THINGS I'VE LEARN FROM COACH (#32)

Without question one of the Don Meyer trademarks is the dictaphone -- the handheld recorder in which Coach seemingly can't live without. The very first time I heard Coach speak was at one of his free fall clinics at Lipscomb. We started on a Friday night in an auditorium with Coach showing us his dictaphone and he then preceded to use it the entire weekend. When a thought important to his team came across his mind, even if it was in the middle of the lecture, Coach stopped and talked into the recorder.

During his most recent visit to Baton Rouge this past July, Coach shared with me his notebooks that are used for specifically jotting down the notes given into the dictaphone. I've been using my own dictaphone since that first visit to Lipscomb well over a decade ago but I have now started my own "Dictaphone Notebook" so I can transcribe my notes as well -- and of course it has made me a better coach by being repetitious.

Of course Coach has it down to an art form. He utilizes his at all times including during a game. It is nothing to see him walking the sideline and pulling out his recorder to talk into it. As he continues to recover in a hospital in Sioux Falls I am told by his daughter that the recorder is getting double duty. He even utilized it while listening to his team on the radio Saturday night as they played in their first exhibition game.