Defining Aggression

Below is a post I borrowed from Gary Colson about getting guys to play with more aggression.  Coach Colson had a great career as the head coach of several division 1 basketball programs and even worked with the Memphis Grizzlies alongside Jerry West.  He has a great blog here that I highly recommend to any coach.  It hasn't been updated in a while, but it still has great content.

You can see read the post in full here.

Situation: A tennis ball is being served at you at 150 MPH. What thoughts do you have in trying to return the ball? Read on and find out how you can return the serve.

A few years ago I picked up the book “The Inner Game of Tennis” by Tim Gallwey. I loved the book so I wrote the author and told him his thoughts in the book were outstanding. In two weeks after reading my note Tim called me and said he lived in Malibu where I coached basketball at Pepperdine University. We had lunch that very day. I told him about a young man named Ray Ellis (7 foot center that weighed 290 lbs) but had an aggression level at a low 3 on a 10 scale. I asked Tim if he thought I could change him and he suggested doing two things.

First of all try and define AGGRESSION for your staff and players. Second, get them to rate one another and themselves. We did this and totaled every ones score up and Ray came up with a “3” from staff and peers.

So I went to Ray and told him that I wanted him to play and think of only one thing – BEING AGGRESSIVE. We defined aggression as:

1. Run the floor as hard as you can every time there was a change of possession.
2. Take the charge on people driving to the basket.
3. Dive on the floor after every loose ball.
4. Hustle on every play..
5. Be the first at practice and the last to leave.
6. Do extra work with the jump rope program and work out a weight lifting maintenance program for yourself with the trainers.
7. Show some leadership.
8. Go after every rebound.

Ray agreed that he would just concentrate on one goal… increase his aggression by doing the above steps.

To make a long story short later in that week we had to play USF (University of San Francisco) and they had the best player in the league in seven footer Bill Cartwright. I told Ray to rate himself after the first half and I would too. Ray had 10 points and 10 rebounds at half and we met outside the locker room and I ask Ray to rate himself and he said, “Coach I had myself at a 7 and I said NO you were a 9, you were kicking his tail.”

Ray went on to lead the league in rebounding and became a very successful building contractor. He turned into a solid 9 on the aggression level and never looked back.

Bottom line … solve your goals by FOCUSING on one main thing and TRUST your body and mind to work it all out.

There is correlation between Aggression and Focus. If you focus on being AGGRESSIVE you will achieve your goal. Ray Ellis changed his whole outlook by concentrating on one goal..being aggressive.

To answer the original question about the tennis ball…Just focus on the ball and trust your body and mind to work it out. It is not easy but it will work. It has worked with many people on and off the court.

If I had to coach again I would rank all my people “not only” on Aggression but Loyalty, Passion, Work Ethics, Integrity etc.