The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Family Tree

For those of you burdened by a real job and pressing responsibilities who may have missed seeing the brilliant product of Christopher Guest's twisted mind on HBO, give yourself a second chance - now.  Family Tree is the best comedy in a long, long time (Seinfeld included).  The eight-part adventure is fall on the floor, tears streaming down your face funny.  And, Episode Two is the most wicked hilarious twenty minutes in the history of television.  Ever.

So, grab a bowl of Orville Redenbacher's finest, and a bucket of your favorite artisanal IPA, to settle in with HBO Go or On Demand for an evening of Family Tree marathon.  You might want to watch Episode Two a couple of times, so don't overplan the time commitment.

The show did get me to thinking about trees and relationships in other spheres.  There are trees of football coaches, for example, with Air Coryell influencing generations of head coaches and assistants in the NFL.  The lines are more clear and longer in basketball.  Bobby Knight, to name one, made it his business to rope in Henry Iba and Claire Bee as mentors early in his coaching career, which put him in a direct line of succession from James Naismith, who invented the game.  Knight, in turn, created Duke's Coach K, who then influenced Harvard's Tommy Amaker.  Where will it all end?  Or, will the circle stay unbroken?

We have similar paths of influence and impact in the supply chain community.  The godfather of godfathers in academia was Michigan State's late Don Bowersox, who taught the earliest generation of pioneers, who then went on to create their own branches on the tree, notably including Ohio Satte's Bud LaLonde.  And, Don's progeny have gone on to strong practitioner roles in our professional community.

The practitioner community teems with the products of Bowersox, LaLonde, Penn State's John Coyle, and a few others.  But, a notable practitioner collective has also developed from the Nabisco Mafia roots established by Joe Andraski.  Its alumni are seemingly everywhere, and have gone on to infiltrate all manner of supply chain constructs in a vast array of industry verticals.

So, take a minute to think about how the branch you are sitting on connects to one of the trees that define who we are and how we got here.  And, go back to watch Episode Two one more time.