A Coach's Diary

I’m reading the book, ‘ The One Thing ,’ by Gary Keller , and there is a chapter titled Willpower is Always on Will-Call .  There is a common saying that goes – where there’s a will , there’s a way , and in this chapter, Keller talks about how misleading that saying is and how misleading common perception of will-power is as well.  Keller calls will-power a renewable energy source, and that will-power is usable and rechargeable, much like a cell-phone battery or the gas in your car.  He references university studies, such as ‘ TheMarshmallow Test ’ by Walter Mischel, the ‘ Heart and Mind in Conflict ’ experiment by Baba Shiv, and a study on the impact on willpower on the Israeliparole system .  He uses these studies to show the effects of will-power and how to effectively use it. While studies have shown how effective will-power can be, studies have also shown that we all have a limited amount of will-power, and that when we use it up, we revert to ‘default...

“Steve Jobs has a really good quote.  It says that you cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking back.” In the video below, Golden State Warriors GM Bob Myers began talking about his success with Warriors by referencing the above Steve Jobs quote and how each stop along his journey has helped prepare him for the position his is in now. While we have goals for our teams and our careers, we often look up and our realities our different than planned.   All we can really do is show up, work hard, be persistent, and have faith that our dots are connecting in a way that one day we will be grateful for. He also talked about the culture of the Warriors and how important it is to have people around you who are passionate and deeply care about basketball. From Forbes : It simple terms:   Trust Yourself .  Trust yourself to think big, make a difference and have an impact in ev...

I'm always looking for ways to better and better maximize my practice times.  In this short clip, OU women's coach Sherri Coale talks about the 5 things they do at OU every practice.  I believe in these 5 things completely, and aside from having live time to 'play,' these 5 are definitely everyday 'must-haves' in my practice as well. 1 – Shoot - Make shots, win games - Game shots, game spots, game speed The greatest plays in all the world make no difference whatsoever if you can’t make a 3, make a jump shot, finish a layup. Practices shooting the shots that you expect to get in the games. Be good at the things that happen a lot, and how can you be good if you don’t practice shooting? 2 – Defensive Transition – Contest EVERY shot - No layups | no uncontested shots | make teams shoot over you Protect the basket and stop the ball so that you don’t give up easy baskets.   3 - Rebounding – No second shots -   No second chance shots...

I came across this story on a Facebook group, and thought it was full of gems from a coach who has seen a lot and has a great perspective on coaching, running a program, and being someone who positively impacts others through his profession.  You can read the original article here . "All coaches teach. Temple's Fran Dunphy is one of the nation's few teachers" Being Able to Bring Stories To Life, and Make it Interesting “Stories, stories, stories,’’ Anderson said with an enthusiastic smile. “He can bring concepts to life like I never could, and make it interesting, and he is the most amazing and caring networker I’ve ever met. More people love him, and he’s so attentive to everybody.’’ Coach Knight on Teaching About Life In a 2000 interview with television host Larry King, Knight said he taught a class at Indiana University called Methods In Coaching. “I really didn’t talk basketball,’’ Knight said, “but how to get a job, and things I thought were importa...

The following article is one of the legendary coach Pete Newell.  It is an old Sports Illustrated article that covers so much information about teaching the game and the life (and stresses) of being a coach.  You can read the article in its entirety here .  Below I have posted some of the key points that I took away. A GAME OF MISTAKES "Basketball," says Newell, explaining the reason for his malaise, "is a game of mistakes, and the team making the fewer mistakes generally wins." Despite his worry, or perhaps because of it, California rarely makes more mistakes than an opponent. In fact, California on the average makes only six ball-control errors a game compared with an opponent's 15, and since Newell figures control of the ball is worth about 1.5 points, that gives Cal a 14-point head start before the teams even take to the court. ON CONDITIONING At all three schools, Newell has used the same approach. Basically, he has a "for want of a nail the ...

As coach Sherri Coale, head women's basketball coach at OU, explains below, we are 'telling' our kids everything that we know and what to do instead of 'asking' them what they know or see on the court.  She talks about the power of 'questions' and how effective asking them questions can be on their learning process.  I really took away the part where she mentioned how to 'gradually teach your kids to be convicted about they do' through questions and their answers.

What's Your Monster and How Do You Feed It? When you start winning games as a coach, the feeling of success can create a monster where you allow winning to become your benchmark or measurement of success.  Whenever you tie your satisfaction solely to wins and losses, it's dangerous because it's really easy to start basing all of your decisions on how if affects your winning instead of doing what's best for the kids you lead and their overall growth and development as people. It's important for a coach to make sure winning isn't the main measurement for success in your program, and that you have your own definition of success that drives your work everyday.  Below, OU women's head coach Sherri Coale talks about what she uses as her measurement of success. John Wooden has famoulsy coined his own definition of success.  Below are two quotes and a short poem from Coach Wooden: "Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfac...

Success Magazine just released its December issue, and John Wooden graces the cover.  Don Yeager wrote the cover story, using interviews of a few of the many athletes and coaches that Wooden influenced throughout his life.  Below, Dick Enberg talks about how powerful Coach Wooden’s influence was on anybody in his presence. You look at his eyes and see how he could be a tough disciplinarian even though he was a man of God," sportscaster Dick Enberg, a longtime friend, recalls.  "We see a lot of his photos from later in his life where he had that sheepish, sweet smile and innocence all over his face, but if you go back to his coaching days, his players knew what he meant when he burned a hole through them with those eyes of, at times, toughness.  If you stayed around him enough you learned an awful lot about life and yourself and how to be good.  You felt a responsibility to conduct yourself the way Coach would want you to behave if you were wearing one ...

Dick Vitale shares a story on how he reached out to several coaches when he was still a young high school coach and the advice and assistance John Wooden provided for Vitale and his career.  This story appeared in Success Magazine’s December issue in which Coach Wooden is the cover story, and is written by DonYaeger . The coach was also an active mentor, advocating on behalf of people and seeking out younger coaches he felt demonstrated a commitment to building character as much as constructing winning teams.  “When I was just starting out as a high school coach, I started reaching out to people I admired to find out a moment of their success with a young guy aspiring to be a coach on a collegiate level,” says National Collegiate Basketball Hall of fame member Dick Vitale.  “A lot of people, of course, never wrote back, but I was absolutely in awe when I opened the mail and realized I had received a response from the Wizard of Westwood [one of Wooden’s nicknames]...

I was listening to Mike and Mike on the radio, when they talked about former Ohio State quarterback, Terrell Pryor, and his transformation into one of college football's best quarterbacks into one of the NFL's rising stars at the wide receiver position. What really stood out to me was when they mentioned that Randy Moss has been mentoring Pryor, and the advice that Moss gave to Pryor about having tunnel vision throughout the process.  The quote is below: “Tunnel vision,” Pryor said. “Stay in tune, block out anything outside and keep that tunnel vision and go forward, no matter what happens. Sometimes games are gonna be bad, sometimes things are gonna happen that you don’t want and he said, ‘Just keep on going forward because it’s a long season and there’s a lot of plays to be made.’ He said, ‘Just make sure when the ball comes to you make the play, period.’ That’s the type of stuff we talk about all the time.” For me as a coach, it was great timing to reinforce ...

Amos Alnozo Stagg; Chicago football coach on why he coached. “I have made the young men of America my ministry.  I have tried to bring out the best in the boys that I have coached.  I truly believe that many of them have become better Christians and citizens because of what they have learned on the athletic field. “You must love your boys to get the most out of them and do the most for them.  I have worked with boys whom I haven’t admired, but I have loved them just the same.  Love has dominated my coaching career as I am sure it has and always will that of many other coaches and teachers.” Coach Wooden on why he stayed in coaching. “I feel that my love for young people is the main reason I have stayed in coaching and have refused positions that would have been far more lucrative.” THEY ASK ME WHY I TEACH | Glennice L. Harmon (1948) They ask me why I teach, And I reply, Where could I find more splendid company? There sits a statesman, Str...