OXFORD, Miss. –The Ole Miss Athletics Department invited one of its own, famed football coach, author and former Rebel Bill Courtney to speak to Ole Miss student-athletes at McNutt Auditorium as a part of the Ole Miss Athletics Speaker Series on Monday evening.
Courtney, who spoke to the Ole Miss athletics staff earlier in the year, spoke about his experiences and shared some of his keys for leadership both in athletics and also in life.
“It means everything in the world to come back here and speak,” said Courtney. “I literally speak all over the world and I wouldn’t have passed on this for anything. A great deal of who I am was molded and made here, as much by the mistakes I made as the lessons I learned from them.”
Courtney shared some of his experiences coaching at Manassas high school in North Memphis, including some poignant experiences about leadership and character.
“I want to impart on our kids, that whether you like it or not, when you are student athlete you are held to a higher standard. You have things that you have to do that things in the general population don’t have to do … As a result of being held to a higher standard you have challenges that some other people don’t have until maybe after college. You have to grow up a little quicker and it takes character, and commitment and attention to detail to do that.”
Leadership was one of the main topics Courtney spoke about during his speech with the Ole Miss student-athletes. During the talk he shared some of his thoughts about what characteristics make a good leader and challenged the student-athletes to be leaders.
“Along with that maturing process, comes an amazing potential to be a leader on campus,” said Courtney. “But too often they stay with their team, but I wanted to challenge them to take the experiences that they have on their teams and get your self to understand what a leader is in terms of character and service, and use those experiences to go into the greater community to be leaders.”
The Ole Miss student-athletes were very much in tune with what Courtney was sharing with them and took note off some of the stories that Courtney shared with them.
John Youngblood, a member of Ole Miss’ Student-Athlete Advisory, shared some of his thoughts on Courtney’s talk and what it made him think about.
“I didn’t know him before, but after listening to his stories he really shared some good advice,” said Youngblood. “The one thing that resonated me was his story about being a ‘turkey person.’ His story about his kid asking him about the names of his players and he didn’t have an answer. It really made me thing about ‘am I doing this for a genuine reason or am I trying to get the pats on the back’ I can relate to that with my Haiti trip. I’ve thought “am I doing this because I really want to or am I doing it because I don’t have plans, so I’ll just do it.’ It made me think about am I really being genuine in the decisions I make.”
Senior track and field athlete Jhorden Hunter, also a member of SAAC, thought Courtney’s speech resonated and made her think about how she can be a better leader within the track team.
“For me the most important part he touched on was being a leader,” said Hunter. “He spoke on how you need to really get to know the people that you’re leading and learn who they are. That’s important because the track team is so big and there are a lot of diverse people on our team. Its hard to reach that many people if you don’t’ know who they are. I think it was an important lesson because as the Ole Miss name and brand grow we’ll need to cultivate more leaders to help grow our university.”
Courtney is familiar as he and his North Memphis high school football team were the subject of the 2011 Oscar-winning documentary “ Undefeated.” Undefeated followed Courtney as he worked to turn around the troubled inner-city program, while instilling important life lessons.
In his first book, “Against the Grain” Courtney describes several key principles — service, civility, leadership, character, commitment, and forgiveness—that have helped young people and adults to live better and more fulfilled lives.
Courtney goes against the grain of today’s me-first culture, while explaining why these time-tested principles are needed now more than ever. He shows that winning isn’t just about the score at the end of the game and that ultimately, it’s about the impact you make on your fellow human beings and the legacy you leave behind.
Through the Speaker Series Ole Miss has brought several nationally acclaimed speakers to campus in the past year including Chris Herren and Soledad O’Brien.
Visit Student-Athlete Development for more information on Ole Miss’ Student-Athlete Development program.