Kevin Hartzell-2012

In the first of this two-part series on leadership, we looked briefly at some basics of what aspiring leaders should understand. Our sports teams are a natural training ground for nurturing and teaching leadership skills.

After writing a couple of articles on leadership, I thought I would share a personal story of leadership from a parent’s viewpoint. It is a real life story of Marybeth and I with our son, Eric. I believe there are good things to be shared in this story for both players of the game and their parents.

The topic of leadership is one of my greater passions. I am convinced that we as a society could do a much better job of nurturing our future leaders and that our sports teams are perfect training grounds for the development of leadership skills. We need to make better usage of our sports teams to this end. 

This chronicle of our trip East was interrupted by the death of my mom. After a week home in St. Paul with my family, my wife, MaryBeth, and I returned to Hartford.

Last spring, the Sioux Falls Stampede was sold to a new group of owners and they made the decision to not renew my contract.  Maybe I was overrated and/or over-paid in their view, but whatever the case, I became the proverbial free agent.

Learning to be a great teammate might be the most important lesson in team sports. It is a main reason good parents aspire for their children to participate in team/youth sports. 

Much gets written about how to skate or how to better one’s skills and how we better our game. Of course these things are important. That said, I think most parents would agree that the most valuable ideals they aspire for their children to acquire in team sports is to learn about teamwork and the many various lessons associated with those ideals. 

Hello everyone. With my current time away from coaching, I have agreed to do some writing in Let’s Play Hockey. For those of you who don’t know me, I am a former Gopher hockey captain and have coached in the USHL for 13 years.