Dick Vitale’s lessons in leadership

“I've got a body by ravioli, linguine, you name it, and yet I'm in the Hall of Fame because all my life I had one thing — passion and pride in anything I ever did.”

Those are the words of Dick Vitale — legendary ESPN college basketball analyst, former college and NBA coach, and a member of not one, but 14 halls of fame. He’s also a passionate and dedicated philanthropist who sits on the board of directors of the V Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by the late Jim Valvano that’s dedicated to finding a cure for cancer.

As the official asset manager of the NCAA, Invesco was honored to have Dick Vitale join us recently to talk about the lessons he’s learned throughout his career and the energy that continues to drive him at 81 years old.

Below are some highlights of his talk:

What it means to be a winner

Dick has a very simple definition of winning: “Winning's the ability of an individual in pursuit of any goal or dream to be able to look in the mirror and say, ‘I simply did my best.’”

“If you could look at that mirror every night when it's time to go to bed and say to yourself simply, ‘I want to be better today than I was yesterday,’ and if you can culminate that night by looking in that mirror head-to-head and saying, ‘You know what? I was better today than I was yesterday.’ And if you do that on a regular basis, that all equates to success. No doubt about it.”

Maintaining your energy

At 81 years old, Dick says he’s as energetic as any 18-year-old — and after listening to him speak, it would be hard to disagree. But where does his energy come from?

Some have speculated that his energy may be a way to compensate for losing the sight in his left eye when he was five years old, due to an accident with a pencil. “I don’t know how true that is,” he said. “ … But I've always been a guy that loves people, and I've always believed in trying to take care of myself.”

He starts each day with an hour of exercise, whether it’s walking or playing tennis. “I play against a lot of young people and I have a lot of fun doing it, but it's also great from a health standpoint and it keeps you energized.”

And he maintains a positive attitude. “I've always been a guy that's had a sense of passion and pride and always tried to look at the glass half filled, not half empty.”

The players each team needs

Every team has a star — or in Dick’s words, a “primetime performer” — who can lead their team in clutch situations. But for teams to win — whether in basketball or in business — it takes more than that, he says.

“You have to have what I call ‘the glue guys.’ The guys who do all the little things that aren't measured in statistics: Blocking out on defense, keeping guys off the glass, making sure you're diving for loose balls. You get the 50/50 ball that could go to your team or the other team, and he's diving, he's giving up himself ... If it means I've got to defend, if that means I've got to take a charge on defense, if it means I’ve got to make the extra pass to a teammate or an open shot, I'm going to do all the little things — and those little things equate to the big things and ultimately lead to the big prize that you're chasing.”

“Whether it be in the corporate world, whether it be in the legal world, whether it be in education, whether it be in sports — I want to be around those kinds of people. I want to be around people that care about performing that are unselfish.”

Being a leader

Leaders inspire their teams that they can get through hard times together, Dick said. “We're going to get through it because we're all going to do what it takes, the little things, to make it happen. We're going to have that little extra work ethic. We're going to be punctual. We're going to have respect. We're going to reach out. We're going to prepare.”

Preparation, Dick said, is key to gaining an advantage over the competition and earning the respect of your team. “I want to prepare as much as I can and know as much as my competition. I don't fear them, but preparation gives you confidence. Preparation gets you ready … (Your team) will respect you if you're going out and doing things in a proper manner. They're not going to respect you if you're not prepared.”

What the great players have in common

Dick said there’s a commonality among the all-time great players across all of sports. “These people are all about today, not about yesterday. Yesterday's history, it's a memory. It's a memory of what they achieved in the past. They'll all go look at that when they retire and they look at their scrapbooks and all their trophies.

“The bottom line is they care about today,” Dick continued. “They want to be better today than they were yesterday. They have that drive and desire that you just can't teach. I call it the four D's of life: Desire, dedication, determination, and a discipline of body and mind. And if you utilize that in the corporate world as well, you're going to be a success. You really are.”

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