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One of the best books written by sports greats is When the Game was Ours by Larry Bird and Earvin Magic Johnson, with Jackie MacMullan.
Larry Bird and Magic Johnson will always be linked as two competitors. They are linked like Muhammad Ali versus Joe Frazier and Wilt Chamberlain versus Bill Russell. They first competed against each other in the NCAA basketball championship, which has the highest ratings of viewers of any game in history. They then competed against each other in the NBA and in three NBA finals. One was white and one was black; one from a city and one from the country; one was quiet and shy and one outgoing and loved being around people. The one thing that they had in common is that neither was a great athlete. They were considered slow, with poor jumping ability. They were great because of their work ethic and their deep desire to be great. They out-worked and out-competed their competition.
They did not like each other at first, yet there was respect. They each practiced hard, motivated to beat the other. Then because of a television commercial they became friends. This book tells about each of their lives, how hard they worked and practiced and how they became friends.
This is a must read for people who want to be successful. It does help if you have a slight interest in basketball, but it may not be necessary. This is a compelling story of what it takes to win. We often think these great stars are born great. Not the case with most and especially Bird and Magic. They did it by will and effort.
One of the best quotes from the book, summarizes what I am referring to about why this book is a must read for those who want to know what it takes to be successul: “[Magic] worked tirelessly on his ball-handling and his rebounding with the advice [Coach] Fox gave him imprinted on his mind: when you think you have done enough, do a little more, because someone out there is working harder than you. Bird was told the same thing by coach Jim Jones. As he advanced from high school to the college game, he wasn’t sure that “other person” truly existed. ‘Not until I met Magic,’ Bird said.”
No matter much you struggle, you cannot lose faith in yourself. The great ones don’t. Lakers commentator Mychal Thompson during Kobe Bryant’s struggles in Game 7 of the NBA Championship.
The Lakers fought and clawed in Game 7 to become the 2010 NBA Champions. It was a big win for all the Lakers, but no one wanted it more than Kobe Bryant. Kobe wants to win for his teammates and for his legacy to become one of basketball all-time greats. He wanted his fifth championship ring to tie him with Magic Johnson and become only one ring behind Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (and one ahead of Shaq).
It was also Kobe’s first Game 7 Finals and it would be his biggest stage, his opportunity with the biggest viewership of a NBA basketball game since the 1980s. No player prepares harder by watching film and practicing than Kobe. He was prepared. Yet, for three quarters he had probably his worst shooting game of his career. Partly because of the tough Celtic defense and partly because of nerves and too much adrenaline, he missed nearly every shot.
Kobe struggled for three quarters. His frustration showed as he cried out to the gods wondering why they were against him. I was thinking at the end of the third quarter that the next quarter would define Kobe’s legacy. Could he forget about the past- the three quarters of hell? Could he stay composed and only focus on the next twelve minutes and will his team to victory?
He did, scoring ten points, playing tenacious defense and getting many tough rebounds in the fourth quarter. He willed his team to victory.
Kobe’s struggles and subsequent success is analogous to most successes. Years of struggles and frustration; questioning why it is not working; yet, not losing faith in yourself. It is having faith despite the struggles that if you keep at it, you will succeed. It is what the great ones do.
Coach Wooden is one of the great men of modern time who exemplified the balance of family, success and contribution. If you read any Coach Wooden book, this is the one I recommend.
This easy-to-read book begins at his foundation: family, values and virtues and then discusses and offers wisdom on the topics of success, achievement, competition and leadership.
I've pulled some of my favorite quotes from the book to share with you:
A great man passed away on Friday. He was a teacher disguised as a basketball coach. Although I was never on any of his teams and only met him briefly, he was a big influence on my life.
Coach Wooden was voted by sports writers as the greatest coach of any sport in the 20th century. His UCLA teams won 10 national championships, by far the most ever. But it was not these successes alone that made him such an amazing man. It was his values and what he stood for: the importance of marriage and family, character and integrity, sacrifice and teamwork. Preparation, preparation and more preparation. Focus on the effort and not on the results.
A must read is "Wooden- A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court" by Coach Wooden with Steve Jamison. It is an easy read, where it is best only to read a page or two at a time. You will learn what it takes to be successful and how to have a meaningful life.
Two things that stick out most in my mind about Coach Wooden. One, some of his players say what they learned most from Coach Wooden is how to be a good husband by his example of how he was to his beloved wife Nellie. Two, the amount of preparation he put in to each practice; more time to prepare for the practice than the time it took to conduct the practice. I hope I learned these lessons well. The most important thing I can teach is how to be a husband and father; and, to maximize success, prepare, prepare, prepare.
May he rest in peace and always be in our hearts.
-Gary
Written by Nia Bowers
Some leaders arrive at the top of a company. Vera Quinn built her way there.
She got her start over 25 years ago as a door-to-door sales representative within the outsourced sales industry. What followed was an impressive ascent in business leadership when she joined Cydcor (a leader in the outsourced sales arena): VP of Operations, Senior VP of Sales Operations, Chief Operating Officer, President, and finally CEO in 2020.
Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Agoura Hills, California, Cydcor is a trusted provider of outsourced customer acquisition solutions. Through its network of independently owned and operated sales companies, Cydcor offers Fortune 500 and emerging brands a blend of personal connection and technology that has kept clients coming back year after year.
When Quinn took over as CEO, the world was six weeks into a pandemic that had effectively outlawed the face-to-face sales model Cydcor’s business was built on. Many companies in that position played defense. Quinn led Cydcor’s corporate team to develop and launch touchless selling technologies, equipping the network of independent sales companies with entirely new strategies for customer acquisition and enabling the business to evolve and thrive.
It wasn't a pivot born of desperation. It was the kind of move that only happens when a leader knows the machinery well enough to rebuild it under pressure.
Since becoming CEO, Quinn has led Cydcor through consistent revenue growth, expansion into new industry verticals, and recognition on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. In 2025, Cydcor posted double-digit revenue growth for the fourth consecutive year, continued to serve long-standing clients, and saw its network scale their own businesses and develop new entrepreneurs.
Quinn talks about culture the way most executives talk about strategy as the thing everything else depends on.
"If you want great results, you have to invest in the people around you," she says. "It’s about giving them the tools, the clarity, and the belief that they can achieve more than they thought possible."
That belief isn’t decorative. At Cydcor, it operates as a management principle, one that runs through how the corporate team functions, how Cydcor approaches its relationship with the network of independently owned and operated sales companies that carry out field execution, and how it maintains the client relationships that have, in many cases, lasted decades.
"Clients stay with us because we’re consistent and because we do what we say we’ll do," Quinn explains. "They trust the integrity of our team and the strength of our network."
Cydcor has earned the DIRECTV Dealer of the Year Revolution Award for nine consecutive years. That kind of sustained recognition is less about any single campaign and more about what happens when accountability is baked into how a company operates at every level.
Under Quinn’s leadership, Cydcor has also been named a Best Place to Work in Los Angeles 13 times, a reflection of a corporate culture that doesn’t treat growth and team investment as competing priorities.
The accolades of the past few years read less like a peak and more like a confirmation of something that's been compounding for a long time.
Quinn was honored by Comerica and the Los Angeles Lakers with their Women of Business Award, named CEO of the Year by the Los Angeles Business Journal Valley Women's Leadership Awards, and was an honoree of the LA Times Studios Inspirational Women Forum & Leadership Awards - recognized for her focus on driving sustained business growth and building a high-performance, opportunity-based culture.
The Valley Women's Leadership Symposium spotlights influential leaders across the San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles who are driving innovation, cultivating inclusive workplaces, and shaping the future of business. Quinn's inclusion wasn't a lifetime achievement moment, it was a recognition of something actively in motion.
Quinn also serves as Executive Director of Liberty Children’s Home in Belize extending the same investment-in-people philosophy that defines her leadership at Cydcor into work that has nothing to do with revenue targets. Through Cydcor and its network, the company’s relationship with Operation Smile has helped fund nearly 4,000 smile-restoration surgeries for children, with over $1,000,000 raised.
It's a pattern worth noting: the leaders who build durable companies tend to be the ones who aren't only building companies.
Quinn has spent more than two decades learning within the industry and leading through a period that would have broken a less prepared successor. The numbers reflect it. So does the culture. And so, increasingly, does the industry recognition that keeps finding her, not because she's chasing it, but because the results keep demanding it.
Vera Quinn is the President and CEO of Cydcor, a leader in outsourced sales headquartered in Agoura Hills, California. Learn more at cydcor.com.