The scene was a familiar one. A time-out was called and Purdue University’s men’s basketball Head Coach Matt Painter gathered his troops to outline a play late in a game against Wisconsin.
Painter spent the first part of a timeout listening to his players, then asked one of them whether he could make a difficult lob pass into the center.
“Can you throw it?” asked the man affectionately known as “Coach Paint,” before listening intently. The player replied that it would be difficult.
“O.K. We’ll flip-flop it then,” replied the coach. The ensuing video of the play makes clear that the coach and players decided that rather than attempt to have one player throw an alley-oop from out of bounds to Purdue’s towering center, they flip a different player to trigger the inbound to the big man instead.
That’s exactly what happened: one player alley-ooped the ball to the center who scored the hoop which sealed Purdue’s 75-69 win.
But something else happened on that play that has drawn the attention of those who view sports as a treasure trove of leadership lessons: the college coach demonstrated a textbook example of active listening. And he did so in the heat of the moment and with the game on the line.
