{"id":58939,"date":"2015-03-27T07:30:11","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T11:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=58939"},"modified":"2015-03-27T08:46:38","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T12:46:38","slug":"a-leaders-last-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=58939","title":{"rendered":"A Leader’s Last Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, Dean Smith \u2013 former basketball coach at North Carolina \u2013 died. He was just short of his 84th birthday.<\/p>\n

Smith had suffered from dementia prior to his death. Regardless, in his will Smith still remembered his former players. <\/p>\n

Smith’s will directed the executor of his estate to send a check \u2013 in the amount of $200 \u2013 to each player who\u2019d lettered for him during his career<\/i><\/a>. Approximately 180 players had done that during Smith’s coaching career. <\/p>\n

The ostensible purpose of the gift? So that his former players could “enjoy a dinner out compliments of Coach Dean Smith.”<\/p>\n

Nice indeed. But maybe you’re wondering, “Why is this here at TAH?”<\/p>\n

Yeah, you guessed it: Smith was a veteran \u2013 and a former officer<\/i><\/a>. At the University of Kansas he was a member of Air Force ROTC. After receiving his degree he was commissioned. He served in Germany during the 1950s as a Lieutenant, and also coached at the Air Force Academy.<\/p>\n

Good leaders know that their success depends on their people; they take care of their subordinates. I\u2019m guessing Dean Smith learned that while in the military. It also looks like he never forgot it, in spite of his dementia.<\/p>\n

Very classy, Mr. Smith. Rest in peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, Dean Smith \u2013 former basketball coach at North Carolina \u2013 died. He was … A Leader’s Last Gift<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force","category-blue-skies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}