Kondos Field challenges students’ preconceptions in Transformative Coaching and Leadership class

TCL Course Spotlight: Philosophies of Coaching

“Please stand up and face the class when you speak.” 

Students are often taken by surprise when they hear those very words on the first day of Valorie Kondos Field’s Philosophies of Coaching class. The legendary former UCLA Gymnastics head coach gets straight to it in her co-created course on leadership, demanding —er… encouraging her students to put their public speaking skills into practice.

Known for her mantra and mission of “Producing Champions in Life,” (watch her TED Talk) Kondos Field says by the third and fourth weeks of class, her students’ eyes roll at the command slowly morph into confident, puffed-out chests.

“Part of it is to help keep them engaged,” she admits. “But we’re also focused on producing future leaders. And eventually they’re popping up and owning that space every time they speak.” 

The course, which Kondos Field teaches alongside philosophy instructor Arif Amlani, examines the philosophies of coaching of storied athletic mentors. Students take a deep dive into primary source materials by John Wooden, Phil Jackson and Bob Knight, among others. 

Along the way, Kondos Field and Amlani challenge students’ presuppositions on leadership, sprinkling in thought-provoking discussions on character and conscience. 

Valorie Kondos Field embraces Bruin gymnast Katelyn Ohashi
Valorie Kondos Field embraces Bruin gymnast Katelyn Ohashi at a UCLA Gymnastics meet at Pauley Pavilion. Courtesy photo

Deliberately presenting dissimilar coaching and leadership style examples, Kondos Field says students are often shocked when they discover uniform principles valued by coaches with polar opposite approaches.

The four-time National Coach of the Year notes that one of those shared principles that classes unearth during their studies is a constant, maniacal attention to detail. 

“They sweat the small stuff,” the School of Education and Information Studies’ Senior Fellow points out. “And that critical approach is what truly separates the good from the great.”

The revelation inspired Kondos Field to write a new book, Sweat the Small Stuff, which retraces the UCLA Gymnastics team’s rollercoaster journey at the 2018 National Championship. In dead last with one event remaining at the final competition of the NCAA season, the Bruins pulled off the unthinkable…

Clawing their way to the top of the scoreboard, every Bruin performed exactly as needed before Peng-Peng Lee’s Perfect 10 performance on beam clinched UCLA its first national title since 2010. 

Valorie Kondos Field and Transformative Coaching and Leadership student Natalie Ramirez sit and chat on the yellow sofa from Coach John Wooden’s famous den, now housed in Miss Val’s Arkansas home. Wooden was a mentor to Kondos Field in her early days as a Bruin coach. Courtesy photo

“I had felt it was Providence,” Kondos Field admits. “That was until I stepped back and realized it was the fact that we put ourselves in the position to be able to have the greatest comeback in gymnastics history – because we sweated the small stuff from day one.”

That “small stuff” became the backbone of the Bruin Gymnastics program’s culture.

“It was a lot of what people call soft skills,” Kondos Field explains. “The blocks that became our foundation were respectful honesty, gratitude and open communication.”

What fans saw on the floor – the grit and resilience – were simply byproducts. 

“That’s what we were able to tap into at the most important moment of our national championship run,” she says. 

In her course, Miss Val (as the Bruins endearingly call her) and her students discuss and debate trust, vulnerability, authenticity and accountability from a coaching perspective. Case studies bring the topics to life as they probe current, well-documented and little-known coaching failures and successes, weighing their moral and ethical implications. 

“The majority of students, when we do debriefs, will say they came into class thinking soft skills and vulnerabilities were weaknesses,” Kondos Field says. “And when the class ends, they say they’ve realized that, in fact, they’re the exact opposite.”

With Amlani adding historical and philosophical insight, students are exposed to links between the leadership of Wooden and Abraham Lincoln.

“Anything of truth that’s substantial is not new,” Kondos Field explains. “These are truths that have been passed down over the centuries until philosophers put them into writing.”

She says many great coaches like Wooden (her former mentor) have discovered a way to use different verbiage to better relate to current generations.

“When we study Wooden, people go ‘Gosh, he was so innovative,’” she says. “And he certainly was. But he also translated the beliefs of Lincoln, a devout Christian who was well-versed in the Bible – morals that have been around since the dawn of man.” 

As a closing note for each course term, students present a three-minute elevator pitch, synthesizing their coaching philosophy. Kondos Field has them speak as if they were recruiting a student athlete to join their team.

She regularly receives messages from former students saying the class and its discussions drastically altered their leadership ideology and thoughts about coaching over the 10-week class period. 

“To be able to give young adults a space to get out of their comfort zones and think critically and differently from how they’ve thought their whole lives and possibly come up with a shift in their beliefs – that’s extremely rewarding,” Kondos Field says.

Named the Pac-12 Coach of the Century, Kondos Field coached UCLA first as an assistant (1983-89) and later as head coach (1989-2019). During that span, the Bruins won seven National Championships and 19 Conference titles. Inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010, Kondos Field is the author of “Life is Short, Don’t Wait to Dance” a thought-provoking, fun journey through the anecdotes of the 35-year career of a dancer/choreographer turned athletic coach. She has mentored more than a dozen Olympic gymnasts.

Learn more about UCLA’s Transformative Coaching and Leadership Master of Education program.