{"id":46670,"date":"2015-01-31T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2015-01-31T14:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/?p=46670"},"modified":"2015-01-28T16:31:18","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T22:31:18","slug":"bill-courtney-speaks-ole-miss-student-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web20.olemiss.edu\/news\/wordpress\/bill-courtney-speaks-ole-miss-student-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Courtney Speaks to Ole Miss Student-Athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"billcourtney\"<\/a>OXFORD, Miss.\u00a0\u2013The Ole Miss Athletics<\/a> Department invited one of its own, famed football coach, author and former Rebel\u00a0Bill Courtney\u00a0to speak to Ole Miss student-athletes at McNutt Auditorium as a part of the Ole Miss Athletics Speaker Series on Monday evening.<\/p>\n

Courtney, who spoke to the Ole Miss athletics staff earlier in the year, spoke about his experiences and shared some of his keys for leadership both in athletics and also in life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means everything in the world to come back here and speak,\u201d said Courtney. \u201cI literally speak all over the world and I wouldn\u2019t have passed on this for anything. A great deal of who I am was molded and made here, as much by the mistakes I made as the lessons I learned from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtney shared some of his experiences coaching at Manassas high school in North Memphis, including some poignant experiences about leadership and character.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to impart on our kids, that whether you like it or not, when you are student athlete you are held to a higher standard. You have things that you have to do that things in the general population don\u2019t have to do \u2026 As a result of being held to a higher standard you have challenges that some other people don\u2019t have until maybe after college. You have to grow up a little quicker and it takes character, and commitment and attention to detail to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leadership was one of the main topics Courtney spoke about during his speech with the Ole Miss student-athletes. During the talk he shared some of his thoughts about what characteristics make a good leader and challenged the student-athletes to be leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlong with that maturing process, comes an amazing potential to be a leader on campus,\u201d said Courtney. \u201cBut too often they stay with their team, but I wanted to challenge them to take the experiences that they have on their teams and get your self to understand what a leader is in terms of character and service, and use those experiences to go into the greater community to be leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ole Miss student-athletes were very much in tune with what Courtney was sharing with them and took note off some of the stories that Courtney shared with them.<\/p>\n

John Youngblood, a member of Ole Miss\u2019 Student-Athlete Advisory<\/a>, shared some of his thoughts on Courtney\u2019s talk and what it made him think about.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know him before, but after listening to his stories he really shared some good advice,\u201d said Youngblood. \u201cThe one thing that resonated me was his story about being a \u2018turkey person.\u2019 His story about his kid asking him about the names of his players and he didn\u2019t have an answer.\u00a0 It really made me thing about \u2018am I doing this for a genuine reason or am I trying to get the pats on the back\u2019 I can relate to that with my Haiti trip. I\u2019ve thought \u201cam I doing this because I really want to or am I doing it because I don\u2019t have plans, so I\u2019ll just do it.\u2019 It made me think about am I really being genuine in the decisions I make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior track and field athlete\u00a0Jhorden Hunter,\u00a0<\/strong>also a member of SAAC,<\/strong>\u00a0thought Courtney\u2019s speech resonated and made her think about how she can be a better leader within the track team.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me the most important part he touched on was being a leader,\u201d said Hunter. \u201cHe spoke on how you need to really get to know the people that you\u2019re leading and learn who they are. That\u2019s important because the track team is so big and there are a lot of diverse people on our team. Its hard to reach that many people if you don\u2019t\u2019 know who they are. I think it was an important lesson because as the Ole Miss name and brand grow we\u2019ll need to cultivate more leaders to help grow our university.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtney is familiar as he and his North Memphis high school football team were the subject of the 2011 Oscar-winning documentary \u201c\u00a0Undefeated.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Undefeated followed Courtney as he worked to turn around the troubled inner-city program, while instilling important life lessons.<\/p>\n

In his first book, \u201cAgainst the Grain\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Courtney describes several key principles — service, civility, leadership, character, commitment, and forgiveness\u2014that have helped young people and adults to live better and more fulfilled lives.<\/p>\n

Courtney goes against the grain of today\u2019s me-first culture, while explaining why these time-tested principles are needed now more than ever. He shows that winning isn\u2019t just about the score at the end of the game and that ultimately, it\u2019s about the impact you make on your fellow human beings and the legacy you leave behind.<\/p>\n

Through the Speaker Series Ole Miss has brought several nationally acclaimed speakers to campus in the past year including Chris Herren and Soledad O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

Visit\u00a0Student-Athlete Development<\/a>\u00a0for more information on Ole Miss\u2019 Student-Athlete Development program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OXFORD, Miss.\u00a0\u2013The Ole Miss Athletics Department invited one of its own, famed football coach, author and former Rebel\u00a0Bill Courtney\u00a0to speak to Ole Miss student-athletes at McNutt Auditorium as a part of the Ole Miss Athletics Speaker Series on Monday evening. Courtney, who spoke to the Ole Miss athletics staff earlier in the year, spoke aboutRead the story …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":46673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nBill Courtney Speaks to Ole Miss Student-Athletes - Ole Miss News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/bill-courtney-speaks-ole-miss-student-athletes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bill Courtney Speaks to Ole Miss Student-Athletes - Ole Miss News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"OXFORD, Miss.\u00a0\u2013The Ole Miss Athletics Department invited one of its own, famed football coach, author and former Rebel\u00a0Bill Courtney\u00a0to speak to Ole Miss student-athletes at McNutt Auditorium as a part of the Ole Miss Athletics Speaker Series on Monday evening. 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