For years, the Alaska State Men’s High School Basketball Championships were dominated by powerhouse teams from the state’s largest cities—Anchorage, in particular. But in 2001, there was an improbable contender: the Bears, a small team from one of the state’s most rural communities. The Bears hailed from Kodiak, a remote fishing community of 6,000 residents located on a large island in the Gulf of Alaska that is only accessible by plane or ferry. A surprisingly diverse community known for its large brown bears, Kodiak was originally home to thriving native Alaskan villages. Later, the land was settled by the Russians and then sold to the United States. The town also has a robust population of Filipinos, who moved to the island to work in the fish canneries, as did others from Central and South America, Korea, and Europe. The men and women deployed to serve at Coast Guard Base Kodiak brought even more diversity to the community. The 10 team members of the Bears basketball team reflected the community’s diversity—with ethnicities including native Alaskan, Filipino, and African American. They were led by Coach Amy Rakers, who at 6-foot-2 was taller than all but one of her players. Coach Rakers was only the second woman in the history of Alaska to coach a boys’ high school team and the first one to bring a team all the way to a final state championship game. Originally a standout player for Southern Illinois University, Amy played professionally in Japan. She returned to the United States and, after visiting a friend in Alaska, decided to stay, taking a part-time job in the small town of Soldotna. When that school’s boys’ basketball coach left one month prior to the end of the season, Amy filled in and was offered the position as the head varsity coach. Two years later, she accepted a job in Kodiak to teach English and coach the boys’ junior varsity team. Because she was a woman in a predominantly male field, Coach Rakers’s presence as a coach for a boys’ basketball team was not always welcomed. Soldotna athletic director Allan Howard recalls that some parents and athletes were dismayed when he hired Amy. “I had a couple players, and one for sure, that dropped out before the end of the season,” Howard said. “I know no other reason why they did that, except they were having an issue with having a female as their coach” (Lester, 2019). Coach Rakers also experienced pushback from parents, other coaches, and even fans in the stands. An opposing coach suggested she “go back to her knitting,” and another handed out “tampon awards” to her players (Amy Fogle, personal communication, May 9, 2019).

Coming to Kodiak wasn’t much easier. “At first, the other coaches were a little leery of me, not knowing that much about me,” Coach Rakers said. “Some may have thought Kodiak had to be desperate to hire a woman. But I developed a good relationship with some other coaches, and the rest of the coaches came around” (Underwood, 2001).

Despite the negativity, Coach Rakers says she “didn’t spend a whole lot of time trying to prove anything because I was a woman.” Instead, she focused on instilling her game and ideals in her players, saying “I felt a responsibility to teach them the game of basketball and to teach them how to play hard. And to win and lose and be respectful about it” (Lester, 2019).

Coach Rakers quickly advanced to coach the varsity squad but found island life made building a team especially challenging. The teams on the mainland had rosters of larger players who had competed together for years and had access to organized programs, competition teams, and numerous training camps and tournaments (both in Alaska and in the lower 48 states) during their formative years.

Kodiak’s players, on the other hand, grew up playing pickup ball in their neighborhoods and villages. They might have begun their basketball training as elementary school students in the Little Dribblers’ program, later playing on junior high school teams. In junior high, however, just the eighth-grade team traveled to compete because of funding limitations. Traveling to other villages on Kodiak Island was difficult. Roads between the villages were few and far between, and the only way to get to many of the villages was by bush plane or floatplane, unless the team could fit their travel into the thrice-weekly ferry schedule.

Only one high school serves the whole island of Kodiak, so the only competition for the high school’s teams was on the mainland. Traveling to the mainland and back was expensive and not easy; weather in the form of snow, fog, high winds, or ice often hampered travel. The Bears had limited finances for travel, forcing Coach Rakers to cull her already small squad of 10 to fewer players for away games. This meant fewer players to substitute in to play as other players tired or fouled out—a disadvantage the home teams they competed against didn’t have. It was also costly for teams to travel to Kodiak to play, making it hard to entice stronger mainland opponents to include Kodiak in their schedules.

From the start, Coach Rakers made it clear to her players that these obstacles could be overcome through hard work and commitment. After a successful 2000 season where the team finished third in the state and with several key players returning, the 2001 Kodiak team was poised to make it to the final championship game—a goal Coach Rakers inculcated into each team member..............

Questions 

1. Unclear goals and unclear directions are listed in the chapter as the first two obstacles to leadership. Discuss how they apply to this case and how Coach Rakers addressed each obstacle.

2. The Kodiak basketball team faced a multitude of obstacles and challenges, yet the players, led by their coach, did not lack motivation.

a. List and discuss the various obstacles and challenges the team faced.

b. Discuss the obstacles Coach Rakers personally faced. How did she address them?

c. How did Coach Rakers assist her team in maintaining motivation in the face of these challenges? In particular, what did she do to:

i. Help them feel confident?

ii. Help them identify and meet their own expectations?

iii. Help them to value what they did?

3. The chapter discusses four leadership styles and presents them in response to various types of challenges faced by teams and followers. For each of the following categories, discuss the obstacles the Kodiak Bears could have faced that fit into the category and how Coach Amy Rakers did or did not address those obstacles with the appropriate leadership style.

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Category of Obstacle Complex Tasks b. Simple Tasks Low Involvement Lack of Challenge a. Complex Tasks Category of Obstacle Leadership Style b. Simple Tasks c. Low Involvement Leadership Style Directive Leadership Supportive Leadership Participative Leadership d. Lack of Challenge Achievement-Oriented Leadership Directive Leadership Supportive Leadership Participative Leadership Achievement-Oriented Leadership