ROGERS — Effort, energy, enthusiasm.
Those three simple words might appear on the surface to be a quick, easy slogan to slap on a t-shirt or signage. Look across the country and nearly every college basketball coach and team has a tagline or two it aims to abide by.
Legendary Arkansas coach Eddie Sutton had his three Ds: defense, dedication, discipline.
For Eric Musselman, his three Es hold great value and are infinitely more meaningful than the average motto. They are the words he as crystal clear as yesterday recalls his father, Bill, a longtime coach in the NBA and son’s best friend, writing in marker on the brown paper bags he carried to school for lunch many days growing up.
All these years later, those words are the foundation on which Musselman is building the Arkansas basketball program and returning it to prominence.
“I think if you have those three things, if you bring them every day, you’ll be a winner,” he said Oct. 7 during a leadership summit at the Cross Church Pinnacle Hills campus. “We talk about it every single day. It’s all over our locker room. It’s not fun to be around someone who doesn’t have enthusiasm. It really isn’t fun to be around someone who doesn’t have energy. It’s not.
“So how do you bring those things when you don’t feel like it and have an affect where you’re impacting others? You can impact other people negatively and you can certainly affect other people with positivity.”
Before a crowd of several hundred eager and curious minds, Musselman fielded questions from senior pastor Nick Floyd on a variety of topics related to approach to leadership. For more than a half-hour he captivated the audience with open and honest insight and by following the principles at his core.
The coach’s humorous side also made an appearance, and his time in control of the microphone was complete with a handful of stories only someone with inside knowledge and a long track record in professional basketball could tell.
Musselman’s leadership style is uniquely his own, and he owns it. He attacks each day with high intensity, purpose and competitive spirit. That is a prerequisite for his coaching staff and those on his roster.
He is keenly aware, though, that the manner in which he guides his team and program is far from the only way to go about the day-to-day. But it is the path he has chosen. And it works.
Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman and baseball coach Dave Van Horn were used as examples of the many faces of leadership. Each coach and head of business leads in different capacities. Pittman, who surprised many nationally by fielding a competitive and belief-filled team in his first season, has an authentic, down-to-earth aura about him and fascinates by making simple truths sound especially powerful.
And Van Horn, the figurehead of unprecedented success with the Razorbacks’ program, is a bit more like Musselman, he said, fair but stern and fiery, also. Some could describe them as old school mixed with dashes of new age.
But above all, one thing is critical for any chief of staff.
“What you can’t do is you can’t be a fake leader,” Musselman said pointedly. “You’ve really got to be who you truly are. I can tell you coaching in the NBA, those players’ antennas, they smell out a fake really quick. When you get up and lead, you’ve got to be truthful.
“And you’ve got to deliver the things you’re talking about and the things that you’re selling.”
For Musselman in particular, that aspect of his role becomes vital as he surveys the NCAA transfer portal for potential roster additions each year. Throughout college sports, program pitches are made to prospects and recruits. In many cases, promises are passed out in an attempt to persuade a player to commit and sign.
Unkept promises can lead to fractured relationships and unhappiness on both sides.
Stanley Umude, arguably the prize of the Razorbacks’ spring-time recruiting haul, was a player who essentially had his pick of any high-major program in the country after electing to transfer from South Dakota following the 2020-21 season. He noted after Arkansas’ first official practice Sept. 28 that his experience in Musselman’s program has been everything the staff said it would be.
“I feel like I got way better this summer,” Umude said. “The coaches definitely fulfilled their promise of putting people around me to make sure I’m getting better every day. We’ve got GAs on call and we’ve got gym access whenever we need it.”
Another integral piece of being a strong leader and coach is communicating effectively, Musselman said, relaying messages to players as part of individual development and the team as a whole so it understands the big-picture mission.
Pittsburgh transfer Au’Diese Toney said he appreciates Musselman’s mastery of the game and how he dispenses what he has accumulated throughout his career. His hands-on nature is ideal for Toney’s learning style.
“His knowledge. He just has that knowledge, like you’d want to be a student in his class if he was a professor,” Toney said. “It’s just that he knows so much and has been through it all (at a level) where us guys want to be at and want to play. He just knows it all.
“You can pick different pieces of his brain.”
But no player is wired the same way. While Toney may be reached best through personal interaction, a teammate may be more of a visual learner and the next less accepting of constructive criticism. Talent can be complicated.
The maturity level of players varies, as well, which makes searching for and identifying proper avenues to form a stronger connection paramount. That is the task this season with a roster comprised of five transfers, five returners, a true freshman in Chance Moore and now-eligible forward Kamani Johnson.
“If you have a team of 13 basketball players and all 13 learn different, they all 13 are motivated differently, the only way to figure out how to push those buttons is to have a personal relationship with those players,” Musselman said. “If you don’t know them internally, if you don’t know their family members, friends, their inner circle and voices for choices, that becomes really impactful, too.
“I also think when you develop one person, you’ve got to develop the whole. You’ve got to develop an entire group of people, and the more invested you are in the individual — because every basketball player has their own goals, and some are realistic and some are unrealistic — it’s about how you get them to perform at their highest level.”
It is no secret that Musselman picked up a number of qualities from two of the best coaches the game has seen in Chuck Daly and Doc Rivers. The coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, Rivers has been considered one of the great locker room commanders and a master of the motivational speech, whether before, during or after games.
Musselman said Daly was the greatest players’ coach in his time. And Bill Musselman let his son know anything was possible. At a young age, Musselman’s father told him he could be a successful coach, and he meant it. It resonated with Musselman and made a monumental impact.
The Razorbacks’ coach said he now enjoys that part of the job — making a difference — more than just about anything. In doing so, though, it sometimes means the hour set aside each night to spend with his wife, Danyelle, watching television is cut short or doesn’t happen. And he is not able to attend all of his daughter’s dance events. It is the toughest part of the job.
What Musselman has in common with each of his greatest influences is an uncommon drive to succeed, competitiveness and supreme confidence. He believed wholeheartedly prior to accepting the Arkansas job in April 2019 that Bud Walton Arena could be sold out for an entire season. His fervor helped make it happen in Year 3.
He is also bold and unafraid.
“In the Power 5, I’m probably as low on experience as anybody. That’s in college,” he said. “Now, experience coaching against Phil Jackson and Pat Riley and those dudes, nobody in college has done that with the exception of a few people. When (Arkansas athletics director) Hunter (Yurachek) was like, ‘How do you feel about coaching against Rick Barnes or John Calipari?’ I was like, ‘I used to look down and Phil Jackson was down there, and Pat Riley.’
“I’m not going to fear an SEC coach, I can promise you that.”
That is the essence of Musselman.
This story first appeared in the Hawgs Illustrated basketball preview issue