Chris Gannon

Northwestern Mutual and Special Spaces surprised a young Creighton fan, Hudson, who is battling cancer, with a dream bedroom makeover. The Creighton men’s basketball team showed up to surprise him, too. 💙

Early in my coaching career I had a talented player who was chronically five minutes late to everything. Not egregiously late. Just five minutes, every single time. I let it slide because he was good and I didn’t want the conflict. Within a month, half the team was showing up five minutes late. Nobody said a word. The standard just drifted. That’s when it hit me. You’re either actively maintaining your standards or you’re passively lowering them. There’s no neutral position. I’ve also learned that expectations and standards aren’t the same thing, and that distinction matters more than most people realize. Expectations are the vision. The why. In my programs they’ve always been simple. Have fun. Create great experiences and relationships. Learn and grow. That’s the emotional foundation everything else gets built on. Standards are the daily behaviors that actually get you there. Be on time. Be trustworthy. Have a growth mindset and work hard. Take responsibility for your actions. Encourage the people around you. Don’t make excuses. When those are clear and consistent something interesting happens. The standard becomes the authority, not the coach. I don’t have to lecture anyone. I just point to what we all agreed on. The conversation stays about the behavior, not the person. That’s where real accountability lives without anyone feeling attacked. What I’ve seen over 25 years is that the teams, families, and programs that define these things clearly and hold them consistently almost always outperform the ones with similar talent that don’t. It’s not magic. It’s just clarity. People do better when they know exactly where the lines are. Kids especially. They don’t struggle in high standard environments. They struggle in ambiguous ones. Whatever you walk past becomes your new standard. The good news is it works in both directions. Raise the bar and hold it, and the people around you will rise to meet it. Every time.

I just heard a crazy stat As of right now in the NCAA men’s mile 3:53.90 is 16th and currently in the bubble spot to get to NCAA indoors with all the conference meets upcoming 4 years ago 3:53.90 was 3rd on the descending order list!!! Wow!! These events are leveling up quickly