Sport and the Growing Good

Peter Miller
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  • EDUCATION
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

​​​​The Sport and the Growing Good Podcast examines leadership and coaching in sports settings. In conversations with leaders from wide-ranging contexts, we learn not just about competitive excellence within the game, but also how to leverage sports for broader individual and group flourishing.  ​ The podcast is hosted by Dr. Peter Miller, a professor in Sports Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

  1. 12/08/2025

    #192: Coach Phil Jackson on learning from roles models (Bell Cows)

    Albert Bandura claimed that some of our deepest learning occurs socially – from what we observe and adopt from what we interact with around us. In this conversation with Coach Jackson, we discussed learning from role models, as well as how coaches can utilize players as models on their teams. Our conversation addressed: 1.     Cows. Temple Grandin. 2.     What Coach Jackson learned from role models. Unconscious modeling. 3.     Learning by coaching in the CBA – the “minor leagues.” 4.     One of Coach Jackson’s Bell Cows, Red Holzman.  5.     How rules can be inconsequential. Examples in action make the difference. 6.     Players modeling desirable attributes on teams.  7.     Are leaders born?  8.     “I think there are moments when you’re vaulted into a leadership role. I think it sometimes makes us. There are situations that call for it.” 19:25 9.     “It’s not about me, it’s about the team.” 10.  “You cannot stop. You cannot get stagnant.” 11.  Gratefulness. “One has to be grateful. I think the first element of living your life in the morning is to spend time in gratefulness and practicing the presence of the universe, the order, the Supreme Being. Your God. And your belief system. And when you center yourself in that particular aspect, I think you become humbled.” 12.  “When you read you have to have an open mind.” 13.  Learning as a father. “As a parent, your children are your teachers.” 14.  “The wealth of a man is measured by his family, his relations, his relationships, not by power or money.” 15.  Coming through hard times, difficult times that we all face. “One of the things that’s important is accepting responsibility. Don’t blame. And accepting that you have to be grateful for these experiences because they are what’s showing you the ever-changing relationship we have with life. We’re faced with all these facets of life that bring change. And change is the most difficult thing for people to adapt to, to live with. Unceasing change turns the wheel of life so that we may see it in all of its various forms.” 16.  There’s going to be unceasing change in your life. You cannot keep it static and what you always want it to be…All of these things are an opportunity for you to adapt and be part of the change. And accept it instead of fighting against it. That is one of the keys, I think, to living a peaceful coexistence with life.” 17.  The responsibility of being a coach lays upon each one of you that wants to be a coach. You’re not just going to show the principles of your sport or the skills that are necessary for your sport, but you’re also going to teach a behavioral pattern to these younger people that are under your tutelage. How you address them and how you participate with them in this effort is really a responsibility of your own making. You’ve chosen this. And now it’s your responsibility to stand up to it and hold it and embrace it. Take advantage of the opportunity it is to portray some of the things that you think are important for people to learn: the basics of your sport; the love of competition; to compete with a passion and yet with still a joy. 18.  Learning from a mistake early in his career. 19.  Being receptive to insights from former players and recognizing that past players are part of the culture. “There’s plenty of room in the tent.” 33:35 20.  Holding things back from the team initially so that there would be more to learn as the season went on. 21.  Adapting to players. “If you have a really good idea, please bring it to us.” 22.  Helping Kobe Bryant to become a leader. 43:46. “How do you expect to be a leader if you don’t participate in the community?” 23.  Drawing from diverse sources to teach leadership.

    49 min

  2. 11/13/2025

    #191: Coach Phil Jackson on sustaining success (2025 edit)

    Winning is difficult – and maintaining success can be even more challenging. In this session, Coach Jackson and some special guests joined us to discuss the topic of “sustaining success.” 1.     Reading your team when things are going well. Understanding them. “Getting out of their way.” Winning gets to be habitual. 2.     Little inconveniences bringing a team together in new, deeper ways (hotel example in bad weather). Maintaining a positive orientation: “Life’s an adventure, let’s go get it!” 3.     You can’t count on just “replicating what we had before.” Examples of players having off-season surgery that change what you have coming back on a team. 4.     You have to maintain vision for your team. 5.     “Dance of the wounded egos.” Guys overvaluing their roles on the team. 6.     “It’s all of us. It’s about how we all fit together.” 7.     As a coach something to think about: “Where does this person think he fits into our team effort? How can I make him feel important but also that we will go on regardless?” 8.     Getting away from the game after the season. Focusing on family.  9.     Also using the off-season to envision what the team would look like. 10.  “We always held something back.” Reflecting in the off-season: “What are we going to do differently this year?” 11.  Allowing veteran players to teach newcomers what it means to be part of the group and “earning his credibility.” 12.  Losing assistant coaches to head coaching positions. 13.  Dividing players into groups with a particular coach who they’d get to know intimately. A mentor who would help them to get better. 14.  Jordan and Kobe having specific things they worked on in the off-season. Setting the model for other players. 15.  Keeping pace with a changing game. Growing as a coach.  16.  Phil Nevin on rules changes that affected coaching baseball. 17.  Responding to the analytics movement. 18.  Mark Sweeney on staying in the game “mentally and physically” as he prepared each game.  19.  Davey Lopes as an important coach to Mark. 20.  Maintaining “drive” on winning teams. Finding new motivations.

    48 min

  3. 11/12/2025

    #190: Professor Sameer Deshpande is at the forefront of sports analytics

    Sameer Deshpande is an assistant professor of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Much of his work is applied in sports settings, where he has emerged as a leader in the field. Sameer is a BIOS fellow and key partner as we’ve continued deepening the connections between sports and research. In this conversation, we discussed: 1.     The type of research Sameer conducts. Using probability to quantify all of our uncertainty. Bayesian Statistics. 2.     Sameer’s journey to academia. Math competitions. Mentors and supporters along the way. Early studies that got him started in the field. 3.     The relatively small data analytics community in professional sports.  4.     Study on the “plate discipline” of MLB players. 5.     Study on surface-type and concussions in the NFL. 6.     Study on associations between football participation during adolescence and mental health during young adulthood. 7.     Study estimating NBA players’ impacts on their teams’ winning. (Dirk was #1.) 8.     Teaching statistics and “meeting students where they are.” 9.     Being a BIOS fellow: “It’s super interesting and inspiring…Working in sports research can be isolating…There are people who I’ve met through BIOS who I never would have spoken to and there’s a lot of fruitful collaborative work that can happen…BIOS has been a great way for connecting people…BIOS embraces the cross-cutting nature of this campus.” 10.  Research that’s coming up: Spatial variation/heat maps for NBA players – modeling that allows us to use data smartly in new ways; Decathlon – Can new limits be reached and what would it take? 11.  The Dallas Cowboys.

    40 min

  4. 11/10/2025

    #189: Coach Phil Jackson on gameday leadership

    We’ve studied many aspects of coaching including having a system, running practice, and forming team identity. Today’s topic will build upon these and other topics we’ve discussed to engage several specific aspects of “leading on game day.” 1.            Coach Jackson’s favorite routes in driving thought the Midwest and western US states. 2.            Organizing game day so that the players would have mornings of instruction and activity. 3.            Game day meetings with coaching staff. 4.            Shootarounds. Basic drills. Activating the body. 5.            Mike D’Antonio focusing on offense.  6.            Coaching in the CBA. 7.            The heartbeat. 8.            Gameday meditation. From five to ten minutes. Changes throughout the season.” 9.            “At some point in that team meeting, I would ask a player, what do you think is important in this game?” 10.         “’Let’s talk about your perspective, how you feel about how they guarded you the last time.” 11.         Working on specials in the last minutes of the shootaround. 12.         Pregame speeches. Limited effects. Focuses: information and emotion. 13.         “It’s overrated, the ‘Gipper’ speech.” 14.         Dennis Rodman’s pregame routines. 15.         Sending assistant coaches out in pregame. 16.         Albert Mehrabian rule: “7% words, 38% tone of voice, 55% body language”  17.         Why Coach developed his whistling skills and used hand signals. 18.         Codes for communication. 19.         “I think the voice is resilient and authoritative. I think it’s really important for the coach to have a strong voice.” 20.         “There’s a locker room voice that is commanding, yet assuring. It’s instructive.” 21.         The Horace Grant example. Positive Coaching Alliance. 22.         Timeouts. Getting players composed. “I want you to find the rooted nature. Something that you know that gives you solace. And you can go to the bench and think of that space for ten seconds.” 23.         Examples of the rooted nature. Where you were nurtured. 24.         Others who were not in the game could encourage teammates while planning was going on. 25.         Sitting vs. standing in timeouts. 26.         Communicating with the team during crunch time of a game: Research on best strategies for leading during critical/high pressure times include: -use brief, clear commands -control body language and tone (players look to coach as model in these times) -activate leadership within the team (tie into a player-leader during time-out, etc) -emphasize the next play and focus on the process -encourage deep breaths -reinforce trust and confidence in the team and system -acknowledge the pressure …and frame it as a challenge that we’re ready for 27. Red Holzman during crunch time. Defensive berating… then, “What do you guys what to run? What do you think will work?” “He left it entirely up to us…That was a real eye opener for me. I enjoyed that a lot.” 28. “Michael Jordan was such a great finisher and so was Kobe Bryant. A lot of that was part of the success I had as a coach.” 29. “I think the breath is really important. Take a deep breath and relax. We’re going to go into this. We’re going to be successful. Just be alert and react.” 30. After the game in the locker room. “Temperament is one of the things you have to watch for… Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. You need to find that balance.” 31. The Lord’s Prayer after the game for calming down. 32. After leaving the arena on game day. “I used to take a few minutes by myself.” 33. Coach Jackson and Coach Winter continuing to focus on their video analysis even as the plane seemed to be going down.  34. Communicating during the flow of the game with players. 35. “Sometimes stopping the activity and getting your players to reset is important. And you have to think of creative ways to do that.” 36. Accounting for different players’ pregame rituals. 37. Ensuring that your teams don’t start slow.

    52 min

  5. 11/05/2025

    #188: Professor Bob Batt studies service operations

    Bob Batt is an associate professor in the School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bob focuses on operations and information management. He partners with hospitals and other organizations to learn about service operations. Additionally, Bob serves as a BIOS fellow and has been a valued partners to UW Athletics in recent years. 1.     His expertise in service operations.  2.     Emergency department operations. Patient flow and physician productivity. 3.     A couple examples of recent studies. 4.     The impact of proximity on service operations. 5.     Behavioral operations. Small nudges to change behavior. 6.     Article: “The psychology of waiting.” “Anxious waits” feel longer. 7.     Bob’s collaboration with BIOS on a Camp Randall Stadium project. How can we improve crowd flow. 8.     What makes Chick-fil-A operations effective. 9.     A partnership formed with Athletics through the stadium project. 10.  Working in the Operations and Information Management Department. 11.  Relationship with the Department of Emergency Medicine. 12.  What’s next for Bob.  13.  Bob’s interest in sailboat racing.

    39 min

  6. 10/29/2025

    #187: Coach Phil Jackson on coaching with compassion

    Why should coaches work with compassion? How can they do it? We discussed the science of compassion and how Coach Jackson centered compassion in his leadership. 1. Coach’s perspective on coaching clinics and professional development. “It’s a collaboration of thought and ideas.” “You have to go there with intention on what you want to learn.” 2. The importance of storytelling in coaching. “We are telling stories to ourselves all the time…So stories are part of our brain’s activity.” 3. Cataloguing stories that lend deep insights into key points you want to make. 4. Framing a team’s journey as a story: “We have a journey to make…What kind of story are we going to tell ourselves?” 5. Why is compassion relevant as a coach. “As a coach, you are called to drive people farther than they think they can go. To give more effort than they are capable of. And, in the process of doing that, they’re putting their lives and limbs in jeopardy a lot of times. They are playing with this controlled abandon…You’re trying to extend that level of energy to a point where they will be able to change the contest that they’re involved in…In the process, players overextend themselves, they get injured, they lose. You have to commiserate in loss and there is compassion.” 6. Shaquille O’Neal aspiring to be like Wilt: Being able to play heavy minutes. John Salley serving as a “go-between” for Shaq: “He wonders, do you think he’s doing a good job?” 7. Connections between Buddhism and Christianity: “In Buddhism, compassion is the response from the Buddha. In Christianity, love is the response from Jesus. The two come together.”  8. “We all suffer…Suffering is part of human nature.” 9.   “It doesn’t have to be the big hug, but it has to be the understanding and the care. It can even be in the eyes.” 10.  Compassion: “to suffer with.” It has an action element with it. 11. Compassion can “come from some basic things: a touch, a greeting, a ‘job well done…’” 12. Acknowledging challenges as a coach is important. 13. The critical nature of turning points. 1) newness; 2) injury; 3) not going well; 4) critical incident. 14. “Every coach who has done this for a while knows his way around a training room. Being there to support and commiserate.” 15. Elvin Hayes’ injury at a critical time. 16.  Kobe Bryant ankle sprain during the finals: Handling it with compassion and firmness. “I’m so sorry that you’re not going to be able to do this.” Energy in coming back from the biggest disappointment of his career led to a big victory two days later. 17.  Compassionomics book. 18.  The details of compassion. Wording of questions. Touch. Physical presence. 19.  The team supporting Scottie Pippen after a personal loss. Brought him to the middle of the room and putting a hand on him. 20.  Johns Hopkins University study: Compassion reduces anxiety. 21.  Showing a team “we’re in it together.” Example from a hostile environment. Sacrificing himself for the good of the team. 22.  Virtuous cycles. Virtue compounds. 23.  Coaches are “Riding the racehorse…The team is running the race. You can rank at the reins and yell… but the reality is, we’re in this together…You need to do it in a humanistic, compassionate way.” 24.  Getting Michael Jordan to be patient with Steve Kerr, who’d been struggling to contend with John Stockton. 25.  “Some of it has to be, ‘How compassionate can we be with ourselves?’”

    45 min

  7. 10/23/2025

    #186: Coach Phil Jackson on visualization

    In this session, Coach Jackson discusses his background with visualization and how he used it with his teams over the years. Visualization is a powerful tool in sports, backed by extensive research on its neurological, psychological, and performance benefits. By incorporating vivid, goal-oriented, and emotionally engaging imagery into their routines, athletes can enhance their physical and mental preparation, ultimately improving performance. Its effectiveness is maximized when combined with physical practice, tailored guidance, and consistent repetition. 1.     Coach Jackson’s first experiences with visualization. His mom took a friend into his room: “Watch this child, I don’t know what this child does as a three year old”…She said, ‘it looked like you were catching balls, going through those motions.’ Probably there was something to that. There was some imagery going on in my brain as a child.”   2.     “One of our issues as human beings is that we’re moving on to next instead of living with now. So, living in the now is really the ideal…However, visualization has a purpose when goals are to be attained and things have to be planned, visualization becomes practical at that point.”   3.     Using visualization as a fifth grader in Great Falls, Montana. And later as a pitcher in baseball. “You imagine what it’s going to be like…It became part of my prep.”   4.     Using downtime for visualization.   5.     Coach Jackson’s brother using hypnosis on him to get him ready for pitching in high school after an injury. “I went out and had a two hitter…It was another event that led into the idea that the mind is a big participant in the athletic experience.”   6.     Tex Winter using visualization. What did he visualize?   7.     Pairing video with visualization. Show video and then tell the team.   8.     The learning curve. Developing muscle memory – neurons and synapses in the brain.    9.     A game against San Antonio in the playoffs, when things were tough.   10.  Bringing other senses into practice. Touch. Sioux and the “counting coup.” Example with Pat Riley. “That feeling or touch or using physical presence is beyond the mental.”   11.  Visualizing both success and failure. Gaining perspective and context.   12.  Visualizing what is about to happen. Bulls vs. Jazz in game 6. Talking to MJ. “You know exactly what their go-to play is ... (we will get the steal vs Malone)…”   13.  “We all knew in our mind’s eye what it looked like for our opponent to do what they do.”   14.  “What you’ve been doing is dropping your hand because you’re tired.” On the winning shot, MJ held his hand high. “That was something that was just already an image.”   15.  Visualizing individually. Having a conversation with a competitive skier.    16.  Is visualizing still a part of Coach’s routine? Yes. “One of our problems as human beings is that we’re not involved in the current moment of totally doing the task that we’re doing. And, so, as a consequence, we’re moving on to the next task…And that’s part of human nature. I think one of the things that meditation does is it puts you in the moment doing the task you’re doing fully. So, next has to take a backseat until it’s useful. Until you need to actually be prepping or planning for what your activity is going to be…To always be moving on to the next task means you don’t complete the task you’re doing. And that’s the thing that’s really important, is that you fully engage in the task that you’re doing. So that you’re completing it with nothing left undone…You need to complete the task that you’re doing fully.”   17.  Visualizing the drive from Montana to California.   18.  Metacognition and visualization – how do they interact?   19.  Differences in visualizing as a player and a coach.   20.  How far ahead to you visualize? “I used to do two weeks…There’s a goal and there’s a timeframe.”

    43 min

  8. 10/21/2025

    #185: Professor Faisal Abdu’Allah finds meaning at the intersection of art and sport

    Faisal Abdu’Allah is a Professor of Art at UW-Madison and a BIOS Fellow. Faisal’s art has been shown around the world and he’s also a beloved teacher. Some of his recent work unfolds in athletics settings. He’s an important partner for BIOS in our work on “the representation of sport in society.” In this episode, we discussed: 1.     Faisal’s work at UW-Madison – balancing art and administration. 2.     Growing up in London. 3.     The formative influence of home-based barbershops. 4.     His early experiences with art, and the important role of his teacher in opening new opportunities. 5.     Attending art school. Working as an artist. 6.     Faisal’s background as a semi-pro soccer player. 7.     Similarities and confluences between art and sport. Dedication. Premonition. 8.     How environment affects work. Order. Intentionality. 9.     Art projects with UW Athletics. Being a storyteller with art. 10.  His current exhibit, “Family Ties.” 11.  Developing relationships while making art. Partnering with Ron Dayne and other teammates.

    46 min
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​​​​The Sport and the Growing Good Podcast examines leadership and coaching in sports settings. In conversations with leaders from wide-ranging contexts, we learn not just about competitive excellence within the game, but also how to leverage sports for broader individual and group flourishing.  ​ The podcast is hosted by Dr. Peter Miller, a professor in Sports Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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