Our Great Coach on this episode is Sue Enquist.
Sue played softball at UCLA from 1975 to 1978. She was a part of the team that won the 1978 Women’s College World Series and became UCLA’s first All-American softball player.
In 1980 she transitioned into coaching and retired with a career winning percentage of 83. As a coach her teams won 10 national championships, and her produced 65 All-Americans and 15 Olympians.
She was also a coach for 1996 Olympic Gold medal winning team.
In 2008 she was inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame
Sue is a coach who believes in the type of transformational leadership where, in her words, you are more collaborative, truthful and positive in developing skills. She believes that when people feel safe they will go for it when it comes to courage, and that your role as a coach is to be the eyes of the athletes development, and feed them with what she is seeing in their progress.
She is also highly articulate, passionate and a firm believer in the importance of curiosity as a leader to ensure that your program is always changing and developing. She also explains that High performing teams have high standards, expectations, accountability and efficient failure recovery routines.
Other key parts of the interview were:
Her view on the importance of a next event mindset, in keeping failure small relative to your integrity and character.
Her advice on managing our weak voice that comes up from our subconscious, and building on our strong voice.
And How, as a white women of privilege, she feels that she must advocate for people who didn’t have the access to excellence that she did.
This was a thought provoking conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as I did.
And just before we go to the interview, If you’re a first time listener, you can check out our archive with of interviews with other great coaches at our website; the greatcoachespodcast.com
And while you are there, if you would like to help our podcast, which is fully independent and free from ads, you can follow the link to our Patreon page where we offer exclusive content to our supporters.
If you would like to send us any feedback or if you know a great coach, who has a unique story to share, then we would love to hear from you, please contact us at thegreatcoachespodcast@gmail.com or contact us through our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com
