Entrepreneurs: Craig Bohl Wins without Stars
by Miki Saxon
Parallels are constantly drawn between business and sports—building and motivating teams, leading in all its many guises and, of course, the importance and power of stars—whether first round draft choice or coder from the hot startup.
I am not a believer in stars and have written numerous times on why they are a bad idea.
I frequently told I’m wrong, especially sports-wise; I’m told that every winning team has stars or they wouldn’t be winning
Not true and thanks to Craig Bohl, North Dakota State’s football coach, I have someone to point who has a very winning team sans stars.
Since 2011, the Bison have posted Division I’s best winning percentage (36-2, .947), slightly ahead of Alabama (33-2, .943) and Oregon (32-3, .914). N.D.S.U. has beaten four Football Bowl Subdivision opponents in four years, most recently the defending Big 12 champion, Kansas State, in this season’s opener on Aug. 30, and is 7-3 against F.B.S. teams since 2006.
Bohl’s understands that with the right attitude and hard work he can build his own star team.
“A lot of our guys come from the farm or hard-working backgrounds, and we’ve leveraged that as we’ve developed our football team. It goes a little counterculture to the way college football is now, with spreads, up-tempo offenses and all those other things. We’ve taken a blue-collar approach on playing hard-nosed, physical, disciplined football, great defense, controlling the football. That’s how we’ve won.”
He’s pragmatic; he doesn’t believe his winners have to walk on water; they just need to be damn good.
“I don’t think there’s a team in the country that would absolutely destroy us, 70-0, or anything like that. Obviously, there are teams that have more talent than we do. I won’t deny that either. But I think we could hold our own with a lot of teams out there.”
Bohl’s approach isn’t rocket science, other than few other coaches want to bother building a team this way or prefer splashier players whose glory can provide a halo effect for coaches and teammates alike.
While Bohl qualifies as a star, and there is constant talk about who will lure him away, he doesn’t seem to be interested.
And he stays for the same reason talented employees always stay.
“When you find a place that fits your value system, the allure of ‘what the big time is’ is not such a big hook.”
Image credit: Ilco
