D4 eZ m2 the washington post.thursday, february 20 , 2020
machine, into a smooth flow?
rivera then pored through his
notes and transcripts, looking for
the things that might be
transferrable to the NfL.
rivera was mainly interested
in how they built what he calls
“sustainable culture.” I t’s the one
thing he identifies as absolutely
necessary for turning around an
NfL team.
“The culture has to be so
strong that it doesn’t matter who
the person is,” rivera says. “The
culture is so strong that the
players are absorbed into it and
become part of it and do it
willingly, and if someone is not
willing, then the guys around
them are so strong that they will
pull them into the culture. You’re
able to assimilate guys into what
we’re doing.”
The interest was mutual. The
NASCAr guys were fascinated by
rivera’s ability to command large
groups and project his authority,
especially under the stress of
competition. Johnson paid his
own visit to the Panthers during
the 2014 season and was taken by
rivera’s “energy, his interaction,
what he exudes,” t he driver says.
“He is so unique in that space.
Something draws me to him, and
I almost want to do the things he
says, let him coach me.”
The relationship grew and the
exchanges continued, and in
2019 the Hendrick team invited
rivera to give a motivational
speech to the organization as it
entered its playoff season. one
thing rivera said that day was
particularly relevant forJenkins from D1 Johnson, who at age 44 is
winding toward retirement after
this season and who may have
run in his final Daytona 500 on
monday. T he right mind-set has
become a difficult trick: How do
you race to win yet try to savor
the last go-round? “It’s going to
take an effort to enjoy it because
I’m wired for performance,”
Johnson says.
rivera’s Zen-like advice to
Hendrick: “You have to be where
your feet are.”
It was a lesson rivera learned
at the Super Bowl after the 2015
season, when he had to try to
maintain his team’s focus in the
glare of the event and was pulled
in multiple directions.
“When your feet are in a
meeting, be at the meeting,”
rivera says. “When your feet are
at home, be with the family. If
your feet are in the car, be in the
car.”
rivera and Johnson’s instincts
to cull professional advice from
their seemingly unrelated fields
is, whether they know it or not, a
proven tactic for managerial
success. According to researchers
writing for the Harvard Business
review in a piece titled,
“Sometimes the Best Ideas Come
from outside Your Industry,”
studies show that people who
“pool insights from analogous
areas” in working on problems
probably will get “significantly
greater novelty in the proposed
solutions.” They find fresh
language.
Some professional examples
include: A company developed a
breakthrough in preventing
post-surgical infections byconsulting with a theatrical
makeup specialist, who knew
how to protect facial skin from
heavy makeup. A company
installing escalators in shopping
malls borrowed from the mining
industry. And rollerbladers had
interesting ideas about
protective equipment for roofers
and carpenters. “Look for
creative people who aren’t
constrained by the assumed
limitations and mental schemas
of your own professional world,”
the authors recommend.
for whatever reasons,
Johnson and rivera didn’t need
Harvard Business School
educations to tell them that.
Johnson learned it as a young
athlete in California who
balanced competitive high
school swimming with racing,
urged on by his father, a heavy-
machine operator who could fix
anything. Swimming taught him
visualization and a deeply
embedded understanding of
pace and distance.
“I’ve used that a lot in my car,”
he says.
As a mature driver at his peak,
he returned to that cross-
referencing when he took up
marathoning and triathlons and
discovered that they enhanced
his perceptions in the car.
Though he was strapped into a
seat, his body was still working,
and better conditioning helped
his brain process the incoming
information.
“When I worked harder and
felt better, my mind was sharper
and my senses sharper,” he says.
“It all fed off each other. The
more in shape I am out of the car,the better my senses are in the
car. It’s a neat physical presence
and feeling.”
for rivera, son of an Army
engineer who served for 32 years
and who regularly had to adjust
to a variety of moves and shifting
circumstances, borrowing from
others was also an early instinct.
As a football player it was hard to
miss the deep structural
resemblance between a team and
a military unit, a connection he
still uses. He is reading “We Shall
Not fail: The Inspiring
Leadership of Winston
Churchill,” by Churchill’s
granddaughter Celia Sandys. He
characterizes himself as an
enthusiastic “Churchillian”
whose shelves contain a six-
volume edition of the former
British prime minister’s works.
The redskins, he says, are liable
to get tired of hearing him quote
Churchill.
What each has discovered in
his own way is that intellectual
flexibility is every bit as
important as specialization. It
not only helps them to find
solutions to problems; perhaps
even more importantly, the
commonality they discover is
affirming. It reassures them that
their basic principles are right
and cut across all fields.
“It may look different at the
end of the day,” Johnson says of
what he has learned from rivera,
“but the more you put in, the
more you get. That’s the lesson.
You get what you put in.”
[email protected]For more by sally Jenkins, visit
washingtonpost.com/jenkins.sALLY JeNKINsRivera and Johnson share philosophies — and goalschris graythen/agence France-Presse/getty images
J immie Johnson h as won a record-tying seven nAsCAR Cup series titles, and he has been trading ideas with Ron Rivera since 201 4.buckets surely contributed to the
clogged space around Stevens
and his slog through 3 for 11,
even if he is just too good to
refrain from accumulating
13 points and nine rebounds.
Even with all of that and even
after Illinois kept rebuffing Penn
State with plays such as
Dosunmu’s one assist (a doozy of
a driving little lob to big man Kofi
Cockburn for an easy put-in) or
Da’monte Williams’s gorgeous
backdoor pass (to Dosunmu for a
layup), the game came down to
an entrancing possession:
Illinois leading 58-56 with the
ball and the clock ticking past
one minute.
Could the Eastern Triangle still
gobble up the Illini like almost
everyone else? Dosunmu
dribbled and dribbled outside on
the left of the top against Seth
Lundy, going nowhere, the shot
clock reaching its urgent stage, so
that Trent frazier had to make a
heave, which happened to graze
the side of the rim just enough
that Illinois’ Andres feliz could
corral it and sustain possession
with 29.5 seconds left. Dosunmu
wound up scoring with
16 seconds left on a soft, pretty
little throw. The first nine
offensive rebounds for Illinois on
the night hadn’t been too bad,
but the “10th one was massive,”
Chambers said. “massive.”
It came against a Penn State
team Underwood saw with “an
opportunity to go very, very deep
in postseason play.”
That, of course, would happen
too late to nudge Penn State
somewhere past No. 9, but it
would uphold the honor of that
curious new Triangle.
[email protected]everlasting craving for misery,
but it might have been curious to
see Penn State nudge up further.
Instead, this third turn at No. 9 in
the past 67 seasons soured before
9,506 at 15,261-capacity Bryce
Jordan Center, a setting more
tepid than, for one, rutgers, even
as fans kept winning TVs, which
are easier to deliver in arenas this
century now that TVs have
flattened.
Penn State sophomore myles
Dread said: “This is definitely a
reality check. We’ve been on
Cloud Nine, eight straight
games.” And: “A s good as it feels
to win, it feels much worse to
lose.” And: “We weren’t
necessarily executing to the level
that we have during the streak.”
Through this heady season,
Penn State has exhibited a deep
depth. It has 6-foot-8 senior
Lamar Stevens at 17.5 points per
game, 6-3 sophomore myreon
Jones at 14.1 and seven worthy
players bunched from there
between 9.9 and 3.8. That fabric,
intricately knit, has had Jones
pulled from it the past four
games as he battles an illness.
Like many a coach in many a
town, Chambers doesn’t want to
play the down-a-man card but
hints at it when asked, saying,
“You can see it’s wearing on us a
little bit,” a nd, “Look, his
nickname’s ‘Buckets.’ ”
Suddenly there came a night
when buckets weren’t coming
even in the dreaded Eastern
Triangle and Penn State made
just 4 of 19 three-point attempts
(21 percent) — “a little shocking
to me,” Chambers said, after his
team made 72 of 177
(40.7 percent) during that eight-
game winning streak. The lack ofAyo Dosunmu, Illinois’ dazzling
6 -foot-5 sophomore from
Chicago, who slipped into the
Eastern Triangle and somehow
exited with 24 points on 9-for- 15
shooting.
“You see why we miss Ayo,”
Underwood said, referring to the
fact they did miss him at rutgers
on Saturday after his injury
against michigan State last week
appeared serious before happily
it wasn’t.
Immediately the loss that sent
Penn State to 20-6 — and Illinois
to 17-9 — went into that place
february losses sometimes go: a
discussion over whether it might
prove valuable long term, on the
premise that eight straight Penn
State wins might have injected a
distracting potion of
complacency and ego.
“No, I was really enjoying
winning,” deadpanned
Chambers, who stands 147-146 in
nine seasons here, at a program
that this century has appeared in
the NCAA tournament only in
200 1 and 2011. “I’ve been here a
long time, so I was really
enjoying it.”
All the winning here on the
northwest edge of the Eastern
Triangle had sent Penn State to
that No. 9 in the Associated Press
rankings, tying the program’s
high established in march 1954
and matched another once-upon-
a-time in february 1996, the
latter just before an unwise visit
to the state of Indiana for two Big
Te n losses by a combined
35 points and a docking from the
voters.
Basketball rankings generally
coax fixation only from that
certain type of fan who hunts
desperately for slights in anUNIVERSITY
PARK, PA. —
Woebegone Big
Te n teams and
other hapless
stragglers had
spent this nutty men’s college
basketball season learning a
strange new lesson: You don’t
want to go messing around in
that Eastern Triangle over there.
You will get your ship wrecked
over there.
This fearsome Eastern
Triangle runs from Penn State to
maryland to rutgers and back to
Penn State, or from amid
Pennsylvania to amid maryland
to amid New Jersey and back to
amid Pennsylvania. As of Tuesday
afternoon, No. 9 Penn State (then
20 -5), No. 7 maryland (then 21-4)
and “others receiving Votes”
member rutgers (18-8) stood a
collective 43-1 in their usual
home dungeons, a collective 20 -1
against the Big Te n and its
western weaklings.
The only loss in the big batch
had been Penn State’s slip-up in
early January against Wisconsin,
a game that reached the 15:30
point of the first half at 0 -0, at
which point it clearly should
have been discontinued.
Wisconsin won, 58-49, obviously
a fluke. What a big deal the Big
Te n East Division would be, if
only it existed.
So count Illinois’ 62-56 win
over Penn State on Tuesday night
as an achievement, worthy of
comments such as, “Give Illinois
credit” ( Penn State Coach Patrick
Chambers) and, “That’s a really,
really good basketball team we
beat tonight” ( Illinois Coach
Brad Underwood). And by all
means, watch whenever possibleIllini disrupt the fearsome Eastern Triangle of Big Ten
On
Basketball
chuck
culpepper
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or call 202-334- 6100.S 04 47A 1x7BY LES CARPENTERWith uncertainty in their of-
fensive backfield and needs to fill
elsewhere, the Washington red-
skins exercised their option on
running back Adrian Peterson’s
contract for the 2020 season.
Peterson signed a two-year,
$5.03 million contract in march
2019 that was filled with incen-
tives. The deal calls for Peterson
to make $3 million in salary and
bonuses this coming season.
Though Peterson is 34, an age
when most running backs are in
decline, he has been one of Wash-
ington’s most dependable offen-
sive players the past two seasons,
rushing for 1,940 yards and
12 touchdowns. At the start of last
season, former redskins coach
Jay Gruden tried to move away
from Peterson, believing Derrius
Guice’s versatility was a better fit
for the team’s offense than the
more straightforward Peterson.
But Guice wound up missing
much of last season because of
knee injuries and has played just
five games in two years. Third-
down back Chris Thompson is a
free agent, and Bryce Love, a
fourth-round pick in last April’s
NfL draft, missed all of last
season recovering from a torn
ACL.
“A drian Peterson is the epito-
me of what it means to be a pro in
this league,” redskins Coach ron
rivera said in a statement. “A dri-
an’s leadership and passion to-
wards the game of football will
set an example of what is expect-
ed of the players in this program
moving forward.”
Peterson has talked a lot about
wanting to break Emmitt Smith’s
career rushing yards record, a
considerable challenge consider-
ing he needs 4,139 more yards.
Peterson is fifth on the career
rushing list with 14,216 yards.
Last month, the NfL named
Peterson the 2019 winner of the
Art rooney Sportsmanship
Award.
By picking up Peterson’s op-
tion, rivera continues to shape
the redskins’ roster ahead of next
month’s f ree agency. o n friday, h e
released cornerback Josh Nor-
man and wide receiver Paul rich-
ardson Jr. rivera still has to
decide whether he is going to
keep pass rusher ryan Kerrigan,
who is set to make $11.7 million
next season, and whether to use
the franchise tag on guard Bran-
don Scherff. The team also must
determine whether left tackle
Trent Williams will return after
he missed last season in a dispute
with former team president
Bruce Allen.
[email protected]
Redskins
exercise
Peterson’s
option
Running back continues
to bring veteran stability
to young backfieldFROM NEWS SERVICES
AND STAFF REPORTSNfL owners are scheduled to
meet Thursday in New York as
they work to complete a 10-year
collective bargaining agreement
with the NfL Players Association
that would include an expansion
of the playoff field from 12 to
14 teams beginning next season
and eventually a 17-game regular
season.
While the season would not
grow to 17 games immediately,
the NfL and owners want to
implement the expanded play-
offs in the 2020 season, accord-
ing to a person familiar with the
deliberations. Seven teams in
each conference would qualify
for the postseason instead of the
current six. one team in each
conference, rather than the cur-
rent two, would receive an open-
ing-round playoff bye. That
would make for six first-round
playoff games (three in each
conference) instead of the cur-
rent four, one of which might be
played on a monday night.
The expansion of the playoffs
has been considered by owners
for years and has been part of
this proposed CBA all along. The
mild surprise is that the NfL and
owners intend for it to take effect
immediately. It h ad been t hought
that the expanded playoffs, like
the 1 7-game regular season,
might be tied to a new set of TV
deals.
owners were told by the
league that they will be updated
on the state of the negotiations.
It’s not clear whether the owners
will take a ratification vote on the
proposed CBA during Thursday’s
meeting, which was hastily
scheduled by the NfL. Several
people familiar with the deliber-
ations called such an approval
vote Thursday by the owners
possible but not certain, and one
said, “The league wouldn’t be
having the owners all travel to
New York for nothing.”
on the N fLPA s ide, p layer reps
for the 32 teams are scheduled to
speak by conference call friday.
That call was scheduled after
initial plans for an in-person
meeting late this week in Wash-
ington were scrapped over logis-
tical issues.
The latest flurry of activity
comes as the sides attempt to
apply t he finishing touches t o the
near-deal. “We’re all working
hard to get this done,” one person
close to the negotiations said.
for the new CBA to go into
effect, it would have to be ap-
proved by 24 of the 32 owners.
on the players’ side, it would
have to be ratified by at least
two-thirds of the player reps,
then by a majority of all players.
It a ppears t hat both sides hope
to have a new CBA completed
and ratified before march 18, the
start of the new league year and
the opening of the NfL’s free
agent market. Some but not all
provisions of the new CBA would
take effect immediately if it is
approved before the start of the
league year.
According to people familiar
with the negotiations, the NfLPA
has sought additional conces-
sions from the league a nd owners
to make a 17-game season more
palatable to the players’ side.
The proposed CBA would last
for 10 years and would give the
players approximately 48.3 per-
cent of the league’s revenue un-
der the salary cap system. The
regular season would be extend-
ed from 16 to 17 games beginning
at some point in the early stages
of the new CBA, probably be-
tween t he 2021 a nd 2023 seasons.
— Mark Maske
l MisC.: Tackle Greg robin-
son was being held in a Te xas jail
on a pending drug distribution
charge from a federal agency,
records showed. robinson, 27,
who was booked Tuesday, faces a
charge of possessing marijuana
with intention to sell it, accord-
ing t o El Paso County jail records.
media reports said robinson
was caught with about
157 pounds of marijuana monday
at a Border Patrol checkpoint in
Te xas, according to federal au-
thorities.
robinson, a former Auburn
standout, was drafted second
overall in 2014 by the St. Louis
rams. He signed with the Cleve-
land Browns in 2018.
The Browns recently informed
robinson’s representatives they
did not intend to re-sign him.
l DOLPHins: Tight end mi-
chael roberts signed with mi-
ami, his fourth NfL team since
he entered the league in 2017 as a
fourth-round draft pick.
— Associated PressNFL NotesPostseason
could grow
under new
CBA deal