July 24, 2017

#19 Sam Walker, Best Selling Author of The Captain Class - The counterintuitive leadership qualities of the men and women who led the greatest teams of all time

1 hour 3 minutes

What do the Collingwood Magpies, the New Zealand All Blacks, Barcelona Football Club and the New York Yankees have in common? They’re all members of author Sam Walker’s list of the 16 greatest sports teams ever. It’s not the talent, the coach, or the strategy that made these teams great - it was the Captain. Syd Coventry, Richie McCaw, Yogi Bera, and Carles Puyol led these teams to eternal greatness, and what made them great captains is not what you think…

Sam Walker is The Wall Street Journal’s deputy editor for enterprise, the unit that directs the paper’s in-depth page-one features and investigative reporting projects. A former reporter, sports columnist, and sports editor, Walker founded the Journal’s prizewinning daily sports coverage in 2009.

In addition to The Captain Class, he is the author of Fantasyland, a bestselling account of his attempt to win America’s top fantasy baseball expert competition (of which he is a two-time champion).

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Show Notes
9:00 How Sam came up with his list of the World’s Greatest Teams
14:45 The Captain with the unconventional skill set
22:00 Why the best player is not the best candidate for captain
24:05 Who is the most important player on Barcelona according to Sam
30:00 Many times we bypass the “water carriers” for great players and miss the boat
39:30 Which “club” had two teams that made the top 16 greatest of all time?
46:00 The goal is Sustained Excellence not Winning Championships
48:30 Sam’s advice to coaches- Look for the charismatic connector
51:45 Sam’s advice to athletes - It’s all behavior. Study leader behaviors
58:00 Finding Sam

Finding Ryan
Website - By Sam Walker
Twitter - @SamWalkers
His Book on Amazon - The Captain Class

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By John O'Sullivan

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