The Morning Pep Talk #15: CONFIDENCE

"Be so good they can't ignore you."

- Steve Martin

Good morning to the JWT Team. Happy Friday to everybody. Today's Morning Pep Talk is near and dear to my heart, because I'm going to tell a story about a guy I love a lot.

CJ Hadley played for me at Bell City High School before going to be an outstanding player at Three Rivers Community College, Sam Houston State (TX), and professionally overseas. Now CJ is the head boys basketball coach at Bell City, where he has the Cubs playing hard.

If you asked me to describe CJ in one word, that would be easy...

CONFIDENCE

Of all the guys I've ever coached, CJ was one of the great, great competitors I ever got to be around, and that competitive spirit was the byproduct of his unbelievable confidence.

CJ moved to Bell City before the start of his senior year, not having played any organized basketball since his freshman year. He got cut from the team at Beaumont High School in St. Louis, MO.

He was incredibly raw. He had NO LEFT HAND at all. None. Not even one dribble. And I remember the first time he drove into the lane and pulled up for a 10 foot jumper in traffic, he didn't jump at all. He shot it flat footed! He was raw. A project. He was also 6'3 with a 6'8 wingspan, and he never got tired. He was a great kid. He never talked back. He was tough. He worked extremely hard.

And boy, oh boy, was he CONFIDENT.

Early that season, we took our team over to Three Rivers College to watch the Raiders practice. Gene Bess, who is the winningest coach at any level of college basketball, was always nice enough to let me bring the team over to watch practice. That year they had an outstanding team.

CJ was a senior, and I thought he might have a chance to go somewhere and play college ball, but he was really skinny and not quite ready for that level of play just yet. The TRCC guys were HUGE, and I thought to myself, CJ has to be looking at these guys and thinking to himself, 'man I have a lot of work to do.' Right?

So I walked over to him and said, "Hey, what do you think?" With a straight face, and being dead serious, CJ looked at me and said "Coach, I can take half of the guys in here right now." Confidence. You see, the thing about CJ Hadley, he believed that when he said it! With every ounce of his being, CJ Hadley believed he was better than those guys.

So when we started our season, CJ would have a great game (21 points and 23 rebounds) and then a terrible game (4 points and 5 rebounds, foul trouble). The thing about CJ though was he never stopped working hard. CJ was an incredible worker.

Back then our team would always start preseason conditioning on the second day of school, middle of August, in the searing heat and humidity of Southeast (Swampeast) Missouri. Once we started official practice in November, there were about 80-85 practices and 34 games on the road to the state basketball tournament.

My teams always ran A LOT. I would guess between running the mile, the 100 yard dashes, quarter miles, and then "line drills" (double killers, down and backs, down-back-downs, etc) we ran well over 1,000 "races" per year. Out of all of those miles and line drills - I swear this is true - that season, CJ Hadley came in first in every race except on. He lost ONE line drill all season.

We would line up at the end of practice to run. Dom Johnson would say "I got this one" and run as hard as he could to beat CJ. Nope. CJ would win. Then Luke Phillips would say "my turn" and run as hard as he could to beat CJ. Nope. CJ again. Then Eric Henry...

Everybody always "made their time," but to run a dead sprint, every single time? Who can do that? CJ Hadley did. He won every single race that year except one. The day he came in second, everybody was SHOCKED! I said, "What's wrong with you?" CJ said, "Coach, I'm sick."

Here he was, sick as a dog, but he never complained once, never said a word, practiced all day, won all of the other sprints, and then FINALLY lost one.

He was such a competitor, and he was so confident. All of that hard work finally started paying off. CJ played great for us in the second half of our season, averaging 17 points and 12 rebounds per game, and he was a big reason our team won the 1A State Championship in Missouri that year.

After the season, he had one scholarship offer, a half scholarship at that, to Lewis and Clark Community College in Illinois. That wasn't a great deal financially, so CJ and I got in the car, and I drove him to every tryout I could find. TRUE STORY, he had a scholarship offer in place to go to West Plains College, a really good program back then. CJ and I got up and drove over there on a Saturday morning. It was like a six hour round trip. So we drove all the way over there, and THE COACH DIDN'T SHOW UP!

We were both really mad. CJ ended up walking on at Three Rivers instead, where he red-shirted his freshman year. He started the next two seasons and was the Region 16 Defensive Player of the Year. They also beat West Plains LOL. He signed D1 with Sam Houston State and played against and guarded some great players like Aaron Affalo and Russell Westbrook. He eventually went overseas and played professionally in Ireland.

So here is the moral of the story... how in the world does a kid go from getting cut at Beaumont High School, and not even playing high school basketball for two years, to playing D1 college basketball? How does a guy go from not even getting one full scholarship offer from ANYBODY to being a four year starter in college?

Confidence.

Even when NOBODY else believed in him, CJ always believed in himself. Why? Why was he so confident? Obviously he had some God given natural ability, but I believe the WHY comes from the fact CJ knew he was going to outwork you. He knew it. And because he knew that, he was was a million percent confident in what the outcome was going to be.

CJ Hadley "Just Won Today" on every line drill, in every drill in practice, and against every player he ever lined up against. Look where it got him! He worked so hard and became so good, people couldn't ignore him anymore. Now he's a teacher and a coach. He is an incredible success story.

Now everybody get out there and have a great day. Work hard. Help each other. Be nice. You can do it. I believe in you, just like I believed in that skinny kid named CJ Hadley!

#JWT