John Wooden (1910–2010) was the legendary UCLA basketball coach who led his teams to 10 national championships in 12 seasons. Yet Wooden saw himself first as a teacher. His Pyramid of Success grew out of a lifelong effort to define what it means to do your best, lead with character, and help others become the best they are capable of becoming.

Success: Two Scorecards

Coach Wooden’s story of being asked by a math teacher to define success reminds me of a question my own English teacher once posed. That question has marinated in my mind ever since. My year-long assignment was titled, “I Want to Live the Good Life. What Is It?” That experience taught me that a single question can serve as a north star.

If I had an hour to talk with Coach Wooden, I would approach him as a fan seeking a deeper understanding of the Pyramid of Success. I would not pretend to be an expert, although I have been familiar with the framework for many years.

Wooden defined success as “peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you are capable.” (Wooden & Jamison, 1997). It sounds simple until a camp director tries to apply it to a summer filled with competing responsibilities and very real financial consequences.

Most camp professionals would begin by saying that a successful summer is one in which every camper and staff member remained safe. They might also point to high marks on family evaluations, strong enrollment, and the fact that nobody quit. Those outcomes matter. Wooden, however, would ask us to look beyond what happened and consider the quality of the job we did.

One of the first things I would ask is, “Coach, how do you square your definition of success, with its focus on preparation and effort, with the reality that a camp has bills to pay and payroll to meet?”

Wooden’s philosophy doesn’t suggest that results are meaningless. It distinguishes between results and success. Results are not entirely within our control; preparation and effort are. Better preparation and greater effort improve the odds of achieving the result we want, but they offer no guarantees.

Outcomes also provide feedback. If family evaluations are poor, enrollment drops, or staff members keep quitting, a leader can’t simply point to preparation and effort. Those results may reveal a weakness in the strategy itself. Peace of mind should never become protection from evidence that something isn’t working.

That distinction creates its own danger. “I did my best” can become an alibi for poor strategy, weak preparation, or an unwillingness to change. Wooden’s peace of mind requires complete honesty about whether we truly performed at the highest level of which we were capable.

Honesty is not one of the Pyramid’s blocks, but Wooden included it in the mortar that holds the blocks together. His direction was simple: “Honesty in thought and action.” (Wooden & Carty, 2005). That placement matters. A leader can’t experience genuine peace of mind without being truthful about their preparation, effort, strategy, and willingness to change. If you’re lying to yourself, the whole framework falls apart.

A camp director therefore needs two scorecards. One tracks external results: family evaluations, staff retention, enrollment, expenses, and payroll. The other asks whether the director did the best job they were capable of doing. Neither scorecard tells the whole story alone.

The second scorecard considers how much the director’s preparation before the summer increased the odds of a smooth season.

Industriousness: Effort Needs a Strategy

That tension between effort and strategy reminds me of something my camp director, Steve Bruer, taught me during my first year as a senior counselor.

I don’t remember his exact words, but his point was that you could put all the determination and effort in the world into digging your way to China and still never get there. Effort is not everything. Strategy matters.

That observation has stayed with me for decades, because it was wisdom in its purest form. Wooden’s Industriousness pyramid block makes a similar distinction. Hard work must be guided by careful and thoughtful planning.

Wooden modeled that kind of strategy in his practices. They generally lasted only an hour and a half to two hours, but every minute was planned. The goal was not to keep players busy; it was to use the available time with purpose.

At camp, careful planning begins with recruitment. Much like a basketball coach assembling a roster, a camp director must treat staffing as a priority rather than a problem to solve at the last minute. Camps improve their chances of attracting strong candidates when they develop a reputation for paying fairly, treating staff well, and offering meaningful opportunities to grow. Even great camp merchandise doesn’t hurt.

It continues with pairing co-counselors and matching them with the age group they are best equipped to lead. That requires more than filling every available position. Get the pairing wrong, and co-counselors may stop talking to each other.

Word spreads quickly. The conflict becomes camp gossip, people begin taking sides, and morale suffers throughout the community. How much of a camp’s summer morale is determined before the first camper arrives?

Condition: When the Leader Is Running on Empty

At Camp Hess Kramer, we had a name for the illness that seemed to arrive with exhaustion: the “Kramer Krud.” When it hit, the entire camp community felt it.

Illness left us short-staffed, and leaders had less time and attention for everything that still needed to be handled.

When both counselors assigned to a bunk are sick, the response can’t be wishful thinking. The unit head and assistant director need to huddle, identify who can provide coverage, and decide how responsibilities will rotate throughout the day. If necessary, another counselor can cover the bunk overnight. Administrators who are willing to step in themselves send a powerful message that leadership is part of the team, not above it.

I once saw that responsibility up close when I was a unit head and a counselor was sent home for giving cigarettes to campers. For the next 10 days, I ate meals with the campers, slept in their bunk, and continued handling my other duties. It worked because the camp leaned into one of my strengths: building cabin unity.

Exhaustion also changed how leaders responded to ordinary camp life. Noise in the dining hall that seemed manageable one day could suddenly become intolerable the next.

The noise had not changed. The leader’s tolerance for it had. How much of what looks like a behavior problem may actually begin as a condition problem?

Poor condition may explain irritability, but it doesn’t excuse how a leader treats people. An exhausted leader may lash out and then feel guilty because the behavior doesn’t reflect who they normally are. Repair begins with recognizing the mistake, taking responsibility, and sometimes simply saying, “I’m sorry.”

An apology doesn’t necessarily weaken a leader’s authority. It can model honesty and accountability while showing campers and staff that a good leader can make mistakes and still be respected. Leadership often teaches most powerfully through conduct.

Team Spirit: Doing Your Job Is Not Enough

For years, I thought I understood Team Spirit, another of Coach Wooden’s pyramid blocks, because I had a good rapport with counselors and program specialists. What I failed to recognize was that the camp’s administrative team was also my team.

I had my head down, focused on doing my job. Because I had known the counselors and specialists for years, supporting them came naturally. The director and assistant director were new to me, and I made little effort to build a relationship with them.

That summer, I was new to the program director role and trying to keep my head above water. The director and assistant director already had a close working relationship. Although none of us said it aloud, we all seemed interested in avoiding confrontation. That made life easier in the moment, but it also prevented us from developing into a stronger administrative team.

Looking back, I wasn’t being a team player. I was working independently and making sure everyone else could do their jobs, but I wasn’t communicating with the people responsible for leading the camp alongside me.

When the unit head told me I was being patronizing, I didn’t even know what the word meant. Instead of asking for examples or trying to understand the feedback, I blew off the comment.

Years later, I can see what I missed. Being a team player can be as simple as paying attention to what people are saying instead of operating on automatic pilot.

I was doing my job and supporting the people around me, but team spirit requires more than individual competence. Can someone do their job well and still fall short as a team player?

Adaptability: What Changes and What Stays

Camps are built on tradition, but the expectations of camp families have changed dramatically. Communication once meant letters and scheduled telephone calls. Then came faxes and email.

Today, parents expect prompt callbacks and pictures of their children smiling on the camp’s website. Keeping up with those expectations doesn’t mean abandoning camp traditions. It means recognizing when an old way of doing something no longer serves today’s families.

Adapting to family expectations creates another challenge. Parents deserve timely communication and reassurance, but camp staff shouldn’t become so focused on documenting the experience that they stop creating it. A good communication plan allows families to feel connected without pulling counselors and administrators away from the campers in front of them.

The same is true operationally. As standards and guidelines change, camps must adapt along with them. Not every camp chooses to pursue ACA accreditation. All camps face the same responsibility to review whether their long-standing practices meet current expectations for safety, communication, and care. Wooden believed in changing with the times while remaining grounded in one’s principles.

Wooden was willing to change his playing style and practice routine to take advantage of Lew Alcindor’s unusual talent, years before he became known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. His earlier system had already won two national championships. Yet he held firm on facial hair because he believed hair or sweat could obstruct a player’s vision. Adaptability didn’t mean changing everything. It meant knowing what could evolve without compromising performance.

Camp leaders face the same judgment call. Which traditions still strengthen the camp experience, and which ones are being preserved simply because that is how things have always been done?

After an hour with Coach Wooden, I would hope to leave with a greater understanding of how the Pyramid of Success can be applied to running a great camp season. I wouldn’t expect him to give me all the answers, but rather more questions to ponder.

That would be fitting because Wooden was a teacher at heart. The best teachers help students think and make their own discoveries. Perhaps the best measure of the advice offered herein is not whether it provides answers, but whether it prompts camp leaders to bring these questions into their next staff meeting and reconsider how they prepare, lead, and evaluate a summer.

Interested in More?

Many past and present community leaders offer ideas, systems, and wisdom that can enhance aspects of camp business practices, culture, and community building. If you’re interested in more articles like this one, let us know: [email protected].

References

Wooden, J. & Carty, J. (2005). Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success: Building blocks for a better life. Ashland, OR: Blackstone Publishing.

Wooden, J. & Jamison, S. (1997). Wooden: A lifetime of observations and reflections on and off the court. Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books Inc.

Wooden, J. & Tobin, J. (2004). They call me coach. Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books Inc.

Jeff Kaplan, MEd, is a Los Angeles-based trainer, speaker, and writer who specializes in character-based staff development for camps and youth programs. A former Toastmasters chapter president, he helps camp professionals become stronger leaders by translating timeless ideas into practical strategies. Jeff can be reached at [email protected].