Medical training popularized the term "scut work", the unglamorous tasks like drawing blood, booking consults, running down lab data, retracting instruments during surgery. But the mundane, unheralded work cultivates attention to detail leading to better diagnoses and outcomes.
Coach John Wooden believed that Bill Walton's focus on the details of footwork and balance made him a Hall of Famer. The venerable Curt Gowdy had the call of the 1973 title game.
Everyone has unrecognized duties essential to the process.
Michelangelo began as an apprentice at age 6, working ten hours a day. By age 26, he crafted the pieta.
Benjamin Franklin's father wanted him to enter the family candle-making business. Against his father's wishes, Franklin entered his brother's print shop as an apprentice. At age 16, Franklin anonymously wrote the popular Silence Dogood letters, fashioning a literary career en route to becoming an inventor and statesman.
Players might say, "what mundane tasks fall on you?" These are just a few:
Creating practice schedules
Studying film
Maintaining a drill book
Writing and revising a program manual
Crafting and editing a playbook
Reading daily
Improving leadership skills
Developing better teaching skills
Analyzing data
Communicating with other coaches
Organizing off-season activities, and so forth
Eventually, professionals recognize the continuum from "scut work" to the fine details that drive the process engine. If players want to excel, they should understand early the relevance of detail, the value of continuous training. "The magic is in the work."
