Rodgers Reminds Magic of Bird

[pbmax]

I am genuinely curious what trait convinced his teammates to follow and believe in Bart. While I can see the points that vince makes about Bart's humility and lack of (visible) ego, my own experience is that those that achieve at levels like this have a singular focus and drive that allows them to rise above the substantial efforts of others. Its hard to couple that with putting others literally first. Not just in public comments, but in actual day to day living. There are rare people for whom you feel terrible if you let them down and they never, ever let you know about it. But I do not associate that often with sports, especially football.

Unlike most other questions, I suspect someone here has the answer to that one.

Flak vest/jacket was first worn by Dan Pastorini for the Oilers in the late 70s. Byron Donzis gets the credit. The legend is that he demonstrated the effectiveness of the jacket to Pastorini by sneaking into the hospital where DanP was being treated and having a friend hit him in the ribs while wearing the jacket. SI wrote "Pastorini flinched. Donzis did not." There were versions of padding available to protect ribs before this, but they were thick or were extensions of shoulder pads and made the act of throwing tough.

[vince]

I am genuinely curious what trait convinced his teammates to follow and believe in Bart. While I can see the points that vince makes about Bart's humility and lack of (visible) ego, my own experience is that those that achieve at levels like this have a singular focus and drive that allows them to rise above the substantial efforts of others. Its hard to couple that with putting others literally first. Not just in public comments, but in actual day to day living. There are rare people for whom you feel terrible if you let them down and they never, ever let you know about it. But I do not associate that often with sports, especially football.

Yeah that's a tough one. Maxie hit on a bunch of 'em I'd say but it seems to me there's a long list of traits that exist in as many different degrees as there are people. Guys like Lombardi or Jordan to some extent are followed in no small part because of their strong personalities, high expectations and willingness to call their teammates/players out on the practice field, in the classroom and on the field/court. At the same time, a guy like Starr achieves the same status without possessing the superior athletic gifts nor does he call them out or get tough with his teammates. Different kinds of respect maybe but they both can work.

One guy can essentially be a bully and it works because he possesses the right combination of other traits to compliment that. Another guy can seem to be totally soft and that works because of his unique combination of other traits that compliment THAT. Then there's the approach that it's perhaps not the leader's traits as much as the leaders ability to be flexible in dealing with situations and personalities in different ways based on the teammates personality traits and the situation at hand.

Now there's a long-winded way of saying I don't have a clue. I suspect intelligence and heart (whatever that means) are two of the stronger determinants.