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Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!
Welcome to Essential Dynamics. I'm your host, Derek Hudson. I'm, developing a a framework called Essential Dynamics, which helps us learn how to run our lives and organizations better. Picking up a conversation that we started last last time with, Anne Hall about the Edmonton grads. Anne, welcome back.
Ann Hall:Thank you. I'm very glad to be here.
Derek Hudson:Anne, that was, that was such a great conversation about the grads. They they were, dominant in their sport in the world for twenty five years. And, I had, when I was thinking about season five of this podcast, decided that what I really wanted to do was to focus on system flow and try to find examples of organizations and systems that that just had flow. And we talk about flow in different ways, but it's kinda like you know it when you see it. And so I was trying to think of examples, and I it came up with the idea of the Edmonton grads.
Derek Hudson:And so I researched a little bit online and found the book that Anne wrote, and then I found Anne here in our lovely city of Edmonton. And I had, a hypothesis that there must have been system flow present in the way the grads were operated to be so dominant for so long and to perform at such a high level for so long. And I think that I found it. And so I want to, explore that with Anne. I I did, find some nuggets in the book.
Derek Hudson:And I'm gonna start with start with this. And that is that, systems, have a purpose. And in fact, one of the ways that a system is defined is it's a group of interrelated activities that come together to achieve a purpose. And in essential dynamics, we like to talk about having two purposes, that are complementary. And, what I was able to discern from studying the grads, I just wanna test this on you, was that, the two purposes which we call purpose x and purpose y for the grads, could be stated as something like purpose x was to provide these young women with the opportunity to grow and develop as, people and as athletes, and to have great experiences that would serve them well in life.
Derek Hudson:And the other one was to refine and promote the game of basketball. And they're not, they're not at odds, but they're not really the same thing. Would that be fair to say that was in Jay Percy Page's mind when he started and as he as he had this great run?
Ann Hall:Yes. I I think so. You know, I'm not I'm not of course, I I I could never I didn't interview Percy Page, and, one thing that, they have to remember is that as much as I searched and searched and searched, I could never find his records, which would have been really interesting because he was an incredible businessman. Mhmm. He had help with that, but, I think I'm I'm not sure where those records are, whether they got lost in any of his moves, or I also came to the conclusion that perhaps he destroyed them, for whatever his reasons were.
Ann Hall:Page himself was really the grads considered him almost in some ways, like a father figure. In fact, there were several grads who had lost their father, but when they married, Page took them down the aisle as a as a substitute father.
Derek Hudson:Fantastic. Yeah.
Ann Hall:Yeah. And so I think and he was supported in all this, and I think this is something that's not really, known a lot, is that he was highly supported by his wife, who I think I might have mentioned in the last episode that when they traveled, he she was very much concerned that these, young women who would never have had an opportunity, as working class women, opportunity to go to Europe, themselves. They they made he she made sure that they understood the countries that they were in, the culture of the country, and they did things that allowed them to have a much broader education than it would by just simply playing basketball. So I mean, I think I think I think this whole thing was was really much, much bigger than just basketball.
Derek Hudson:Sure.
Ann Hall:It was the means by which they could travel. It was the means by which they became well known. It was the means by which they had fun, but it was much, much bigger than basketball.
Derek Hudson:And at the same time, they were leaders in developing women's basketball. Basketball in general, like in terms of the the skill on the court.
Ann Hall:They were, but, again, you have to remember that as basketball developed in excuse me, in this country, there were two sets of rules, women's rules and men's rules. And, the the the women's rules came mainly from The United States of women, physical educators who were concerned about over exertion, about women, becoming less than, what they should be if they played men's rules and so on. And so they maintained, and there were many women in particularly in Ontario, physical educators who insisted that we, because I'm part of that generation, played women's rules. Paige didn't seem this was something that he never even encountered as far as I'm concerned. I wish I could have talked to him about it, but they always played men's rules.
Ann Hall:And it was partly also because of the teams that came up from The United States who were from the factory teams, the industrial teams, they played men's rules. So they had to really if they wanted to compete with those teams, they had to play men's rules.
Derek Hudson:So if I wanna pick up on that, so the the college teams would be more inclined to play the women's rules.
Ann Hall:And the
Derek Hudson:Industrial teams are playing the men's rules.
Ann Hall:Exactly, yes. Yeah. Yes.
Derek Hudson:And and the men's rules were similar to the game we know today. There was, five players, full court, everyone can score.
Ann Hall:Yes.
Derek Hudson:No three point line, no no shot clock, but still Exactly.
Ann Hall:Yeah. Just the game. Exactly. Yeah.
Derek Hudson:And the women's was more of a, like, you're in a zone and
Ann Hall:you Yes. And, you could only play two thirds of the court. If you were a card, you couldn't go into the forward area. And if you were, you know
Derek Hudson:Oh my goodness.
Ann Hall:I mean, it was anyway.
Derek Hudson:Okay. So so but then the other thing is that, one of the things I noted, and it's such a fun little point in your book is that, the pages, is it Maud, Percy and Maud, is that right?
Ann Hall:Yes. Yeah.
Derek Hudson:Percy and Maud kept track of all of the, descendants of the grads. Like you said, they walked some down the aisle, but they they had their collection of, you know, grand grand grandchildren or something like that, and they kept track of them.
Ann Hall:They I think it was more than the grads themselves. The grads really created a club.
Derek Hudson:Oh, okay.
Ann Hall:And they had regular reunions. And as they, the grads, you know, formed their own families and had their own children and some moved away and so on. But they it was really a very, very interesting and tight club. If you were had been a grad, then, all of your, descendants and all of your family and your husbands and so on, they were all welcome, and they all came back for reunions.
Derek Hudson:Uh-huh.
Ann Hall:And and, Paige, when he was alive, was and and his wife also alive, were very much a part of those reunions.
Derek Hudson:So the thing that I picked up from that, to this, theory that perhaps women's bodies weren't up for exertion was that, they they had lots of children. They were at, like, at the national average for, for live births or whatever you would statistic you would track. They
Ann Hall:Of course. I mean, they
Derek Hudson:what we found out from that is that, women are are capable of, contact sports and high exertion and, and and playing games that people wanna watch, and they Page never gave that a moment's thought, I don't think.
Ann Hall:And and that's interesting because, as far as I can tell, and I and, you know, of course, I wish I had I've been able to talk to mister Page himself. And that was never an aspect of his his thinking. Never an aspect as far as I could see. What was far more important to the Pages and mister Page was their behavior
Derek Hudson:Right.
Ann Hall:Off the court, on the court, in their lives themselves. Quite frankly, there were a couple of, of grads whose, personal lives, let's say it went off went went a little bit askew, and they were not welcome at the reunions. So he had these incredibly high standards for Right. These women in terms of their behavior.
Derek Hudson:And you said last time that, people told you you were gonna find a dictator, and you when you when you looked at the accounts and talked to people, it was it was not that. But he did have high standards.
Ann Hall:He had high standards, but he had the respect of every single grad. I was able to, as I said before, interview for them, and all of them in their very old age at that time still had enormous respect for that man.
Derek Hudson:So let's talk about the system that he created. And I've got a a way to think about that, and I'm not gonna reach about it. Here, I just I'm just gonna kind of grab elements. So, he's they're very clear that this was not just about basketball.
Ann Hall:Yes. Mhmm.
Derek Hudson:So that this was about developing young women into happy, productive, contributing members of society in many ways.
Ann Hall:Yes. I think so.
Derek Hudson:Yes. Basketball is a forum for that. So I refer to that as sort of like value flow. We, we, our systems need to create, produce the thing that they were intended to produce. And he, he had a way of doing that, and he just did it on the court.
Derek Hudson:The other thing that, is necessary to have a sustainable system is it needs to be able to generate the resources it needs to function. And when I'm talking about a business, I make a distinction between value flow, which is, you know, producing a product for a customer, and cash flow, which is how those resources flow back into the system so you can keep doing it. And, and coach Paige was also the business manager, And somehow he came up with a sustainable system for managing cash flow, to the point where they could go on these trips, travel to this US, travel to the world to keep the keep the team, functioning over many years. How did he do that? I
Ann Hall:think he had help. And I think the help came in large measure from the Rotarians. He was a Rotarian. He, they had quite a bit of fundraising on behalf of the grads, and, they would, they would look after that. They would employ the Rotarians, of course, for businessmen and owned businesses, And they would employ when the grads graduated from the commercial, they would employ them in their businesses.
Ann Hall:And when they did, they made sure that the, summer holidays they had coincided with the, barnstorming trips that were going they were gonna take down into The States. They helped raise funds. You know, it was fairly costly for them to travel to Europe on the three Olympics and then also to 1932 to the Los Angeles Olympics. They helped raise money for that. So, you know, this whole thing, when you look at it, is it's all connected, because the Rotarians understood very clearly that the grads could promote the city and, help them, develop the this growing small town at the time, but small business and and bring in the the kind of people that were needed to make it grow.
Ann Hall:So and Paige understood that. Even though he was a a teacher, he for some reason, he really clearly understood that. And he yeah. Sorry.
Derek Hudson:No. No. That's great. So he had a product.
Ann Hall:Yeah. The
Derek Hudson:community that the community bought in in many ways. So I mean, they they showed up at the arena, and and there there was the gate receipts, which I'm sure weren't I mean, they clearly weren't enough. But then he had these business people in the community who saw the product of the grads either as as the players themselves and and their employees, the, sort of, I guess, the marketing and branding opportunities that, put the city on the map in Europe and places like that. Mhmm. And just to stay a wholesome story and all that came together, and so it was worth the Rotarians and the individual businesses to support them over over many, many years.
Ann Hall:Yeah. Absolutely. I don't I think I think what's so interesting is that I'm not sure it started out that way. Right. I mean, you had you had these young women graduating, and they played basketball, and they they came to their teacher, who was their phys ed teacher, and he said, you know, we wanna keep playing basketball.
Ann Hall:And I'm not sure that this was in his mind when they started all this, you know. And they said, I repeat, I wish I could have spoken to him and asked him.
Derek Hudson:Yeah. The right the right man for the job. So let's talk a little bit about his leadership. And, and then I wanna talk about the grads themselves. And so one of the things that, Essential Dynamics is very interested in organizations is is there's always this, potential conflict between people as individuals wanting to be autonomous and in charge of themselves and do things their own way, and then needing to join a group, and they need to conform and cooperate in a group setting.
Derek Hudson:And one of the things that I learned about the grads is that they very much had a a team approach to everything. They didn't run their basketball system on having stars. It was very much focused on, team play. But there were very specific expectations within that system, both for personal deportment when they were traveling and also how they played the game. How did the coach manage to strike that balance so well for so long?
Ann Hall:I think because he he he knew his players. I mean, I think there's only two players in the entire grad, history, which is and there are 38 altogether who didn't actually go to school at commercial, at MacDougall.
Derek Hudson:Mhmm.
Ann Hall:So the when they came in to play and now and also you have to remember that as the grads, developed, there were a whole series of fire of of basically farm teams. And he also brought in other coaches so that he didn't have to look after them all. And, so you would have them playing with the Gradets, for example, which was the farm team just underneath the Gradts. But there were several other teams below that so that you had eventually, over the years, the twenty five years that they played, they had developed this incredible farm system.
Derek Hudson:Mhmm.
Ann Hall:And so that, and and Paige would have known the young woman as they came into the school because he was there teaching, and he would have known them right from the right from the very beginning as they moved up through the different levels that he had developed. So it it it my understanding was that it wasn't if you misbehaved or you crossed him or you want then he knew that very much from the beginning, and then you never had a chance to move up into the other systems so that you became a grad.
Derek Hudson:And so that culture that the grads had, if we wanna call it that, was, was consistent with the farm teams. Yes. And you grew up in the culture, and that's just the way it was.
Ann Hall:Exactly. Yeah. And he, you know, he was I hate to use the word stern because maybe that would look like it today. But I mean, you must remember that we're dealing with a time period in which, quite frankly, women were as free as they are today. The behaviors were understanding of of of womanly behavior was different.
Ann Hall:So it's a different kind of culture that we're that, you know, in the grads grew up in. And but he he was he was stern and yet fair. And, my understanding was that, you know, most of his players loved him. I mean, he really he he he was a father figure to to many of them, especially if they had lost their own father.
Derek Hudson:So he he he was that, I guess, the our typical father that has high expectations.
Ann Hall:Oh, absolutely.
Derek Hudson:And, expects you to show up in work and, pick yourself up when you get knocked down and Yeah, exactly. And things like that. Absolutely. He also said in our previous conversation that he was an exemplar.
Ann Hall:Mhmm.
Derek Hudson:And I think what you meant by that was that he had, a man who held himself to all the he he lived at the standards that he held for everyone else.
Ann Hall:Absolutely. Yes, he did. Mhmm. And he be you know, he became the lieutenant governor in the of the province. And, you know, he was he was a an incredibly well respected individual in the province.
Derek Hudson:So so, you know, lesson to leaders is if you want to be able to keep people to high standards and not have many rules, then there's be an example yourself holding to the standards, having people understand the rules. I mean, not understand the rules, understand expectations, govern themselves, and, develop that culture where that's just the way it's done. And, that's that was one of the ways that they sort of got into that flow and performance was that that's the way they did it.
Ann Hall:Yes. And and also, what's interesting is that the community itself had almost those standards too. I mean, I I ran into a few examples in the in the interviews. If someone in the community saw a grad, behaving in a way that they thought was inappropriate, Percy Page soon learned about it.
Derek Hudson:Well, he heard about it. Yeah. Okay.
Ann Hall:So so, yeah, it wasn't just him. It was, you know, the entire city recognizing the importance of the grass. And therefore, they, you know, they were all under the microscope to a certain extent, and they all had to behave. And in a couple of cases, this didn't happen, so
Derek Hudson:It takes a village to raise a grad, I guess.
Ann Hall:I guess so, yeah.
Derek Hudson:That's that's very interesting. One of the other concepts that I've come to really, think has some value, we talked about value flow and cash flow, there's another thing and that's in an organization, in a system, there's, what you might call energy flow. And that's where people get their motivation and their energy, and and you expend it, but it somehow is replenished. And, so one way that shows up in the story of the grads is that they only had 38 players over twenty five years.
Ann Hall:Mhmm.
Derek Hudson:And so they were able to play for many years without pay, and they keep showing up. What can you tell me any more about that?
Ann Hall:Well, again, I think it was I think it was part of the culture. I mean, we're dealing with with twenty five years, basically. One thing that he was adamant about is once and this was, of course, very much true of the times. Once a grad became married, they could no longer play on the team. Now, there were a couple who married in secret, and they didn't go at it.
Derek Hudson:Right but right before the big game. Right?
Ann Hall:Yeah. Well, exactly. And so, again, we're dealing with a period of time in which, you know, once a woman was married, they left the workforce, they then focused on their family and so on. And so he was very traditional in that sense. But it is funny that a few of them, a couple of them, at least, I know were married when they were still playing.
Ann Hall:The other thing is, I think, to understand why the team disbanded, after twenty five years. Sure. And that was, the last game was played on June 1940. And there are several reasons behind that. First of all, the military had taken over the, Edmonton Arena, so that was not really available to them any longer.
Ann Hall:They've been playing for twenty five years. But I think the most important thing was that Page was, at this point, a very, very busy man. I mean, he was a teacher, he was a school principal, he was a member of the Alberta legislature. And even though he did have, under under him, he did have other coaches, it it just for him, it was just time, I think. I think he was the one that made the decision, really, that the team that was it.
Ann Hall:We had we they finished it.
Derek Hudson:Well, and they and they finished on top in a sense.
Ann Hall:Absolutely. Yeah. And they are they are they are the most winningest team, I think, certainly in Canada and I think almost in the world. There is no team that has ever touched them in terms of their record.
Derek Hudson:Any sport and could you share that record as you've, have you just calculated it? I know there's different ways.
Ann Hall:It in the book the the the record always is that, you know, they won 520 games. Well, I did a lot of research around that, and that's a little bit exaggerated, but I don't think that's the important thing. The important thing is that there no one else has touched this record. And it's just a question of how you add them up and how you, come up with the figure, but it's a little bit less than that. But it it it still represents about a 96% win rate no matter how you do the statistics.
Derek Hudson:So 96% win rate, the the smallest city in Northern Canada, in the Northern Part of Canada for for for cities of that size, players didn't get paid, coach didn't get paid, they played as a team, they didn't have any scandals, they played internationally and won. What a great story. And Anne, I just wanna ask you, what do you you studied it so hard. Like, what insight or inspiration do you pick up from the story of the grads?
Ann Hall:Well, that's an that's an interesting question because, it's a book that I wrote well, the reason I the reason I wrote the book was that, prior to that, I had finished a book called The Girl in the Game, a History of Women's Sport in Canada. And in the process of writing that book, of course, I knew about the grads because I've lived here since, the early sixties. And, but I realized that no one had written a book about the grads. And so that was the next book. It just followed automatically from that book.
Ann Hall:And, and as I did all the research, I thought, this is an amazing story. Really is an amazing, and these were amazing women. And, to this day, I've I've I've subsequently written, you know, a few other books after this, but it is the one book for which I get the most, requests, the most, People have written me from all over saying how much they've enjoyed it. And what is also funny, people write women write and said, my my mother was a grad, and you don't write about her. Well, of course, she wasn't because I have all the grads.
Ann Hall:It could have been that her mother was a gradette.
Derek Hudson:Sure.
Ann Hall:And unfortunately, there were no real records of all the women who were gradettes who didn't make it into the grads. So, it is an amazing story, and I've I've been incredibly grateful for the feedback and the, response that the book has had and the the number of people who have contacted me with other stories. It's it's been really very interesting. Wish all when you wrote a book, I wish that they all would go like that, but they don't. No.
Derek Hudson:Well, you you chose a great story from a great city. I just wanna do one shout out, and that is to, my daughter Leisha's friend, Kalia, whose grandmother, Noel McDonald, was, was a standout on the grads on a team that didn't have stars. But, I just wanted to highlight that. Galicia was, on our last podcast, of season four. And, she hung around with, Noel McDonald's daughter granddaughter, Callie, in high school.
Derek Hudson:They're good friends. And, Callie is really very proud of her grandmother. And, I know that the stuff she shared on Facebook was from your book. And, so that that, sense of pride, multi generational now. What a great story.
Derek Hudson:And I think that I've learned a bunch of stuff about how organizations can run better based on, you know, an example that's right here in our, right here in Edmonton. So, Anne, thank you so much. If people wanna learn more about your work and the grads, how can how can they contact you?
Ann Hall:How can they contact me?
Derek Hudson:Yeah. I think I found you on LinkedIn. Maybe that's a hint.
Ann Hall:Just I have a website.
Derek Hudson:You have a website. That's right.
Ann Hall:Yeah. Just just look up, m and Paul, and you'll find my website. And, as I said, I respond to I'm still getting a lot of information, requests, questions, and so on, so I'm happy to respond anytime anyone contacts me.
Derek Hudson:Well, and you've been so gracious for me to reach out reach out for for the blue and, join me on this these two amazing podcast episodes. So, Anne, thank you very much. Thanks to Brynn, and, attribute this episode to the 38 members of, the Edmonton grads over the years and to, Jay Percy and Maude Page for, the work they did in building Edmonton. So we're proud to have that as part of our community's history. And so until next time, consider your
Ann Hall:quest.