​Walter Alston is regarded as one of the top ten professional baseball managers of all time. He managed the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1954 through 1976. Alston led Dodgers teams to seven National League pennants and four World Series championships.
 
Alston retired with more than 2,000 career wins and was selected as Manager of the Year six times. Alston was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983.
 
Alston was highly thought of for his ability to get the most out of every player including some that others regarded as "problem players" Alston took the approach that rather than just blaming everything on the player it was his responsibility as the coachto figure out what was wrong with the player (particularly if he was talented) and get him to play to his potential and fit in with the team. If all his efforts failed he wouldn't keep the player around. In his book The Baseball Handbook Alston described his principles on what called "The Psychology of Coaching":
 
"Working with 25 different players on a baseball squad is not a simple matter. Each one has its own personality and character traits which must be handled individually. Keeping in mind the strengths and weaknesses of his players, the coach has to utilize various approaches and techniques to bring out the most effective performance of his team.
 
Some athletes have to be patted on the back, while others have to be coaxed or even needled. Then, there are the problem athletes with their negative forms of behavior which must be skillfully dealt with if there is to be the team unity so necessary to win.
 
That is why the coach must continually be alert to notice the personal characteristics that distinguish the problem athlete from the good competitor. In this way, the coach with achieve a better psychological insight into the personality makeup of the player, which can be extremely valuable in motivating the athlete toward maximum effort.
 
Indeed, the athlete himself is the one who makes or breaks the manager or coach. Generally, the coach fails only when he does not get 100% out of his players.
 
The coach has to be able to recognize talent when he sees it on the ballfield. He has to be able to find mistakes and see the faults of a player. The coach must first recognize the fault and secondly, he must try and correct it in such a way that is acceptable and will get across to the boys.
 
The coach will often find it effective to make suggestions, such as, "Try this and see how it works out" He has to start out with suggestions as to how the plan might improve or how the coach thinks he will improve. He must get the idea across that this is the better way.
 
The coach cannot just walk out and say; "look you have to do it this way. "More or less, he has to sell the player on the idea that this might help him and then work on it."

​Paul William "Bear" Bryant was the head football coach at the University of Alabama from 1958 to 1982. During his 25-year tenure at Alabama he amassed six national championships (the most in modern college football history) and thirteen conference championships. The Sporting News Panel voted him the third greatest coach of all time in any sport (Vince Lombardi was #2, John Wooden #1).
 
Bryant described his approach this way:
 
"Set a goal, adopt a plan that will help you to achieve the goal. Chances of things happening in this world without goals are slim. Make sure the goal means a lot to you. Believe in your plan and don't compromise. Believe that the plan is going to win. Tie to people who believe in the plan. Make sure your plan makes the player a better person. If it doesn't, you're just using people and the plan can't be worth much."
 
Bryant recruited players based on quickness, toughness and character. He was not concerned with size. Many of Bryant's players were not recruited by other colleges because they were deemed to be too small. He was more concerned with the size of their heart than their body. Bryant put it this way:
 
"Don't tolerate lazy people. They are losers. People who come to work and watch clocks and pass off responsibilities will only drag you and your organization down. I despise clock-watchers. They don't want to be part of a winning situation. They won't roll up their sleeves when you need them to. If you have lazy people, get rid of them. Remember, it is easy to develop the bad habits of lazy people."
 
Bryant demanded much of his players and he taught them much. Players were required to get up by an appointed time every morning and show up for breakfast in the cafeteria downstairs, wearing collared shirts and long pants. They were expected to keep their rooms neat, and to make their beds every morning. The nightly curfew--10:30 P.M. during the season—was strictly enforced. Cutting classes was not tolerated. Missing an academic class usually resulted in a special 5:00 A.M. workout.
 
Bryant expected and demanded that they act like gentlemen in all situations. Any time an adult entered a room, a player was obliged to stand up. On the field he told them to knock their opponents on their backside and then help them up,
 
Bryant's life lessons for his team were direct: "Don't quit. Quit once and it is liable to become a habit." Former player Jack Pardee described the lessons that Bryant taught all of his players every year:
 
"Coach Bryant told us that if you hang in there, something good will happen. He said, ‘What's going to happen when you're 35 and you get a pink slip, the kids are hungry and your wife runs off with the shoe salesman? Are you going to quit then?' I was 18 at the time and it was hard to relate, but by the time I was 35, all those things had happened to me, except the shoe salesman part. I even had cancer when I was 28. I had four kids and didn't know if I'd live a year. Coach Bryant taught us to never give up. The things he preached came true."
 
Bear Bryant had a plan that helped others and he never quit on his players. Bryant established a scholarship fund that allowed the children of any of his former players (1958-1982) to attend the University of Alabama for free. Hundreds of youngsters benefitted.

Hall of Fame College Football Coach Tom Osborne, who led Nebraska to three national championships and thirteen conference championships in his twenty five years as head coach, was an excellent communicator. This skill served him well after coaching when he became a three term congressman in Nebraska and later when he returned as Athletic Director.
 
In Mike Harrity's book Coaching Wisdom, Coach Osborne describes how he communicated with his players about competing:
 
"I read in one of John Wooden's early books that he never talked about winning to his players. I thought that was really odd. Here's a person who, in many ways, has won more than anyone, and he never talked about winning. He continually talked about the process — how you put your socks on, how you bend your knees, how you pass — the fundamentals and the daily things that you do that eventually lead to either winning or losing. After reading that, I don't know that I ever talked to my players about winning. We talked about how you did things. It was more about the process than the final result."
 
Osborne holds both a master's and a doctorate degree in educational psychology and this helped him develop a compelling communication style which he described in Coaching Wisdom:
 
"Some of my approach to coaching goes back to my graduate work. I was in educational psychology and looked at learning theory quite a bit. It seemed that the research pointed to the fact that the best way to change behavior was to catch somebody doing something right and to positively reinforce it. I felt that it was probably beneficial to the performance to be positive, to try to reinforce the behavior you were looking for. It didn't mean you ignored mistakes or you tolerated a lack of effort or bad behavior, but you didn't attack the person in a personal way. I felt that even if you corrected a player, you let him know that you're doing it in his best interest. You could be very demanding and have very intense effort from players if they felt that what you were asking them to do was in their best interest and if, underneath it all, you cared about them as people. I felt that was important, and I think they can sense very quickly whether you genuinely care about them or whether you're putting on a front. I think it's important to be authentic."
 
Osborne was clear when he described what success meant to him:
 
"Success really has to do with having a good work ethic, being of sound character, making sure that you try to be a person of your word and that if you say something you're going to do it. That you're trustworthy. I think it's important to care about your employees, your players, the people that work under you, and try to make sure that they have the best possible outcomes, that you don't use them for your devices or purposes."

​Tom Osborne's consistently excellent results as the football coach at the University of Nebraska (83% winning percentage over twenty five years) led him to be recognized as one of the greatest college football coaches in history.
 
A key element in Osborne's consistent results was his consistent communication. Osborne described his approach in Mike Harrity's book Coaching Wisdom:
 
"I think we tried to make sure all of our players understood that there was no particular pecking order in our concern for them. We tried to make sure that they understood that each player was as important as the other. Now, some were more important to us winning a game on a Saturday afternoon, but in terms of their academics, their family, their overall well-being, we wanted to make sure that they felt valued and understood that we cared about them."
 
Osborne was systematic in making sure communication occurred with all team members consistently. He did not rely on his players to come to him. In Coaching Wisdom he described his three part communication system:
 
1. "First of all, I would meet formally with every player in the spring. I didn't just talk about football. I talked about their academics, I talked about anything that might be going on with their family, and I certainly talked about what I was seeing on the football field.
 
2. Maybe more important, every day after practice, players would go into the weight room. I would usually go in there most days and do a little lifting myself. Being there with them on their turf — they weren't being called into my office — meant that I was able to have an average of three, four, or five conversations every night with various players. These informal conversations were about the math class they were having trouble with or if their dad was sick or if their high school team won a big game. I think in the process of a season we would probably have some interaction with most every player at least three, four, five, or six times. It was a conversation that wasn't directly related to their performance on the football field, so I think that was an important time.
 
3. We also established a unity council. The players elected representatives from each position on the team. That gave the players a voice, and these members of the council would bring things up to me that I probably would never otherwise hear about. They met every week, so I would respond in a team meeting. Most things could be addressed quickly. I think sometimes we were able to put out a lot of minor brush fires that way and have the pulse or the mood of your team translated to us a little bit better. It was at least a way of communication that I thought was helpful."
 
Coach Osborne had consistent communication because he did not rely on just an "open door policy" or a "suggestion box". He systematically and aggressively made sure he was communicating with his players about more than just football.