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By Samantha Franz
OUGrizzlies.com Contributor

In the words of best-selling author and keynote speaker Jon Gordon, "Leadership is not just about what you do, but what you can inspire, encourage and empower others to do."

This philosophy can certainly be applied to basketball because on the court, everybody is a leader. Whether you are calling plays at the top of the key or high-fiving your teammates, leadership can be shown in many ways. And on a women's basketball team that brings seven new players to the fold, fostering leadership early on is especially important.

That's why from Aug. 1-3, the Golden Grizzlies headed west to Crystal Mountain near Traverse City for a weekend of team building. But it wasn't all just fun and games. Prior to the retreat, head coach Jeff Tungate gave everyone a little homework assignment: read Gordon's book, "Training Camp." Published in 2009, the book shares life-changing lessons to help bring out the best in a team.

"They all read the book and we based the entire leadership retreat around discussions from it," Tungate said.

The team applied what they learned from the book to a variety of activities, including a ropes challenge course, paintball and sessions on developing mental toughness and the importance of body language. These activities aimed to inspire several qualities of leadership, such as trust, teamwork, work ethic and communication.

Tungate's goal for the retreat was to show his team that leadership skills are not just used in the O'rena.

"We wanted to make sure the focus of this weekend was developing a game plan for life," he said. "We talked about how everything you do athletically, socially and academically can all be tied together."

To help build team chemistry, the newest Golden Grizzlies were roomed with returning players.

"The returners are doing a really good job of helping the new players adjust to college life and that is a big focus for us this summer," Tungate said. "We want to make sure that we develop chemistry and have a team that is open. The leadership retreat really helped us do that."

Looking ahead to future seasons, Tungate would definitely do another retreat with his team.

"It was fun and we learned a lot about leadership and each other," he said. "It was a great weekend."

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