Great leadership is not being taught in the many classrooms across the world.  In those places instructions by people who are only scratching the surface of understanding are bold attempts to lead a team to victory.  Only a handful of people in the entire world understand—sadly, but lucky for me the Glazer family in Tampa Bay is one of them.  The owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers understand that leadership is not so much in the obvious recognition of being a leader—it is in setting the table so that others can succeed as individuals.  The Glazers were the first to have a pirate ship in their north end zone that fires cannons when the team scores.  They are experiencing two of their first players going into the Hall Of Fame under their ownership in Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks with more on the way. They have produced many coaches for the NFL who have went to other teams and had great success, and they have produced several players and coaches who are now in the broadcast booth.  The Glazers in Tampa are trend setters who benefit the NFL experience in ways that nobody in this current time will ever give them credit for—but years down the road in hindsight will be recognized as the most modern-day molders of the success in the NFL.  It’s all about setting the table for unlocking individual success for the goals of a team—and the Glazers understand how to do that.  When an idea of theirs does not work, they quickly get off it and try something new which is unique to them.  Over the last 5 years the Bucs have made four coaching changes and recently after a 4 and 12 year they fired the entire coaching staff and front office for a complete rebuild with old Buccaneer coaches and players to launch a new decade of dominance.  And to put a period at the end of their intentions, the Glazers have decided to remarket themselves with new uniforms that are quite spectacular and have the potential to unlock in their players, coaches and fans a new generation of Hall of Fame producing players that will take their organization where they want to go.  It’s all about setting the table so that everyone else can enjoy the meal they’ve prepared.  The Glazers are setting the table for the NFL’s next ten years with leadership that is uncommon in its scope and understanding.

I’m not keen on the high school and college process of vetting great players for the NFL.  I don’t want to support public education just so that a school can produce the next Warren Sapp, or Gerald McCoy.  It is up to talent scouts to find the kids to fill the game of football, not tax payers to fund the process from the front—even though that is how it’s done.  But regardless of that, I do enjoy the game of football for a lot of reasons—most of them because of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  For 17 years I have watched the old uniforms and emblems released by the Glazers revolutionize the NFL.  If the Bucs have not been the greatest influence on the game of football, I can’t imagine who else has been.  While most of the sports related press focuses on quarterbacks, running backs and the stats in the win column, the Bucs invented the Tampa Two defense, and the kind of marketing that has generated tremendous revenue for every team in the league.  It is because of the Bucs that the Patriots fire their muskets when they score—in direct answer the Buccaneer cannons in Tampa.  It is because of the Bucs that other teams sought more aggressive color schemes as it is well documented how the Bucs have a higher winning percentage when they wear their red jerseys.  Since 1997 when there was a uniform change the Bucs had a swagger about them that seemed provoked by their new uniforms which carried them to several playoff appearances culminating into a Superbowl win.  The uniforms were so hated by other teams that the Oakland Raiders actually filed a law suit against the Bucs in 2003 which was thrown out due to the fact that it was filed in a California court while intellectual property issues are handled by federal courts.

Everyone is looking for an advantage.  Most NFL players are as good as all the other ones, and most of the coaches are just as good as everyone else.  So to gain a tactical advantage, team owners are always looking for the right leadership traits to carry their teams to higher levels of revenue streams.  The best way to do that is to win and after a series of failed attempts to find the right coaching staff to carry the Buccaneers to a return to constant playoff appearances—the Glazers elected to spend the money on a complete makeover from top to bottom—even down to the uniforms.  There is nothing better to unite the minds of the young players on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team than being the first to have such an audacious helmet with the proud flag displayed boldly on the side, or having a chrome grill on their helmets.  The Bucs a few years ago were the first to use iPads for their playbook, and now have a reputation of always looking for the latest and greatest in technical innovation to give their players an advantage over their opponents who are often just as good if not better.

People who have worked with me in the past are often frustrated that I do not care much for traditional management priorities.  Rather I spend most of my effort on team building and setting the table for other people to have success.  My success is when I remove the opposition for others to have success so that I can utilize a strategy of my choosing using the mass of a team to overwhelm the barriers of the task I want to achieve.  That is easier said than done and won’t cause me any lost opportunities to reveal here.   Often doing such things is like dragging a herd of donkeys up Mt. Everest one by one.  The trick isn’t so much as seeing how it’s done, but knowing what to do and when.  I do a lot of speeches, hand punching and deep psychological analysis to discover how to uncover hidden human potential—because it is there that an advantage always resides.  Most people are skilled, and in the NFL everyone is fast, everyone is strong, everyone is smart—so to gain an advantage other elements have to come into play.

The Glazers understand this very well.  When you land at Tampa International Airport, the Buccaneer flag that flies over One Buc Place—the training facility for the football team, is unmistakably huge.  You can see it clearly from the airport.  There is nothing like it anywhere in the country.  When players come to Tampa to play for the Bucs they have to look up at that giant flag which essentially greets everyone who visits the Tampa area by air.  The players have to live up to that high level of commitment provided by the Glazers represented by that giant flag.

I have spent many Sunday afternoons watching Tampa Bay Buccaneer football games and have seen a lot of excitement over the years—even when they lose.  There is almost always a swagger about the Bucs which makes their football games more exciting.  But that swagger does not come so much from the players, but from the Glazers who set the table for that swagger to find a home.  The swagger comes from untouched human potential locked away from the world through various social restrictions.  The Glazers ignore those restrictions so to unlock that potential for their use—and they are far more right than wrong.  I fire cannons off my front porch when the Bucs score because the Glazers started the trend.  I have enjoyed my game experiences in Tampa so much that I seek to duplicate Raymond James Stadium at my house on Sundays.  I hang my flags everywhere—a few of which were actually given to me by the Glazer family, and I blast smoke machines all over the house and create quite a festive environment.  I have yelled so loud at the television during some of these games that I have shattered glass.  Nobody sleeps in my house during a Buccaneer football game, because they are exciting, and that excitement was created by the Glazers—not so much the players themselves.  The player potential was always there, but the Glazers unlocked it for the entertainment of the fans.

Now with the new uniforms, this will only increase and I am excited about it.  On the night of the announcement seen on the first video above with Warren Sapp revealing the new logo my wife was begging me for an evening in the hot tub—which would normally be a coveted activity.  But I told her that I had to see the Buccaneers new logo first.  Once I saw it we could get in.  She came to me in a state of seductive undress, but the NFL Network indicated that it would be the last story of their broadcast, so I held up my finger to wait another 15 minutes.  She then pleaded with me to turn it on at the hot tub, but I was glued to the screen.  I wanted to see the new logo on the biggest screen possible.  Finally, after waiting all day—and watching the NFL Network for 50 minutes, Warren Sapp revealed the new helmet and the next decade of my life flashed before me.  The old uniform entertained my children as they watched my excitement during Buccaneer football games hoping the Bucs would score so I would yell at the television and fire off the cannons from our porch filling the house with smoke.  Most of the time the smoke is so thick that nobody can even see the television.  Now the new uniforms will usher my grandchildren into the same kind of behavior because the new logo is exciting and will lead to many more exciting games giving me something to cheer for—if only because it’s so cool.

I love the new uniforms and the Buccaneers as an organization who understand that leadership is not in the observable feats, but the hidden ones.  Sometimes it really is as simple as a uniform change—and in this case—it’s a change that will have a dramatic impact on a team who really needed it.  The table for success has been set, and now it’s time to eat.  But the cuisine is not chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob—it’s the competition.  And they are ripe for mass consumption.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com