Building a team: Indiana Pacers coach Jim O’Brien shares game plan for life and sports at ‘Coaching for Christ’ program

Indiana Pacers’ head coach Jim O’Brien pumps his fist during a preseason game against the Seattle Supersonics in 2007. O’Brien was the speaker at a “Coaching for Christ” talk to Catholic high school coaches and Catholic Youth Organization coaches on March 10 at Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis. (Submitted photo/courtesy Indiana Pacers)

By John Shaughnessy

It’s a moment that most coaches eventually experience, a defining moment that guides the way they approach their teams and their players.

Sometimes those moments also define the way they lead their lives and follow their faith.

Indiana Pacers head coach Jim O’Brien recently shared one of the defining moments of his career during a “Coaching for Christ” talk to Catholic high school coaches and Catholic Youth Organization coaches at Bishop Chatard High School in Indianapolis.

For O’Brien, a member of St. Mary Parish in Indianapolis, that defining moment came 28 years ago—after he decided to take the head coaching position at Wheeling Jesuit University, a small Catholic college in West Virginia.

Thirty years old at the time, O’Brien inherited a men’s basketball team that had won three games and lost 25 in the previous year. It wasn’t exactly the situation he had imagined for his first head coaching job at the college level. Still, O’Brien was determined to make the best of the opportunity. So he began searching for a mission statement that would guide him.

He came across one foundation in a quote from Hall of Fame pro football coach Vince Lombardi: “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”

He found another building stone in the words of Frank Perdue, the owner of Perdue Farms, a chicken-processing company: “Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve, on a daily basis, the quality of what you have to offer.”

In reading Perdue’s words, O’Brien focused on the last word—offer.

“Offer who?” O’Brien recalled thinking. Then he came up with his answer: “Certainly those student athletes that I will coach, my wife, my children, my school, my God.”

The game plan—and his life plan—had come into a clearer focus.

“We turned the program around very quickly,” O’Brien told the “Coaching for Christ” audience on March 10. “We went from being a team that didn’t win a game in the conference the year before to the championship game in the first year. We lost in the finals of the conference tournament by two points to the team that was runner-up to the national championship team. Some of those players are still my best friends.

“The first day I met with them, I said, ‘We will reach our potential, whatever our potential is, if you do one thing.’ I could see them sitting there, thinking about what that one thing was. Rebounding? Work? I said, ‘If you will learn to love each other, we will reach our potential. And I will monitor the respect you have for one another. There is nothing more important for the community that is our team than to care as a team.’ ”

O’Brien said he has shared that message with all the teams he has coached—the men’s team at the University of Dayton, the Boston Celtics, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Pacers.

“The two key principles of our faith are ‘Love our God’ and ‘Love our neighbor,’ ” he said. “What better way to start a team?”

For O’Brien, that first season at Wheeling Jesuit was an affirmation of another philosophy he has based his life upon: “Never mistake the growth of power and wealth for the growth of character and spirit.”

Still, O’Brien acknowledged he has lost that focus at times throughout his 35 years of coaching. The passion, fiery nature and demanding qualities that he brings to coaching have led his teams to great success—and sometimes great strife.

“I remember I was at the University of Dayton,” he recalled. “I was your typical maniac coach you looked at on television and you hated. This was my big crack at Division I basketball, and we were struggling. We were nine and nine. And I was not very good about the growth of character and spirit.

“I went to a Sunday Mass on campus and heard a sermon about transformation. I remember being filled with the Spirit during that sermon. I said, ‘Jim, you have tried to build your whole career on not mistaking the growth of power and wealth for the growth of character and spirit. How could you be so stupid to lose sight of your transformative abilities as a coach?’ I changed. I forgot the privilege we have to transform lives.”

O’Brien said he continues to live his life by starting each morning praying with his wife, Sharon. He also defines the qualities of his days by the way he feels at the end of them. It was the parting thought he shared at the Catholic Youth Organization event held in cooperation with the four Indianapolis archdiocesan high schools: Bishop Chatard, Cardinal Ritter, Roncalli and Father Thomas Scecina Memorial.

“Think about the day of a coach,” O’Brien said. “When you know you could not have given or loved any more, when you were just filled with the Spirit in how you taught and what you did, how did you feel when your head hit the pillow? You felt great!

“That’s the challenge we give to our players. That’s our challenge on a daily basis. If you can give them an understanding of what love and caring and work ethic are all about, you will build the character and the spirit in your players that will last them a lifetime. If you give it to them, they’ll give it to somebody else.

“It all starts with you.” †