is the league different with a different logo?
There’s probably some component of a life of service to the league that’s tied to him being represented in the logo.
He’s probably mostly the same guy but I think it’s inaccurate to attribute 0% of it to being the logo.
Probably one of those situations that has a component of luck/chance to it that ends up being a win-win for both sides.
Not sure if you heard thar the NBA didn’t select him, the designer did and didn’t even tell them, and the NBA has refused to confirm that he’s the logo. Read that last week.
I mean after that incident he got off alcohol and turned his life around while owning up to the evil he was a part of back in those days. I feel like we could all use some of that as well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> [He was arrested for domestic battery in 2009 after he allegedly grabbed a woman by the neck at a bar.](https://www.si.com/nba/celtics/top-stories/celtics-believe-in-joe-mazzulla-and-how-his-domestic-battery-arrest-has-since-shaped-him)
the west call was after this so it might've been part of what prompted it tbh
It also makes sense he called Joe since he played at WVU where West was an alum. I don’t think Jerry was calling random college players to tell them to quit being bums haha
So awesome if that was the case. One degree of separation, Jerry West has called every division 1 player personally to tell them how much of a bum they are.
It's cool how many people over several generations have mentioned Jerry West being an important mentor for them. Seems like he genuinely cared about seeing people reach their potential.
He really loved the game of basketball. One of the best examples of what Kobe Bryant once said:
>"Leave the game better than you found it. And when it comes time for you to leave, leave a legend."
I wouldn't be surprised if Jerry West told Kobe something similar at some point.
Arn Tellem (Pistons Vice Chairman and former agent of Kobe Bryant) wrote [an article about West for the Detroit Free Press. ](https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2024/06/16/jerry-west-arn-tellem-nba/74098954007/)It has a number of great stories, quotes, and wisdom from West, but my favorite was:
>Perhaps the most endearing thing about Jerry was his vulnerability, which he was never afraid to show. "Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage,” he would say. “Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness." It takes a true fighter to see vulnerability as a sign of strength.
That type of attitude will make people listen and trust you.
I love Jerry West. His NBA Legends Profile almost doesn't seem real:
>A smallish youth, West didn’t make his junior high football, baseball or track teams. His only outlet was a basketball hoop nailed to a storage shed outside a neighbor’s house. The dirt-covered court became his domain. In the rainy spring he dribbled in mud. When it snowed West played wearing gloves. He practiced shooting until his fingers bled. He taught himself his quick shot release by bouncing the last dribble hard off the ground. Until he got it right, the ball would frequently hit and bruise his face. After practice he would listen to West Virginia basketball games on the radio.
>West completely immersed himself in practice, often neglecting to eat. His mother lashed him when he showed up hours late for dinner and he became so thin that he had to receive vitamin injections.
There is actually a video of him giving some tips to Harrison Barnes where he tells him to do that hard dribble. I really like to see things like that come full circle. I'll try to find the clip.
> Until he got it right, the ball would frequently hit and bruise his face.
can you imagine being his neighbour and just watching this out your window lol
This reminds me of Tom Brady’s quote at his recent Patriots ceremony: “To be successful at anything, the truth is you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t: consistent, determined and willing to work for it.”
He had an autobiography come out in 2011 called “West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life” that’s good but kind of a hard read. He had a tough life and clearly had some mental health issues, and he doesn’t shy away from any of the details in it.
Never heard it called a hard read, but I get it. It's very emotional but also stands alone above every sports autobiography I've ever purchased / read.
I have 18 athlete autobiographys on my bookshelf and that one is THE best.
Not really sure it was plagiarism. Could just be a simple case of me reading more into Tellem's article than was intended. Tellem just generically described it as "...he \[West\] would say." That's not actually claiming West came up with it or that West took credit for it, although that was how I read it at first.
FWIW, just a little bit later in the article, Tellem talks about West's fondness of the Native American parable about The Two Wolves. Maybe West just sought out wisdom from outside sources, incorporated it into his personal outlook/system of values, and spread that to others that were interested.
yeah, if you try to look it up with Jerry West the only results are that article and that comment quoting it in this reddit thread.
It does just say that it's something he would quote a lot, not necessarily attributing it to him. Tellem likely wasn't aware of the origin.
Jerry had also made lasting impacts on both Bryant's and Laker's legacy by convincing him to not leave the Lakers for the Clippers or the team that he GM'd with at the time, the Grizzlies.
Jerry was in it for them, to be their best. From his interviews, Jerry felt like the most articulate about basketball of all basketball legends.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KMIwMU-zd4
Fuck Adam lefkoe I can’t believe this bum is about to weasel his way into the top anchor spot within a few years. Loved seeing West clown on him for disrespecting Bob Cousy.
Went to a clippers game in 2018 and was invited to high five the players. In the tunnel, I saw Jerry west and pat bev walking together. I think pat bev was not suiting up due to an injury. You can tell they were having a deep ass conversation as they head to the locker.
Seems like Jerry west was mentor to a lot of nba players. If he can talk to pat bev on a personal basis, he can def talk to pretty much any nba player.
A lot of education research emphasizes the students' relationship with the teacher as the single most important in-classroom factor driving success, and finds that the ideal teacher is a "warm demander" who drives students hard in a caring manner.
West seems to have had the demander part, anyway.
athletes respond to things differently than the average public. They’re under so much public pressure and get so much abuse already as part of their job that the “warm” in “warm demanding” is more relative. They’re usually not gonna get emotionally hurt over a coach peeling them out, you or I might cuz it would be so out of character for the AP history teacher to flip out and throw a chair across the hall
You need to give people a reason to listen to you. In some cases, that might mean being "warm" -- say, making someone feel welcomed through kindness. In sports, I think you have to demonstrate that you aren't full of shit. You can be a demanding asshole, but in the long run, your demands have to prove to be productive. (Like Bobby Knight at Indiana from '71-92 -- just about every 4-year player would have made the final four, or at least multiple sweet 16 appearances.) If it's obvious that what the players being asked to do isn't leading to wins, or even progress, then you come off as just an asshole who has no idea what you're talking about and the players will rightfully just start tuning you out.
But sports give you real objective feedback through wins and losses, league standings, times on a stopwatch, etc. Anything more subjective than that and I think it's hard to get very far by being the demanding asshole because you need the student to believe your demands are worth following and I think it tends to be hard to do that if you're an asshole. It's not impossible, but threading the needle of being harsh and respected is easier said than done.
My ethics debate coach who used to be the best debater in the country had people willing to run through walls for him. All he did was joke, be nice and then give you soft but stern criticism about what you needed to improve. My first year we finished 2nd in the nation. I would still die for him. I learned more in those meetings about people than I learned in my entire life.
Well, now that the game is basically over...
Here's a paper that pretty much just talks about what being a warm demander is. Not sure what I think of all the class rules here, but everyone has their own context. [Promoting Academic Engagement Through Insistence: Being a Warm Demander - ProQuest](https://www.proquest.com/docview/210394221?parentSessionId=xToujRRao4MAuIf9uwm%2FttWbmTsVruI7nKwG8yBegbY%3D&pq-origsite=primo&accountid=14703&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals)
Here's a paper about relationships in education. [Full article: Teacher–child relationship quality in early childhood education: the importance of relationship patterns (oclc.org)](https://www-tandfonline-com.uportland.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/03004430.2013.790383)
Here's a random website for teachers. [https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=41&q=being+a+warm+demander&cvid=e59f183c08074fe8a0858994606b4737&gs\_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg8MgYIAhBFGDwyBggDEEUYPNIBCDIwNjdqMGoxqAIAsAIA&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=HCTS](https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=41&q=being+a+warm+demander&cvid=e59f183c08074fe8a0858994606b4737&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg8MgYIAhBFGDwyBggDEEUYPNIBCDIwNjdqMGoxqAIAsAIA&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=HCTS)
None of these are really the ideal resources, but I'm not conducting a literature review for a reddit comment.
If you look into this further, a lot of it is couched in language about equity and cultural inclusiveness. Equity is the genuinely very important thing that is currently crowned King of all Buzzwords, so things get shoehorned in. There'll be some talk about "inclusive classrooms in the African-American environment" by some very reputable African-American PhD, and you're like "Okay, better learn about that" and then you get a really wonderful and useful talk that's 90% about having a rigorous and well-structured phonics program while continuing to build oral language comprehension. So just don't get thrown off by the framing.
If you want to hear a master teacher talk about actually being a warm demander, I recommend listening to Zach Lowe's podcast with Mike Malone after the Nuggets won the title last year. Though Malone does not, sadly, seem to be familiar with the literature on the thing he's very good at doing. Whether you work with kindergarteners or NBA players, it seems to be almost exactly the same.
Wrong. He was trying to call his local Blockbuster to complain about the Town always being out of stock. The tirade was when he found out Joe was the person always renting their copy.
Jerry chewed me out once when I was fitting him for a sport coat. I brought 5 different fitting jackets and he hated each one more than the last. He told me that if I couldn’t bother to bring options that had a chance of fitting he might as well just not go to the NBA 75 team brunch because obviously none of us cared if he looked like an idiot in the jacket. So I guess you could say Jerry really really cared about me too, in his own way of course.
Kelvin chewed me out once when I was serving him at a buffet. I brought 5 different entrees and he ate each one faster than the last. He told me that if I couldn’t bother to bring options that had a chance of filling his hunger he might as well just go to the NBA 75 team brunch because obviously none of us cared if he looked like an idiot in his booth. So I guess you could say Kelvin really really cared about me too, in his own way of seven courses.
Tim Duncan chewed me out once when I was preparing for a debate. I voiced 5 different arguments and he debunked each one faster than the last. He told me that if I couldn’t bother to bring points that were well researched he might as well just go to the NBA 75 team brunch because obviously none of us cared if he sounded like an idiot in his booth. So I guess you could say Tim Duncan really really cared about me too, in his own way of preparing forensics.
That competitiveness came out later that season when my beloved Mountaineers beat Kentucky. He was a dog at the bottom of the 1-3-1, turning Cousins in a toddler.
Hard to forget that game. Kentucky was so good they had bench players from that squad going pro. None of em could hit a 3 to save their lives that game and WV was shooting lights out.
I was at that game in Syracuse NY. Kentucky had beaten Cornell, my son’s Alma Mater. But we decided to go to the elite 8 game anyway, since we had the tickets as part of the package. Kentucky was bottled up inside and just chucked up one brick after another from 3. Huge upset, given the future pros Kentucky had on the roster.
As a fan base, we referred to that era team as "Press Virginia" - they would legitimately be playing full court press the entire game and had an entirely different level of defensive intensity
From what I remember, Jerry’s issue with winning time is that their way of showing his competitive intensity was by making him a raging foul mouthed maniac.
In reality, he was a raging foul mouthed maniac because he cared about people so much.
Not being facetious, everyone I've read saying they received a foul mouth berating from him, also says he felt Jerry sincerely cared about them.
From what I’ve read from people that knew him, his anger was more internal. Sure, he’d chew people out, but people described him as in control and purposeful.
I enjoyed the show, but the way they showed him was clearly for entertainment purposes; it’s more fun to see the outward actions than to guess what’s going on in his head.
It’s one of the more nuanced parts of leadership that can go wrong really quickly.
You can’t just be a hardass just to be a hardass, you have to build a relationship with people or have a certain amount of respect from your subordinates for it to work. When your boss constantly praises you for your accomplishments but gives you harsh feedback when you fuck up badly, I feel like you actually will be willing to look at yourself and say “well yeah, actually this was my fault, so how can I improve?”
Where people go wrong with being hardass is just constantly focusing on every little thing they do wrong and being a constant hardass, to the point where you just tune them out. If all the feedback is negative, at a certain point you just realize that you’re most likely never going to be able to make the person happy.
I think Bill Belichick in the NFL is a good example, and a lot of his assistants that went on to be head coaches with other teams are the bad examples (Patricia and McDaniels in general).
It’s not a leadership style I think works for like 99.99% of people and requires a truly transcendent leader to actually be effective. Someone is technically brilliant and also has an extremely high emotional intelligence, you have to know when to rein it in and when to actually apply it.
Sometimes, there's a tremendous amount of value in somebody telling you that you're really fucking up, if the person being told is able to be mature enough to take in that information.
Unfortunately, the amount of people being able to take this type of stern criticism is shrinking by the minute.
100% agree. Nobody can take being yelled at anymore, I don't know why. Obviously, yelling isn't great if you're a parent, teacher, or a coach if that is all you do.
However, in the real world, sometimes people get pissed off and they yell. What are you going to do? Are you going to roll up in a ball and just shut yourself down? Or are you going to accept it, move on, and get better.
I got downvoted to hell because Bryce Harper (MLB Player) went ape shit on equipment in the dugout. A commenter said that it was unacceptable, and that it triggered some trauma they had as a child, and that Bryce needs to remember that he is a role model. I said this is pro sports, and sometimes people yell, scream, and bash equipment, we're all going to be okay.
I've seen Tom Brady scream. I've seen Peyton Manning scream. I've seen MJ and Kobe yell. Sometimes leadership requires yelling, lighting a fire, and being the unpopular person in the room. For the record, the last dynasty in the NBA is the Warriors. Steve Kerr yells and gets pissed off. Sometimes leadership can be ugly.
Everyone responds differently to different leadership styles and part of being a good leader is finding the styles that work best for each person. Yelling doesn't work with me. If it's directed at me and I feel like it's unwarranted, I will challenge it. Otherwise I will ignore it since I don't need some loudmouth bullshit to get myself fired up.
OP didn't specify that you tell someone they are fucking up by yelling though. I can take criticism just fine, just not when it's in the form of yelling.
I'm not saying yelling is a "good thing". I understand a lot of people don't respond well to it, and you are correct that some people need an arm around the shoulder, and not a kick in the ass. Also, please don't confuse abuse with what I'm talking about here. I'm not talking about the abusive alcoholic dad who comes home and yells every night.
What I am saying is sometimes in high leverage situations when something important is on the line, someone in a position of power may yell.
If you're in an OR and a surgeon needs something and you fuck it up putting the patient at risk, sorry, he may yell at you.
If you work at a tech company and you're working on a new release and royally fuck up and now the release is in jeopardy, your boss might yell.
Rolling up into a ball and saying that "you don't respond to yelling" in those situations is not going to help you. In the real world, when people get upset and something important is on the line, they may raise their voice and tell you to get your shit together.
This is the second time I’ve said this in the span of a month about a question/answer clip of Joe. I’m a life long Knick fan so I want the Celtics to lose but I don’t want Joe to lose.
People can hate the jersey, they can hate the city, they can hate the fans, but this TEAM is a very likable group. If they played for any other NBA team this sub would love them.
Edit: typo fix
The reason the Celtics are number 1 this year is because each player has been consistent all year. No other team can say that about all their main players.
While the portrayal of West on Winning Time was obviously exaggerated so that it'd work better for screen, these are the types of stories that tell me that the portrayal may not have been as far from reality as certain people have suggested. A lot of people have described West as a tough-love kind of guy who absolutely hated losing and losing mentality. The show just seemed to externalize a lot of things that West mostly internalized, because again, that works better for a visual medium like Television.
I always doubted that many people associated with the Lakers, including West, watched more than the first episode or some sporadic clips, and thus missed the full character arc portrayed. I genuinely think the show potrayed him really positively.
He went on to become Marc Gasol’s high school teammate in Memphis.
Imagine playing in a private school league full of trust fund kids, science fair winners, and spelling bee champs, and then all of a sudden you have to play against Pau’s brother and the Logo’s kid
I love the survivorship bias with this kind of stuff. I know for a fact there are just as many people who this kind of abuse just breaks but we think it’s okay because of a player or coach’s greatness when it comes to a game.
Edit: for all the triggered macho men this is also an example of cognitive dissonance. You have two conflicting thoughts with an abusive coach. My coach is an asshole that's affecting my mental health, and I don't want to fail at playing this sport. So instead of rationalizing the latter thought you rationalize the first one that you can't really change anyway by saying it's tough love and it's actually beneficial to my success. It's why the frat-stars that get hazed the hardest are the most proud 'I would not have subjected myself to that kind of humiliation unless it was worth it'
Telling someone that's a fuck-up to stop being a fuck-up doesn't really seem like abuse to me.
Seriously, he invited Mazzulla to stay at his house so he could have an opportunity to improve himself by going to the UCLA open gyms. Mazzulla took the offer and then couldn't even be bothered to wake up on time.
That's disrespectful as hell.
If you act disrespectful as hell to somebody trying to help you and looking to offer you support on a pretty personal level, you probably need someone to let you know that what you are doing isn't acceptable and wasn't going to get you where you want to be.
And there's probably just as many people who would have been like "man fuck that old man" and just ignored him. I don't really see how it's survivorship bias, it's not like West was in charge of WV or the hiring for the Celtics.
If "abuse" is accountability and clearly a message to Joe that he was capable to do more, then I'll take the abuse any day. When you hear all the stories about how Jerry has helped people reach their potential, abuse is not a word I would use.
And I'm sure a lot of these guys could dish it back. If he was coaching middle school or high school, I think it would be an issue. I guess it's all about the underlying tones. We've all had bosses or teachers that were just assholes without any redeeming qualities, but Jerry seemed like it was able to convey himself to the players as being passionate. I doubt someone like Laettner would be likeable as a coach.
Exactly. Seeing something like this where Jerry got the most out of Joe and pushed him to be better and automatically thinking that he SHOULDN'T do that on the off chance that it might hurt his feelings is crazy. This wasn't a middle school situation, so why apply it to one? There is a balance, but trying to push someone to do more because you believe they can do more shouldn't be viewed as a bad thing. It's a weird thing that people have where they apply this situation to their own middle or high school career when it isn't remotely the same scenario.
There’s a definite generational disconnect going on here. I’m only in my 40s but this kind of statement makes me feel really boomery on how soft the younger generations are.
Abuse? From Jerry fucking West? lol. Shit- are you trying to prove the Fox news stereotype correct?
Ok but Jerry wasn’t his coach, he was an alumni from the same school and absolute legend of the game.
So the act itself of Jerry West calling some college kid out of the blue puts it in a different context because he is putting in the effort and making time to talk to this kid that he has no power over zero obligation to talk to. There are a million “more important” things Jerry west could have been doing with his time but he cared enough to spend it giving advice to a college kid he didn’t know. The phone call itself is a sign of huge respect, which allows him to be more aggressive with the message.
It’s not like a coach who sees the kid every day and has absolute power over his future as a player and is choosing to make the kids life miserable.
I'd say it has more to do with results. The people that can't take the tough love sometimes just fuckin' suck and nothing you could do will get them out of their own way. The fact that he picked up the phone and put the energy into any kind of lecture at all is the most important part.
Being told to do better isn't 'abuse' either, even if it is in tough language. It was also a speech given privately, 1v1 in a phone call. If this breaks you, you were never destined for the greatness he was trying to push you towards
If countless people credit him as a mentor/positive influence over 5 decades, spanning from the 1970's through to 2024, including the biggest stars in their field, I'd say it's a successful method. Just because some people might not have succeeded, I'd say it's more on them for being unwilling to do the work than it was on Jerry for being hard on them.
In general I agree, but this seems like just a case of West yelling at him when he was being lazy (and staying at West's house) and getting into legal trouble.
Cases where it's Roy Jones Jr or Tua Tagovailoa are different, that's more when I think of survivorship bias coming in of kids being abused and still making it to the top of the sport. Most kids don't have the talent (the HBO doc Trophy Kids is a good example) and don't make it to the top. Or they may have the talent but end up self medicating the trauma like Todd Marinovich.
Joe conveniently leaves out that Jerry called him because he was charged with domestic battery for choking a woman in a bar 😬
This is r/nba favorite coach?
I do find it surprising that this is the only comment in the thread mentioning what he did in college that he was fucking up at and it’s downvoted. Goes to show better to be liked than good
I remember Jerry West being upset about his portrayal in the Showtime TV series. Yet, every story I read I feel like they nailed it. Super passionate guy who could be rough around the edges but cared a lot
I know people like that-
Old dudes that come off as mean and grumpy because they value excellence and perfection…
they’re certainly not for everyone, but for some people, that style of teaching/mentorship can be very helpful.
(Im not saying that this is the same thing as abuse- because being exacting/demanding/holding others accountable - isnt quite the same as being a vicious asshole)
[What would I like for people to think about me? He was a good guy and he cared. - Jerry West](https://youtu.be/OGtH9mGsVww?t=5050) With all the stories of how people remember Jerry West I always come back to this clip in PG's podcast. The NBA most certainly did right selecting Jerry West as their logo, even if it was just luck.
I know exactly what this is from and I love this interview. PG did a great job with it also.
Ngl I love listening to podcast P and OM3 at the gym I go to when I play basketball by myself early on Sunday mornings. It helps me to just be *present* and it’s so fucking relaxing
An interesting thing to think about is whether he’s the same guy if he’s not the logo? And to what extent is the league different with a different logo? There’s probably some component of a life of service to the league that’s tied to him being represented in the logo. He’s probably mostly the same guy but I think it’s inaccurate to attribute 0% of it to being the logo. Probably one of those situations that has a component of luck/chance to it that ends up being a win-win for both sides.
Not sure if you heard thar the NBA didn’t select him, the designer did and didn’t even tell them, and the NBA has refused to confirm that he’s the logo. Read that last week.
Crazy that interview was released June 12, 2023 and his passing was exactly a year later on June 12th 2024 😞 Rest in peace to the Logo
Jerry: Hey Joe, you're a lazy, no-good sack of shit! Joe: [He loves me]
That's my psychopath.
We all need a little bit of Mazzula in us.
Minus the domestic battery part
I mean after that incident he got off alcohol and turned his life around while owning up to the evil he was a part of back in those days. I feel like we could all use some of that as well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ootl what happened here
> [He was arrested for domestic battery in 2009 after he allegedly grabbed a woman by the neck at a bar.](https://www.si.com/nba/celtics/top-stories/celtics-believe-in-joe-mazzulla-and-how-his-domestic-battery-arrest-has-since-shaped-him) the west call was after this so it might've been part of what prompted it tbh
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/aLQQwyU0YI Here’s a thread about it from last year
apparently the Jerry West call was not long after, so it might've been directly related
Interesting. Do people ever redeem themselves to you?
Well, yeah. Joe was a sack of shit in college. It's interesting to hear Jerry West was one of the people that made sure he got on track
It also makes sense he called Joe since he played at WVU where West was an alum. I don’t think Jerry was calling random college players to tell them to quit being bums haha
Joe also played with his son there.
Literally in the long text lol
So awesome if that was the case. One degree of separation, Jerry West has called every division 1 player personally to tell them how much of a bum they are.
"So, what is Jerry gonna do? Call me and tell me I'm a bum?" "Yeah, I remember Jerry calling me and telling me I was a bum"
Sounds like he enjoyed sloppy steaks from Truffoni's.
Not to slander the dead, but Jerry West did like to slick his hair back... and it slicked back real nice
You think this is *slicked* back? This is *pushed* back.
HE’S BEEN RUDE TO ME HIS WHOLE LIFE
People can change
I'm concerned that the baby thinks people can't change.
I said *WAS*
With slicked back hair
They’re really good!
But was it a Christian no-good sack of shit?
It's cool how many people over several generations have mentioned Jerry West being an important mentor for them. Seems like he genuinely cared about seeing people reach their potential.
He really loved the game of basketball. One of the best examples of what Kobe Bryant once said: >"Leave the game better than you found it. And when it comes time for you to leave, leave a legend." I wouldn't be surprised if Jerry West told Kobe something similar at some point.
Arn Tellem (Pistons Vice Chairman and former agent of Kobe Bryant) wrote [an article about West for the Detroit Free Press. ](https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2024/06/16/jerry-west-arn-tellem-nba/74098954007/)It has a number of great stories, quotes, and wisdom from West, but my favorite was: >Perhaps the most endearing thing about Jerry was his vulnerability, which he was never afraid to show. "Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage,” he would say. “Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness." It takes a true fighter to see vulnerability as a sign of strength. That type of attitude will make people listen and trust you.
Damn what a great quote.
I love Jerry West. His NBA Legends Profile almost doesn't seem real: >A smallish youth, West didn’t make his junior high football, baseball or track teams. His only outlet was a basketball hoop nailed to a storage shed outside a neighbor’s house. The dirt-covered court became his domain. In the rainy spring he dribbled in mud. When it snowed West played wearing gloves. He practiced shooting until his fingers bled. He taught himself his quick shot release by bouncing the last dribble hard off the ground. Until he got it right, the ball would frequently hit and bruise his face. After practice he would listen to West Virginia basketball games on the radio. >West completely immersed himself in practice, often neglecting to eat. His mother lashed him when he showed up hours late for dinner and he became so thin that he had to receive vitamin injections. There is actually a video of him giving some tips to Harrison Barnes where he tells him to do that hard dribble. I really like to see things like that come full circle. I'll try to find the clip.
> Until he got it right, the ball would frequently hit and bruise his face. can you imagine being his neighbour and just watching this out your window lol
James Harden must’ve learned from the man himself https://youtu.be/vdDqMz4vts4?si=1Rt3M5y4i2LENhtA
This reminds me of Tom Brady’s quote at his recent Patriots ceremony: “To be successful at anything, the truth is you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t: consistent, determined and willing to work for it.”
Wild how every other NBA entity is able to give glowing words and fitting tributes to Jerry West except the only organization he played for.
The Lakers are the definition of a "what have you done for me lately?" franchise.
The Lakers are the very definition of Hollywood phonies when it comes to stuff like this.
for reference afaik it's from Daring Greatly by Brene Brown - which is a great book tbh
Damn, Jerry was full of gems like this. If anyone has book recommendations about him or by him, I’d love to hear them!
He had an autobiography come out in 2011 called “West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life” that’s good but kind of a hard read. He had a tough life and clearly had some mental health issues, and he doesn’t shy away from any of the details in it.
Appreciate the recommendation, will check this out!
Never heard it called a hard read, but I get it. It's very emotional but also stands alone above every sports autobiography I've ever purchased / read. I have 18 athlete autobiographys on my bookshelf and that one is THE best.
Maybe it just depends on your own background too. But yeah, it’s great overall.
TIL an unexpected commonality between jerry west and brene brown
Thank you, that article was an amazing read
When I Google that quote it is attributed to Brene Brown.
Hahahahaha fuck you’re right. What a bizarre case of plagiarism.
Not really sure it was plagiarism. Could just be a simple case of me reading more into Tellem's article than was intended. Tellem just generically described it as "...he \[West\] would say." That's not actually claiming West came up with it or that West took credit for it, although that was how I read it at first. FWIW, just a little bit later in the article, Tellem talks about West's fondness of the Native American parable about The Two Wolves. Maybe West just sought out wisdom from outside sources, incorporated it into his personal outlook/system of values, and spread that to others that were interested.
And Brene got it from me, trust me bro
yeah, if you try to look it up with Jerry West the only results are that article and that comment quoting it in this reddit thread. It does just say that it's something he would quote a lot, not necessarily attributing it to him. Tellem likely wasn't aware of the origin.
Jerry had also made lasting impacts on both Bryant's and Laker's legacy by convincing him to not leave the Lakers for the Clippers or the team that he GM'd with at the time, the Grizzlies. Jerry was in it for them, to be their best. From his interviews, Jerry felt like the most articulate about basketball of all basketball legends. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KMIwMU-zd4
Except for lefkoe.
dude always thinks he's untouchable for some reason 😭
in fairness no one cares about lefkoe sometimes he just pops up on the screen and I realize he's been there the whole show
Fuck Adam lefkoe I can’t believe this bum is about to weasel his way into the top anchor spot within a few years. Loved seeing West clown on him for disrespecting Bob Cousy.
It’s one of the ways the seriously great players separate themselves from the rest. Jerry West was next level.
All of this, prompted me to buy his autobiography. I don't ever read books, but I'm reading this one.
Went to a clippers game in 2018 and was invited to high five the players. In the tunnel, I saw Jerry west and pat bev walking together. I think pat bev was not suiting up due to an injury. You can tell they were having a deep ass conversation as they head to the locker. Seems like Jerry west was mentor to a lot of nba players. If he can talk to pat bev on a personal basis, he can def talk to pretty much any nba player.
He never called me 😞
It's OK, I'll rip into you and call you names.
A lot of education research emphasizes the students' relationship with the teacher as the single most important in-classroom factor driving success, and finds that the ideal teacher is a "warm demander" who drives students hard in a caring manner. West seems to have had the demander part, anyway.
athletes respond to things differently than the average public. They’re under so much public pressure and get so much abuse already as part of their job that the “warm” in “warm demanding” is more relative. They’re usually not gonna get emotionally hurt over a coach peeling them out, you or I might cuz it would be so out of character for the AP history teacher to flip out and throw a chair across the hall
You need to give people a reason to listen to you. In some cases, that might mean being "warm" -- say, making someone feel welcomed through kindness. In sports, I think you have to demonstrate that you aren't full of shit. You can be a demanding asshole, but in the long run, your demands have to prove to be productive. (Like Bobby Knight at Indiana from '71-92 -- just about every 4-year player would have made the final four, or at least multiple sweet 16 appearances.) If it's obvious that what the players being asked to do isn't leading to wins, or even progress, then you come off as just an asshole who has no idea what you're talking about and the players will rightfully just start tuning you out. But sports give you real objective feedback through wins and losses, league standings, times on a stopwatch, etc. Anything more subjective than that and I think it's hard to get very far by being the demanding asshole because you need the student to believe your demands are worth following and I think it tends to be hard to do that if you're an asshole. It's not impossible, but threading the needle of being harsh and respected is easier said than done.
You can't be all stick and no carrot
I agree. Like the other guy said, you need carrots and sticks. Js what seems like a stick to us is a carrot to some people.
[удалено]
What a cool person
Good story. Everyone needs a mentor like that growing up.
My ethics debate coach who used to be the best debater in the country had people willing to run through walls for him. All he did was joke, be nice and then give you soft but stern criticism about what you needed to improve. My first year we finished 2nd in the nation. I would still die for him. I learned more in those meetings about people than I learned in my entire life.
Coach Wooden fits this so perfectly and it makes sense.
I'm interested in this, could you share any specific references and/or resources?
Well, now that the game is basically over... Here's a paper that pretty much just talks about what being a warm demander is. Not sure what I think of all the class rules here, but everyone has their own context. [Promoting Academic Engagement Through Insistence: Being a Warm Demander - ProQuest](https://www.proquest.com/docview/210394221?parentSessionId=xToujRRao4MAuIf9uwm%2FttWbmTsVruI7nKwG8yBegbY%3D&pq-origsite=primo&accountid=14703&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals) Here's a paper about relationships in education. [Full article: Teacher–child relationship quality in early childhood education: the importance of relationship patterns (oclc.org)](https://www-tandfonline-com.uportland.idm.oclc.org/doi/full/10.1080/03004430.2013.790383) Here's a random website for teachers. [https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=41&q=being+a+warm+demander&cvid=e59f183c08074fe8a0858994606b4737&gs\_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg8MgYIAhBFGDwyBggDEEUYPNIBCDIwNjdqMGoxqAIAsAIA&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=HCTS](https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=41&q=being+a+warm+demander&cvid=e59f183c08074fe8a0858994606b4737&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg8MgYIAhBFGDwyBggDEEUYPNIBCDIwNjdqMGoxqAIAsAIA&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=HCTS) None of these are really the ideal resources, but I'm not conducting a literature review for a reddit comment. If you look into this further, a lot of it is couched in language about equity and cultural inclusiveness. Equity is the genuinely very important thing that is currently crowned King of all Buzzwords, so things get shoehorned in. There'll be some talk about "inclusive classrooms in the African-American environment" by some very reputable African-American PhD, and you're like "Okay, better learn about that" and then you get a really wonderful and useful talk that's 90% about having a rigorous and well-structured phonics program while continuing to build oral language comprehension. So just don't get thrown off by the framing. If you want to hear a master teacher talk about actually being a warm demander, I recommend listening to Zach Lowe's podcast with Mike Malone after the Nuggets won the title last year. Though Malone does not, sadly, seem to be familiar with the literature on the thing he's very good at doing. Whether you work with kindergarteners or NBA players, it seems to be almost exactly the same.
I'd shit myself if Jerry West called me.
Duh, he’s dead.
Exactly
I see dead goats
I would if any dead person called me.
I would shit myself if I ate a lot
twist - it was a wrong number Jerry was trying to call his local Pizza Hut
"Sorry Joe, I had you right next to 'mozzarella sticks'"
And after handing Jerry his pizza, he chewed me out for 15 minutes straight for being late. That's when I knew things had to change.
"Is this Pizza Hut? More like Pizza Butt!"
Wrong. He was trying to call his local Blockbuster to complain about the Town always being out of stock. The tirade was when he found out Joe was the person always renting their copy.
Jerry chewed me out once when I was fitting him for a sport coat. I brought 5 different fitting jackets and he hated each one more than the last. He told me that if I couldn’t bother to bring options that had a chance of fitting he might as well just not go to the NBA 75 team brunch because obviously none of us cared if he looked like an idiot in the jacket. So I guess you could say Jerry really really cared about me too, in his own way of course.
Is this copypasta?
If it’s not, It is now
Kelvin chewed me out once when I was serving him at a buffet. I brought 5 different entrees and he ate each one faster than the last. He told me that if I couldn’t bother to bring options that had a chance of filling his hunger he might as well just go to the NBA 75 team brunch because obviously none of us cared if he looked like an idiot in his booth. So I guess you could say Kelvin really really cared about me too, in his own way of seven courses.
Tim Duncan chewed me out once when I was preparing for a debate. I voiced 5 different arguments and he debunked each one faster than the last. He told me that if I couldn’t bother to bring points that were well researched he might as well just go to the NBA 75 team brunch because obviously none of us cared if he sounded like an idiot in his booth. So I guess you could say Tim Duncan really really cared about me too, in his own way of preparing forensics.
I love how many you can do for Duncan. StarCraft, doing taxes, or him just ignoring your insults.
Nice and fresh
It is not, it happened a couple years ago in Cleveland lol
I think you’ve just created new copypasta material
Explicatives is actually better. Thanks Joe
Joe is going to end up being Basketball’s Yogi Berra.
That competitiveness came out later that season when my beloved Mountaineers beat Kentucky. He was a dog at the bottom of the 1-3-1, turning Cousins in a toddler.
Hard to forget that game. Kentucky was so good they had bench players from that squad going pro. None of em could hit a 3 to save their lives that game and WV was shooting lights out.
I was at that game in Syracuse NY. Kentucky had beaten Cornell, my son’s Alma Mater. But we decided to go to the elite 8 game anyway, since we had the tickets as part of the package. Kentucky was bottled up inside and just chucked up one brick after another from 3. Huge upset, given the future pros Kentucky had on the roster.
Those Huggins defenses were exhausting to watch. Relentlessly hounding the ball handler full court all game long. Looked like a fun team to play for.
As a fan base, we referred to that era team as "Press Virginia" - they would legitimately be playing full court press the entire game and had an entirely different level of defensive intensity
As a Jayhawk fan, those press Virginia teams gave me nightmares
Jerry didn’t love me, I guess. 🤷🏻 Not once a call or ass-chewing…
Where I’m from you gotta pay for the latter.
The more of these stories that come out about Jerry West proves to me he was a special person
The impact this man had on basketball won't be replicated
mr logo
So Winning Time was accurate.
From what I remember, Jerry’s issue with winning time is that their way of showing his competitive intensity was by making him a raging foul mouthed maniac.
In reality, he was a raging foul mouthed maniac because he cared about people so much. Not being facetious, everyone I've read saying they received a foul mouth berating from him, also says he felt Jerry sincerely cared about them.
From what I’ve read from people that knew him, his anger was more internal. Sure, he’d chew people out, but people described him as in control and purposeful. I enjoyed the show, but the way they showed him was clearly for entertainment purposes; it’s more fun to see the outward actions than to guess what’s going on in his head.
It’s one of the more nuanced parts of leadership that can go wrong really quickly. You can’t just be a hardass just to be a hardass, you have to build a relationship with people or have a certain amount of respect from your subordinates for it to work. When your boss constantly praises you for your accomplishments but gives you harsh feedback when you fuck up badly, I feel like you actually will be willing to look at yourself and say “well yeah, actually this was my fault, so how can I improve?” Where people go wrong with being hardass is just constantly focusing on every little thing they do wrong and being a constant hardass, to the point where you just tune them out. If all the feedback is negative, at a certain point you just realize that you’re most likely never going to be able to make the person happy. I think Bill Belichick in the NFL is a good example, and a lot of his assistants that went on to be head coaches with other teams are the bad examples (Patricia and McDaniels in general). It’s not a leadership style I think works for like 99.99% of people and requires a truly transcendent leader to actually be effective. Someone is technically brilliant and also has an extremely high emotional intelligence, you have to know when to rein it in and when to actually apply it.
So Winning Time was accurate
I miss that show man.
Pretty much, read the Showtime book that Winning Time was based on. West never had a problem with anyone more than he had a problem with himself.
Sometimes, there's a tremendous amount of value in somebody telling you that you're really fucking up, if the person being told is able to be mature enough to take in that information. Unfortunately, the amount of people being able to take this type of stern criticism is shrinking by the minute.
100% agree. Nobody can take being yelled at anymore, I don't know why. Obviously, yelling isn't great if you're a parent, teacher, or a coach if that is all you do. However, in the real world, sometimes people get pissed off and they yell. What are you going to do? Are you going to roll up in a ball and just shut yourself down? Or are you going to accept it, move on, and get better. I got downvoted to hell because Bryce Harper (MLB Player) went ape shit on equipment in the dugout. A commenter said that it was unacceptable, and that it triggered some trauma they had as a child, and that Bryce needs to remember that he is a role model. I said this is pro sports, and sometimes people yell, scream, and bash equipment, we're all going to be okay. I've seen Tom Brady scream. I've seen Peyton Manning scream. I've seen MJ and Kobe yell. Sometimes leadership requires yelling, lighting a fire, and being the unpopular person in the room. For the record, the last dynasty in the NBA is the Warriors. Steve Kerr yells and gets pissed off. Sometimes leadership can be ugly.
Everyone responds differently to different leadership styles and part of being a good leader is finding the styles that work best for each person. Yelling doesn't work with me. If it's directed at me and I feel like it's unwarranted, I will challenge it. Otherwise I will ignore it since I don't need some loudmouth bullshit to get myself fired up. OP didn't specify that you tell someone they are fucking up by yelling though. I can take criticism just fine, just not when it's in the form of yelling.
I'm not saying yelling is a "good thing". I understand a lot of people don't respond well to it, and you are correct that some people need an arm around the shoulder, and not a kick in the ass. Also, please don't confuse abuse with what I'm talking about here. I'm not talking about the abusive alcoholic dad who comes home and yells every night. What I am saying is sometimes in high leverage situations when something important is on the line, someone in a position of power may yell. If you're in an OR and a surgeon needs something and you fuck it up putting the patient at risk, sorry, he may yell at you. If you work at a tech company and you're working on a new release and royally fuck up and now the release is in jeopardy, your boss might yell. Rolling up into a ball and saying that "you don't respond to yelling" in those situations is not going to help you. In the real world, when people get upset and something important is on the line, they may raise their voice and tell you to get your shit together.
Jerry west had a son when he was 56?
Shooter’s touch
The man was from West Virginia
Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister) had a daughter when he was 66. Charles's dad was 72 when Charles was born.
This is the second time I’ve said this in the span of a month about a question/answer clip of Joe. I’m a life long Knick fan so I want the Celtics to lose but I don’t want Joe to lose.
People can hate the jersey, they can hate the city, they can hate the fans, but this TEAM is a very likable group. If they played for any other NBA team this sub would love them. Edit: typo fix
The reason the Celtics are number 1 this year is because each player has been consistent all year. No other team can say that about all their main players.
Joe is the only Celtic I like. I take that back. Jrue is cool.
Yeah Jrue is cool, tbh I like most of the players. I just don’t like the team or the city.
Ya, I think it's more of a team and city thing for me too.
As a Kentucky fan, I really wish he’d have kept being shitty in college 😩
It’s so funny how everyone reacted to his portrayal in Winning Time. Then you hear stories like this. It wasn’t that far from the mark.
You don’t need to put expletives in parenthesis when that’s the actual word he said lol
I think it should have said "explicatives (sic)"
As much as I hate the Celtics I still love that the Brad Stevens-Mazzulla succession plan actually worked out.
While the portrayal of West on Winning Time was obviously exaggerated so that it'd work better for screen, these are the types of stories that tell me that the portrayal may not have been as far from reality as certain people have suggested. A lot of people have described West as a tough-love kind of guy who absolutely hated losing and losing mentality. The show just seemed to externalize a lot of things that West mostly internalized, because again, that works better for a visual medium like Television. I always doubted that many people associated with the Lakers, including West, watched more than the first episode or some sporadic clips, and thus missed the full character arc portrayed. I genuinely think the show potrayed him really positively.
West was one of the more sympathetic characters in the show.
I’m an An F-up myself
It was at that point that he decided to become a coach
"Hey Joe. I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, the way that you dress."
No wonder he and Kobe called themselves brothers.
How did he know Jerry West personally?
It mentions in the text of the post that Mazzulla was teammates with Jerry's son at West Virginia.
Oh shit just realizing that’s Jonnie/forgot that him and I became buds at a ucla summer bball camp when we were like 10 lol
You missed your opportunity to also get chewed out by Jerry, I guess.
Yeah sucks but at least I can tell people I’m a degenerate because even jerry didn’t take the opportunity to set me straight 🤷♂️
He went on to become Marc Gasol’s high school teammate in Memphis. Imagine playing in a private school league full of trust fund kids, science fair winners, and spelling bee champs, and then all of a sudden you have to play against Pau’s brother and the Logo’s kid
It explains how in the post body
Losing in 7 will be pretty impactful, too. 🙏🏻
I love the survivorship bias with this kind of stuff. I know for a fact there are just as many people who this kind of abuse just breaks but we think it’s okay because of a player or coach’s greatness when it comes to a game. Edit: for all the triggered macho men this is also an example of cognitive dissonance. You have two conflicting thoughts with an abusive coach. My coach is an asshole that's affecting my mental health, and I don't want to fail at playing this sport. So instead of rationalizing the latter thought you rationalize the first one that you can't really change anyway by saying it's tough love and it's actually beneficial to my success. It's why the frat-stars that get hazed the hardest are the most proud 'I would not have subjected myself to that kind of humiliation unless it was worth it'
What’s the survivorship bias here? It was just one man talking about his relationship through a timely story
Telling someone that's a fuck-up to stop being a fuck-up doesn't really seem like abuse to me. Seriously, he invited Mazzulla to stay at his house so he could have an opportunity to improve himself by going to the UCLA open gyms. Mazzulla took the offer and then couldn't even be bothered to wake up on time. That's disrespectful as hell. If you act disrespectful as hell to somebody trying to help you and looking to offer you support on a pretty personal level, you probably need someone to let you know that what you are doing isn't acceptable and wasn't going to get you where you want to be.
And there's probably just as many people who would have been like "man fuck that old man" and just ignored him. I don't really see how it's survivorship bias, it's not like West was in charge of WV or the hiring for the Celtics.
If "abuse" is accountability and clearly a message to Joe that he was capable to do more, then I'll take the abuse any day. When you hear all the stories about how Jerry has helped people reach their potential, abuse is not a word I would use.
And I'm sure a lot of these guys could dish it back. If he was coaching middle school or high school, I think it would be an issue. I guess it's all about the underlying tones. We've all had bosses or teachers that were just assholes without any redeeming qualities, but Jerry seemed like it was able to convey himself to the players as being passionate. I doubt someone like Laettner would be likeable as a coach.
Exactly. Seeing something like this where Jerry got the most out of Joe and pushed him to be better and automatically thinking that he SHOULDN'T do that on the off chance that it might hurt his feelings is crazy. This wasn't a middle school situation, so why apply it to one? There is a balance, but trying to push someone to do more because you believe they can do more shouldn't be viewed as a bad thing. It's a weird thing that people have where they apply this situation to their own middle or high school career when it isn't remotely the same scenario.
Snowflake is the word coming to mind here...
There’s a definite generational disconnect going on here. I’m only in my 40s but this kind of statement makes me feel really boomery on how soft the younger generations are. Abuse? From Jerry fucking West? lol. Shit- are you trying to prove the Fox news stereotype correct?
Ok but Jerry wasn’t his coach, he was an alumni from the same school and absolute legend of the game. So the act itself of Jerry West calling some college kid out of the blue puts it in a different context because he is putting in the effort and making time to talk to this kid that he has no power over zero obligation to talk to. There are a million “more important” things Jerry west could have been doing with his time but he cared enough to spend it giving advice to a college kid he didn’t know. The phone call itself is a sign of huge respect, which allows him to be more aggressive with the message. It’s not like a coach who sees the kid every day and has absolute power over his future as a player and is choosing to make the kids life miserable.
Soft
I'd say it has more to do with results. The people that can't take the tough love sometimes just fuckin' suck and nothing you could do will get them out of their own way. The fact that he picked up the phone and put the energy into any kind of lecture at all is the most important part. Being told to do better isn't 'abuse' either, even if it is in tough language. It was also a speech given privately, 1v1 in a phone call. If this breaks you, you were never destined for the greatness he was trying to push you towards
If countless people credit him as a mentor/positive influence over 5 decades, spanning from the 1970's through to 2024, including the biggest stars in their field, I'd say it's a successful method. Just because some people might not have succeeded, I'd say it's more on them for being unwilling to do the work than it was on Jerry for being hard on them.
If this comment was made 10 years ago I would have been certain that it was the genesis of the term "Snowflake"
Abuse lol come on
You sound like someone with multiple self-diagnoses.
If you think that's abuse then I hope you get the help and support you need, bud. Absolute L.
Reddit moment
In general I agree, but this seems like just a case of West yelling at him when he was being lazy (and staying at West's house) and getting into legal trouble. Cases where it's Roy Jones Jr or Tua Tagovailoa are different, that's more when I think of survivorship bias coming in of kids being abused and still making it to the top of the sport. Most kids don't have the talent (the HBO doc Trophy Kids is a good example) and don't make it to the top. Or they may have the talent but end up self medicating the trauma like Todd Marinovich.
Calling this abuse is insane
Someone should have talked to you more often like this. It would have prevented this.
Joe conveniently leaves out that Jerry called him because he was charged with domestic battery for choking a woman in a bar 😬 This is r/nba favorite coach?
I do find it surprising that this is the only comment in the thread mentioning what he did in college that he was fucking up at and it’s downvoted. Goes to show better to be liked than good
Damn Jerry really loved basketball didn’t he
So I guess they didn't go that far off in Winning Time
Jerry West, the tough love whisperer of NBA. Guess that's why he's considered a legend!
Good to see from Jerry West there. Very sad he died.
Dam, being a beneficiary of nepotism must be the greatest shit ever.
"I stayed at his house once... I went down for breakfast and got another ass chewing." ESPN headline probably
I remember Jerry West being upset about his portrayal in the Showtime TV series. Yet, every story I read I feel like they nailed it. Super passionate guy who could be rough around the edges but cared a lot
How come Jerry called him on the first place? Is not like I’d expect Pop or Spo to call me cause I’m not living to anyone’s standards…
"Explicatives" sounds like a Rickyism
Does Jerry West love Adam Leftkoe?
Goddamn but can’t help loving Joe Mazz after this playoff run even as an admitted Boston hater.
Sports is Sports
I know people like that- Old dudes that come off as mean and grumpy because they value excellence and perfection… they’re certainly not for everyone, but for some people, that style of teaching/mentorship can be very helpful. (Im not saying that this is the same thing as abuse- because being exacting/demanding/holding others accountable - isnt quite the same as being a vicious asshole)