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Teamwork key in life and sport, Purdue aide tells Putnam Club
Whether the ultimate goal is making chicken sandwiches, changing the tires on a race car or scoring the basketball, teamwork is considered vital.
That was the message Micah Shrewsberry left with the Purdue Club of Putnam County Tuesday night.
Shrewsberry, a Purdue basketball assistant whose Butler University basketball role afforded him a "great" seat alongside Bulldog Coach Brad Stevens for two consecutive NCAA championship games (2010 and 2011), spoke to the value of teamwork in both life and sports.
Fresh from the recruiting trail, Shrewsberry said he had time between flights to read "The Secret of Teams (What Great Teams Know and Do)" by Mark Miller, a motivational writer and speaker who shot up the ranks of Chick-fil-A from an hourly team member to the mailroom to corporation vice president for training and development.
Whether using Miller's formula to galvanize a restaurant staff, NASCAR team or Special Forces unit, Shrewsberry said three characteristics stand out in all great teams.
No. 1 is people, stressed the former DePauw University assistant who was joined for dinner at Autumn Glen by DPU head coach Bill Fenlon.
"You have to have the right people," Shrewsberry said. "They all have to fit with each other, to fit each and every role as we see our team evolving from that role."
For example, he said auto-racing teams don't need multiple members that are great in removing tires.
The second characteristic is skill, Shrewsberry noted.
"It's about how you get better," he said. "You can have all the talent in the world but if you don't develop that talent, you're not going to get any better."
Community is the third aspect necessary for a great team, Shrewsberry stressed.
"When you have a team of guys who generally care about each other and who fit together personality-wise and who are willing to put in the hard work together in going about things the right way ... When you have all three of those in place is when you're going to have a successful program or a successful venture."
Shrewsberry, a Hanover College grad in his second season at Purdue, focused on basketball and recruiting for much of the evening, offering upbeat reports on the Boilermakers' future. Of course, he was preaching to a black-and-gold choir.
Purdue Club President Ron Birt put it all in perspective, equating sports fans with farmers in the fraternity of eternal optimists.
"Next year's crop is always going to be better," Birt suggested, eliciting chuckles from all around the Autumn Glen dining room.
Shrewsberry also spoke of an irony in chasing basketball talent across the country and around the globe.
"It doesn't make a lot of sense," he noted. "You go to L.A. or you go to Atlanta or you go to the East Coast to watch kids from Indiana play basketball."
He assured the fan base that Purdue is actively recruiting Indiana high school players.
"And we're getting good ones," he said. "Unfortunately, all the Big 10 schools are recruiting them."
Shrewsberry, who helped DePauw to a 42-12 record and a pair of conference titles while assisting Fenlon from 2001-03, was asked how he sells Purdue in attracting talent to West Lafayette.
"You sell the people," he said. "You sell the education.
"Some people like all the bells and whistles and flash. If that's the case, then they're probably not going to work out for us.
"Recruiting has turned into more flash lately, and who's got the biggest arena and who's got the biggest, nicest locker rooms," Shrewsberry said.
"We've got to sell ourselves and sell the people at Purdue and find players that fit our style."
That may not mean an overnight turnaround from the Boilers' disappointing 2012-13 season. But Shrewsberry remains a realist.
"I thought, 'How am I going to sugarcoat this 16-18 season without these people throwing rocks at me?' Maybe we could talk about something else for a few minutes ... Hey, you guys met our new football coach yet?"
But all the increased recruiting effort and a return to finding players more closely fitting coach Matt Painter's style won't necessarily translate to immediate success, he cautioned.
"That doesn't automatically mean we're going to go from 16-18 to 30-5," Shrewsberry said.
He did promise the Purdue faithful that the Boilers will turn around the Purdue-Indiana series that has been dominated the last couple years by the Hoosiers.
"It'll turn again very quickly," the Boiler assistant said. "Stay humble. If we don't do anything crazy, we'll turn it around."