Tuesday, December 27, 2016

What Is Your Default Setting?

I’m reading the book, ‘The One Thing,’ by Gary Keller, and there is a chapter titled Willpower is Always on Will-CallThere 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 mode.’  The most effective way to use your will-power is to do the important things, The One Thing, first in the day before you waste your will-power on something else; something less important.  He also shows how your diet can affect your will-power; simply drinking a glass of Kool-Aid lemonade sweetened with real sugar can make you more effective than a placebo.


Knowing that will-power is not always there and that you need to manage your will-power like you manage your diet, your cell-phone battery, or your gas tank will allow you to use your will-power much more effectively.



Sunday, December 11, 2016

Bob Myers - Connecting the Dots

“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 everything you do every day for the betterment of a healthier whole.  You can’t do this alone.   Steve Job’s gift was that he trusted himself enough to navigate his life’s journey in the face of tremendous adversity and along the way he created wealth and opportunities through the resources that only great relationships can bring.

Thank you, Steve Jobs for trusting yourself enough to connect dots that didn’t exist to change the world.  


The video below is Steve Jobs talking about how he is able to look back now at how all of his dots connected at the 2005 Stanford Commencement.

The video below is the speech in its entirety:

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Sherri Coale's 5 Practice 'Must-Haves'


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.
A lot of shots are missed, so practice boxing out and rebounding the ball so that you can get more shots every game than your opponents.


4 – Fundamentals of Offense – Take care of the ball
- Dribble, passing and catching
- Movements – what do you do when you don’t have the ball: cutting, screening, spacing, and transition

5 – Defensive Fundamentals – No Uncontested shots
- Close out
- Contain the ball
- Contest all shots
No matter how you play on defense, man, zone or press, you have to be able to closeout on a live ball, contain the ball, and contest shots to have a chance at success.

Fran Dunphy Can Teach

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 important to be successful in whatever you went into. I had a good time with the kids.

The CEO
“I talk about my job as president and CEO of a small company that is Temple basketball. I have to manage my staff, the players and our student managers. And I also have to manage up,’’ he said prior to the morning class, in his office at McGonigle Hall. “I have to manage relationships with the athletic director, the president, the board of trustees, students and alumni, and then the media and other tangents like charity work, speaking engagements; whatever I’m doing to represent the institution.

We Are All In Sales
“So that’s what I try to get to there, the networking piece. Everything you do is networking. Everything. We’re all in sales whether you believe it or not. You’re selling yourself that you know what you’re talking about. So it’s constant repetition on this.

Life Happens To You
“My whole thought process is we all think that we make life happen. I think just the opposite,’’ Dunphy said. “Life happens to you. Just be aware of it and appreciate it, accept it and react to it. I tell the kids it would be nice as you leave college and your life went on this upwardly mobile path that never had any dips in it. I’ve never known anyone who hasn’t had dips. So you have to learn how to handle that. That’s part of what life is all about: How are you going to handle your adversities? So we talk about that.’’

You Dont Just Coach, You Represent
“If somebody asks you to do something, you can’t do everything, but you have to do something,’’ he reasoned. “They don’t give you this job just to coach the team. They give you it to represent. I think it’s wrong if you don’t, and you’re misreading what the job is all about. It doesn’t mean you’re not trying to win every game, and if you don’t win somebody’s coming to you and saying, ‘Hey, I really appreciate all your good work, but see you later we’re getting somebody else.’ I get that.’’

A Bit Of Touch That Seperates You From The Rest
“The whole half I’m sitting there thinking, ‘How the hell does he know my name?’ He studied the press guide and knew I was the guy with the mustache. I’ve done the same now for years. It doesn’t have the impact Dean had on me, but it’s a bit of a touch that separates you from the rest of the group.’’


Thursday, December 8, 2016

We Don't Concede Anything | Pete Newell

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 shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost" philosophy. To begin with, he demands that his players be in peak physical condition. For the first two weeks, they do nothing but exercise in the gym and run the fatiguing hills behind Berkeley. "Sometimes we have to wear an opponent down," he says. "A player should be conditioned to play the last five minutes of a game, not just the first five."
ON DEFENSE
In the gym Newell has ideas about everything, ranging from the position of the feet to the use of vision. "Practice habits are game habits," he says. "If individual habits are sound, team habits will be sound. We're constantly trying to minimize mistakes." In practice, for example, a player must shuffle with his knees flexed, one hand up, the other down, for 20 minutes at a time. This is the correct defensive posture. Any other way is wrong. The player shuffles because that allows him to slide with the man he's guarding. If he crossed his feet instead of shuffling, he might lose his balance. Knees are flexed because, as Rene Herrerias, Newell's astute assistant, explains, "You have to bend your knees anyway before you react. So be in that position. Why wait to get to it?"
USING BOTH HANDS AND FEET
The player must learn to dribble and pass with either hand. He must also be ambidextrous with his feet. "We do not," says Newell, "subscribe to the theory that because a boy is naturally right-footed, he should always have his right foot forward. When he is playing the ball, his inside foot, the foot closest to an imaginary line drawn between the baskets, should be extended. This permits him to better defend vulnerable areas where he cannot depend on defensive assistance from teammates. These vulnerable areas are the sidelines and the backline." In addition, the inside hand should be raised. "The hand should be in the shooter's face to disconcert him," Newell says. "The other arm should be extended almost parallel to the floor to deflect passes. We condition arm muscles so the arms can be held up over protracted lengths of time. In boxing, it is fatal to drop your hands, and the same is true in basketball."
TWO-SPEED PRACTICE
Practice games are run at fast and slow speeds. "We practice like this so we can accelerate or decelerate in a game," Newell says. "We want to use tempo as a weapon. We want to make the other team play the game we think we can play better than they can, and this we can do by making them play at a speed they're not used to. When we play a ball-control team, we try to force them into a faster tempo of play. They're like a guy who takes a certain amount of time each day to shave a certain way. One day he's five minutes late, so he has to hurry up, and he cuts himself. When we play a fast-breaking team, we try to slow down the tempo with ball control. The fast break itself we stop by pressure on the rebounder. If he has pressure on him, he can't throw. We also choke the outlet pass to the guard out to get the pass. And we don't retreat. A man-to-man aggressiveness is very important. We don't concede."
AT THEIR BEST DEFENSIVELY
Newell's teams are at their best defensively. "There are certain nights when you are off offensively," he says. "You'll have nights when you are off defensively, too, but your offensive performance varies more. Also, the good defensive team seems to come up with an above-par performance defensively when its shooting is off. The players seem to realize that through increased defensive play they can offset a poor shooting performance and still win the game.
"Man-to-man responsibilities are the dominant aspects of our basic defense. Along with this, we incorporate the press defense in various forms. We're usually in one form of a press throughout the game because it is important always to have pressure on the ball. Through our pressure, we are trying to increase an opponent's mistakes."
ONE STEAL WORTH ABOUT 1.5 POINTS
According to Newell's calculations, each lost ball is worth approximately 1.5 points. "The average college team scores on about 40% of its shots," he says. "For every 10 times they have the ball, they get 15 shots, and out of those 15, they get six baskets or 12 points. That puts the value of possession of the ball at 1.2. Adding the foul shots which the offensive team is more likely to get, that boosts the value of the ball maybe 3/10 of a point. So when we steal the ball or force an opponent into losing it, we have gained close to a point and a half toward the final outcome."
THE MID-RANGE SHOT
Newell also has theories for holding down errors on the offense. "We want to get the shot opportunity in a good-percentage shooting zone," he says. "We're not concerned with driving all the way to the basket for the lay-up or cripple shot. We're content with a 10-foot shot. The more you drive into the basket, the more you risk losing the ball." To get to that 10-foot striking distance, Cal will play cat to the opponent's mouse. "We rely on execution," Newell says, harkening back to the practice drills. "If we feel that we can get the execution, we can get the shot, regardless of the defense." The team will vary its offensive weaves and patterns to work the ball in, but the bread-and-butter move has been reverse action. The players move the ball from side to side to unmass the defense in the basket area, and once the defense is drawn out, Cal strikes. "It's a tough move to defense," Newell says. "I know we have trouble defensing it."
THE BLEAK SIDE OF COACHING
But for all the jokes and all the fine points and all the success, there is the temptation for Newell to quit. "A coach is never really secure in his profession," he said recently. "You're not like a doctor. You're not like a lawyer. You can't let your 'practice' sustain itself. You're never any better than your last season or your last game, and any time you get smug, you'll go down quicker than you came up. You climb up one rung at a time, but you can go down all the way and not touch any. The team feels the way I do about a game, and if I ever took a game lightly the team would do the same thing. So, you prepare yourself mentally that each game you play is a real tough game. And each season you play is a real tough season. You can't allow yourself to relax. Every 15 minutes before a game, I wonder why I ever went into coaching. Eventually I'll have to get out. I don't want to be coaching when I'm 60. I don't feel that I could go through 16 more years of the tension that goes with each season." Newell took a breath and looked around the living room at his family. "Still I feel I have coaching years ahead of me," he said. "I still feel a number of years ahead of me."


Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Be a Better Asker ... And Listener

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 is Your Measurement Going To Be?

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-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

- John Wooden

“Never try to be better than anyone else, but never stop trying to be the best you can be.”
- John Wooden

At God's footstool to confess,
A poor soul knelt and bowed his head.
“I failed,” he cried. The Master said,
“Thou didst thy best, that is success.”

- John Wooden

Sunday, November 27, 2016

The Wooden Effect | The Influence Of Coach Wooden's Presence

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 of those jerseys sitting on his bench, so you checked your behavior each day that you were around him.  Now that's power.  That's influence in all the right ways.


A lot of strong personalities and strong leaders feel that in order to really fulfill that role, they have to change everyone around them and make them like themselves, but Coach wasn't like that.  I mean he had his plan and you lived within the plan, which was of course teamwork and love for one another and the team being more important than the individual, and winning (not necessarily the score) defining your success in life.  But Coach didn't impose his religion, his philosophy, his lifestyle on others.  He allowed each of us to be an individual."

The Wooden Effect | Coach Wooden's Influence on Dick Vitale

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] – to me, a nobody.  His advice: Be organized, make things simple, and have within you that enthusiasm to set the tone.”


A few years later, Wooden happened to be announcing game that Vitale was coaching and was impressed by Vitale’s enthusiasm:  Wooden recommended him to a producer at a new network called ESPN as someone who might be good as an on-air commentator.  Vitale has been synonymous with college basketball ever since.  “Coach Wooden’s legacy is winner, winner, winner, in every way of life,” Vitale explains.  “Not just winning basketball games, but building men and building character.  He did it far beyond just his own team roster, though.  He did it for a nobody high school coach who wrote to him for advice, and who he later figured deserved a shot at sharing his enthusiasm for the game in a new way.”

Friday, October 7, 2016

Terrell Pryor | Tunnel Vision

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 the importance of having a plan and seeing it through, knowing that things won't always go as great or as smoothly as you would like.  You are going to have your bumps and bruises, but trust the process and just keeping working hard at what you believe is right.


For my players, it’s important for them too to understand that they will make mistakes, and those mistakes might cost us at times, but you just have to keep staying focused on your role and improving every day and try to do the right things that will help you find success.   It's important to understand that success is a process, and every day you have to get find ways to get better.

Monday, October 3, 2016

They Ask Me Why I Teach | ‘They Call Me Coach’ (7)

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,
Strong, unbiased, wise,
Another later Webster,
Silver-tongued,
And there a doctor
Whose quick, steady hand
Can mend a bone,
Or stem the lifeblood’s flow.
A builder sits beside him-
Upward rise
The arches of a church he builds, wherein
That minister will speak the word of God,
And lead a stumbling soul to touch the Christ.

And all about
A lesser gathering
Of farmer, merchants, teachers,
Laborers, men
Who work and vote and build
And plan and pray
Into a great tomorrow
And I say,
“I may not see the church,
Or hear the word,
Or eat the food their hands will grow.”
And yet – I may.
And later I may say,
“I knew the lad,
And he was strong,
Or weak, or kind, or proud,
Or bold, or gay.
I knew him once,
But then he was a boy.”
They ask me why I teach, and I reply,
“Where could I find more splendid company?”