A good number of NBA coaches were backup point guards.  Talented enough to make the team, not enough to start.  The payoff is they understood the game from a higher level.  Watching from the bench allowed them to have a wider perspective – strategy, tactics, clock management, substitution patterns, matchups, etc.  Also true of the NFL – several backup quarterbacks in the coaching ranks.  One of my favorites is Josh McCown – who has played for 12 teams.

There’s a verse in the Bible – “When the wicked rule, the people mourn.  Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  How does one develop vision?  Like those backups, I really think it comes from a combination of opportunity and experience.

The man my son is named after didn’t become possibly the greatest strategist in history just by being born.  When he was a youth, he was assigned to guard duty for the Khan’s war planning council.  And If not into conquest, it is posited that the biblical Joseph was thrown into a prison for those who held political office – that’s how he was prepared for his future high position.