The Humility of Coach Gillespie: A True Leader

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.”

C.S. Lewis

When people talk about the wondrous accomplishments of Coach Gordie Gillespie, topics usually center on baseball and football championships, the number of wins over his long career, halls of fame, captivating speeches, and the impact made on thousands of students and athletes.  Indeed, these are accomplishments that perhaps no one in athletics has ever matched.

Although I didn’t understand this until I was older, these were not his greatest achievements. Rather, it was the fact that he was the model of humility. 

The “Mirror”

When my fellow former athletes and coaches get together to talk about the man who meant so much to us, we regularly reflect on his refusal to talk about himself. In our conversations with Gordie, he would always craftily turn the focus back onto us. He would acknowledge and graciously accept our kind words toward him, but quickly turn and focus the conversation back on us by asking about us, our family, our jobs. 

We called him the “mirror” because he listened absorbedly to hear our stories. No wonder that he could recall the names of our spouse and our kids and empathize with our life circumstances. His “empathy gene” was off the charts.

It was the same when he made presentations to large groups. After being introduced, he would say how lucky he was to have the opportunity to be entrusted being with young people, how they brought out the best in him. If his former athletes were in the audience, Gordie would unfailingly call attention to their accomplishments, the shots they made, the big game-winning hits. He constantly deflected the spotlight away from himself.

Handing out, not taking, credit

In interviews after games, Gordie would point out the fine work that his assistant coaches had done, how they were the ones who really should be given the credit. After a loss, he never blamed anyone but himself. Gordie never engaged in name calling, denigrating the opposing coach or publicly calling out individual mistakes. Never one to embarrass a player, he would privately discuss matters with individuals when the time was right, and publicly praise them whenever possible. 

Remember the expression, “It is amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares who gets the credit.” Gordie took that expression further by always giving the credit to others, never to himself. It was always about the team and to individuals on the team. 

It’s not about you

I happened to be an observer during a presentation Coach gave on the “Top Ten Lessons” he had learned over the years. The audience was a group of young high school and college coaches. After a few brief introductory comments, Gordie paused for emphasis, looked the coaches in their eyes, stood as close to them as possible and said, ” IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. It’s about the kids. IF IT’S ABOUT YOU, GET OUT OF COACHING.” Shock and silence as if the coaches stopped breathing.

His point? Egotism has no room for being a coach/leader. Gordie was a true “servant leader,” a leader in the service of others before the phrase was ever used. 

Humility, not win/loss records, was his most valuable lesson for all of us.

“I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.”

John Ruskin