A Shining Example of True Greatness
(Read this on the Growth EQ website here.)
We often write about actual greatness versus pseudo greatness here at The Growth Equation.
Often, it’s from a distance, an example of an elite athlete or world-renowned artist who gives us a glimpse into the nature of striving to be the best.
But recently, we had the opportunity to see it up close.
A few weeks ago, Steve attended a statue unveiling and celebration for Coach Tom Tellez.
For the uninitiated, Tellez is a legend in track and field. He’s on the same level as Phil Jackson or Nick Saban. His list of accolades is long, including coaching Olympic legends like Carl Lewis, Mike Marsh, and Leroy Burrell.
But perhaps the best demonstration of his coaching success occurred in the 4x100 relay. In the modern era of track and field, the 4x100 relay world record has been set by individual countries bringing together their best athletes at an Olympic Games or World Championship, with one single exception: In 1991, four athletes from Tellez’s training group broke the world record. Not four athletes from one country, but four athletes from one coach.
When Tellez took the job at the University of Houston, his family thought it was nuts. He was a top assistant coach at UCLA, then the premier track program in the country. When he arrived in Houston, the program didn’t even have an actual track, just some old-school cinder. But Tellez had a vision, and he was willing to put in the work to achieve it.
At the statue’s unveiling, Carl Lewis stood up and told the story of how he chose Houston over more vaunted programs. At every recruiting trip, Lewis asked a simple question, “How are you going to help me jump 29 feet in the long jump?” Most coaches gave generic answers and directed their attention to what Lewis would get: fancy jerseys and state-of-the-art facilities. Tellez pulled out the film and showed him what jumping that far required.
“70 years ago, I just wanted to be a biology teacher so I could coach. All I ever wanted to do was coach,” says Tellez. Once, at a local Houston track, after a workout Steve participated in, Tellez saw a junior high student practicing his 40-yard dash with his father. Tellez stopped what he was doing and spent thirty minutes coaching this kid on his start. The father had no idea who this old man was, and Tellez never once mentioned his accomplishments. He just saw someone he could help. So he helped.
For Tellez, the whole point was mastery. He was notorious for being unafraid to tinker. While other coaches were afraid to screw someone up, Tellez was the one who did the seemingly absurd and changed Lewis’s takeoff leg in the long jump after he’d already set the high school national record. Why? Because it was part of the process. He’d famously tell the sprinters he coached to “focus on your lane, not the others.” It was a constant reminder to stop worrying about your competitors, to focus on executing your race, to keep your head in your proverbial lane, and the rest would take care of itself.
When Steve was in college, he had won his first race of the season and was ecstatic. He’d run his fastest time in over a year, had pulled off the victory, and thought it was a sign of great things to come. But when he made his way over to Tellez, he said, “What was that? You didn’t try anything we had worked on.”
His point was simple. That race was about learning a new tactic, trying to test out the mechanical changes we’d made in practice. Instead, Steve had reverted to the old way, just trying to win. And while the result was solid, he’d missed out on the opportunity to develop a skill that would help him over the long haul. While many coaches talk about the process, Tellez lived it. He judged races by how well you executed your process, not the end result.
In professional sports, we often reference coaching trees. For example, you can look around the NFL and see the coaches that Bill Belichick mentored who went on to become head coaches or the same with someone like Gregg Popovich or Tara VanDerveer in basketball. In track, the Tellez coaching tree is made of legends—a testament to true greatness. A sprawling coaching tree symbolizes your willingness to share and mentor. To pass down the torch, instead of “hiding your secrets.”
With Tellez, there is never talk of hacks or quick fixes. There was no ego puffing or performative nonsense. When Tellez spoke at his statue unveiling, he put it simply: “I had a lot of good athletes, but more importantly, they were good people.”
In a world of performative nonsense, it’s a refreshing reminder that true greatness is about mastery. It’s about the process. It’s about sharing and mentoring. It’s about the people you meet and the personal growth you experience along the way. It’s about a love of the craft. It’s about focus. It’s about attention. It’s about dedication.
Of course, results matter, but they take care of themselves if you're patient and do all the other stuff right. It’s a universal truth: from the track to the lab to the operating room to the classroom to the artist’s studio.
– Steve and Brad