Jim Larranaga’s Unique Motivational Ideas

Before the start of one season, current Miami Basketball Coach Jim Larranaga took his players, assistant coaches, and the school president outside and gave each of them a small package with a live butterfly inside to release into the air. He had ordered them, and they had been shipped overnight with the butterflies in a resting state, ready to be aroused by light upon opening of the package.

According to Native American legend, the butterfly is a messenger to the Great Spirit, who will grant your wish. For Larranaga, the release also signified the start of a journey. “Begin with the end in mind,” he told his players the day before as he cited Stephen Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Jim Larranaga is a philosopher constantly in search of new ways to advance his unusual approach toward teaching and motivating his players. He is a man who reads books by Dalai Lama, quotes Confucius, Aristotle and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the locker room, starts practices by giving players a “thought of the day” and uses quotes and themes from movies such as Drumline and You Got Served for his pregame speeches.

Larranaga is famous for his team’s run to the Final Four in 2006 as a No. 11 seed with George Mason. “We never really talked about pressure,” said James Johnson, a George Mason assistant that season who’s now head coach at Virginia Tech. “He continued talking to them about having fun and embracing the moment.”

Before George Mason’s second-round win vs. North Carolina, Larranaga created a Superman-Kryptonite analogy. That spawned a homemade video of the Purple Ribbon All-Stars’ song Kryptonite interspersed with Larranaga’s fiery speech. Leading up to the regional final against UConn, Larranaga told his players they were part of a secret society known as the C.A.A. – the Connecticut Assassins Association. “He’s not 62 in the way he behaves as far as coaching goes,” said Larranaga’s high school coach, 80-year-old Jack Curran.

On days between games, including before the Final Four matchup against Florida, the Patriots sometimes played whiffleball in the gym during practice. Larranaga played too.

While he was starting coaching, Larranaga had a 108-page coaching guide compiled from years of taking notes. Dick Bennett, then the coach of Wisconsin-Green Bay, told Larranaga he wouldn’t understand what coaching was truly about until he reduced it to one page. It took Larranaga two years to do so. It wasn’t about basketball, he concluded. His coaching philosophy had to be about life.

He also took Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” apart and re-wrote it for basketball purposes, turning it into what he calls “The Art of War For Hoops.” He keeps his version on his Blackberry.

“He’s a philosopher. He knows the game and he knows how to get inside you. It’s hard to explain, how he can motivate you in so many different ways, ”said former forward Sammy Hernandez.

He continues to come up with unique ideas, many times on a plane while he’s out recruiting in July. It’ll be hard to beat butterflies, but he’s always up for the challenge.

—The Coaching and Leadership Journal, November 2012