'Why' We Do What We Do

Great quote from the guys at Proactive Coaching.  Its important to have purpose in what we do, and this quote outlines the 'why' to competing, having a strong culture, leadership development, commitment and sacrifice, accountability, selflessness, discipline, grit, and integrity.  This is why we coach, this is why they play.  Sure the wins are great, and the accolades are amazing for recognizing talent and hard work, but the life lessons learned through sports are what make them really worthwhile.

Pick 'n' Roll Offense - Lawrence Frank - Basketball Fundamentals

Lawrence Frank gave a really good Pick ‘n’ Roll Offensive breakdown in the video below.  Frank says the objective of pick and roll is to create 4 on 3 advantages, so you want to be aggressive, attack, and make the defense pay for however they guard you.

One of the key points that he makes is the importance of being able to counter-punch.  Each team you play will have a plan for how they want to guard, or attack your ball-screens.  This video identifies several different defensive options and how to exploit them.

At the end of the day, no matter what offense you have, it is important to teach, grow, and develop your players so that they can make the right reads at the right speed and so that they have the skill set to beat their man when they make the read. 

This breakdown outlines ‘what’ you need to do.  Every day in practice you must teach ‘how’ to do it.

Frank also says that, as a coach, you want your players to know who you are and what your identity is as a team.  His 5 are:

1 – Defend
2 – Rebound
3 – Take Care of Ball
4 – Extra Pass
5 – Best shot

Here is the video, and below the video are my annotated notes.

The Last Thing To Come Are The Wins

I am borrowing this post from the great blog at HoopThoughts.BlogSpot.com.  We all want to win, but we have to make sure that we have the right foundation in place.  At some point, with every team, adversity will hit.  It will hit in terms of losses, player frustration, loss of focus, injuries, etc.  When you do experience adversity, it is important to have a good foundation and set of values that will catch you.  If not, there is no telling how far you might end up falling before you are able to pick yourself, and your team, back up.

What men's basketball coach Chris Collins says he learned from Chicago Cubs manager Joe Madden:

“He was really helpful, especially (by saying) that when you are trying to build something, pretty much the last thing that comes are the wins. You have to build the winning culture and the winning environment. And sometimes you have to learn how to celebrate some of the small victories … guys coming in early (to practice), guys coming in at night doing extra work like strength and conditioning, how hard we practice, how the guys hold each other accountable.”

Via PickAndPop.net

Skills Are The Divider

I follow a really good page on Facebook called Herb on Hoops where a lot of coaches come together to discuss the strategy, to share ideas, and to discuss the ‘issues of the day.’

Recently, there was a post regarding AAU basketball, and as many ‘old school’ coaches do when this topic arises, many complained that the kids are playing too many games in the summer and not spending enough time developing their skill. 

One coach had some really good thoughts on the necessity of combining the drills, vision, and development of a skill trainer while teaching the IQ necessary to have success in this team game.  Some of the thoughts outlined in his posts are:

- Sacrificing Growth and Development For Wins Now By Focusing On Schemes and Sets Rather Than Building Skill
- Winning Leads To Validation, Not Necessarily To Player Development or Level Of Coaching
- Players Need the Development Of Training To Become Their Best
- The Best Trainers Help Grow Players Overall Game By Assessing Their Strengths And Weaknesses
- Hard To Find Someone Who Is A Great Coach and A Great Trainer
- Beware To Not Put In So Much Time That It Leads to Burnout
- Every Coach Has to Have The Ability To Develop … Or Recruit
- What Can You Do With 2 Hours a Day/5 Days a Week, For 4 Months?  Over 4 Years?
- Sacrifice Wins Early To Develop Skills For The Playoffs
- True Player Development Is Knowing What The Players Are Missing and Building The Pieces
- Great Trainers Don’t Just Drill; They Have A Vision For Their Kids
- Help Make Even Your Lagging Players ‘Serviceable’ By Skill Development With The Basics
- The Developmental Process For Kids

Skills Are The Divider

Read coach’s Entire Post Below After The Jump Below

Are You Building Up or Tearing Down?

“At its best, criticism can do exactly what its supposed to do: motivate, educate, and inspire.  But when it seems mean and destructive, it can break spirits, damage companies, and even ruin careers.”

- Hendrie Weisinger

The Power of Positive Criticism

Is your teaching/coaching building athletes up and making them better, or is it tearing them down?

There is a difference between ‘giving everybody a trophy’ and riding your athletes unfairly and unjustifiably. 

The best coaches engage and inspire their athletes.  They make their athletes want to learn, want to get better, want to WORK for success.

Make Their Experience 'Magical'

- How can we be intentional in making this process magical for our athletes and their families?
- How can we be intentionally ‘plus’ the school experience for our athletes and their families?

I include families because how we treat the girls we have impacts, not only them, but their families.  We have a girl who basketball was her ‘second sport’ who wants to be a basketball player.  Her parents are now signing up her younger sister in basketball so that she can one day be in our program.  Because of how we treated one girl, her younger sister now wants to play basketball and her mother wants to make that happen because she knows that we will take care of her!  How cool is that?

My Philosophy Of Coaching

As a coach, I am constantly asking myself, "Why do I do what I do," and recently, as our season ended and we shifted into off-season, I thought again about what I want to give to my athletes every day this spring.  Right now, this is what I have come up with.  These are the things that are important to me.  I tell my kids every day, 'It's bigger than basketball.'

1 – Make Players Better Every Day.
- This is why they are here.  This is how we grow as a program.  We want to HELP every player become the best player that they can be for themselves, their team, and the program.

2 – Make Our Athletes Better People.
This is why we are here.  To help them grow to become the best version of themselves.  We just use basketball to teach the life lessons necessary to help them grow into their best self.

3 – Send Them Home With The Confidence That We Believe In Them And Their Abilities.
Their confidence is necessary for them to continue to come in with energy and enthusiasm, WANTING to get better.  Our confidence in them, and the way they perceive our confidence in them, affects this greatly.

4 – Send Them Home Energized Every Day, Ready For More, Not Drained, Dreading Coming Back.
Nothing great is done without energy and enthusiasm, and we need to make sure that we are giving our kids life and energy, not draining it.  If nothing else, tell that kid you yelled at today, "I love you" and give them a 'fist-bump' on their way out.  This might make their day, week, or season.

Now, I believe in hard work, learning through adversity, and making kids tougher, critical thinkers by scaffolding their growth every day, but I believe that we want to do this the right way with pure intentions.  Take care of the kids throughout the process.  Make sure that they understand ‘why.’  Make sure that we give them the skills and tools necessary to succeed, and teaching them how to handle adversity and how to work, live, and play with confidence is just as important as teaching them out to beat their man one on one.

Coach's Never Die - A Story About Pop and the Man Who Hired Him

The article below is about how Greg Popovich, and the man who first hired him at Division III Pomona-Pizter College, Curt Tong.  It is a good article about the lasting influence of a coach on his players, and how that influence trickles down through all of the people that those players come in contact.  Live right, do the best you can, and take care of your family and friends, and you will be okay in coaching and in life.  You can find the article in its entirety here.

Coach’s Expire Every Day, They Never Die
Those are the details, and they are important details. They are a life’s work, in and out of the office. On and off the court. But details never tell the full story of a coach’s life, because a coach—a teacher, by any measure—is more than the sum of his life’s accomplishments. A coach is his own life, and every life he has ever touched, his words and his lessons melting down through generations, outliving him by decades. Coaches expire every day, but they never die. They live forever. When I talked to Coach Tong on that windowsill in 1976, I knew nothing of the man and nothing of his life—or life, period. I knew only that he had taken away my spot and my identity and I was angry at him for that. (Anyone who has ever been cut from a team reviles the coach who dropped the axe, whether for a moment or for a lifetime. The coach knows this best of all). Over the years he would teach me much more. And he would teach many others, too.

One of them was Gregg Popovich.

One Day, I’d Like To Be a Manager

(Harish Balasubramani/Illustrations director)

The following article is something that I will share with all of my managers!  It is a really good look at the value and importance of a really good manager if you realize that you are more than ‘just a manager.’ 

Tony Luftman was a manger on the 1995 UCLA men’s basketball team that won a National Championship.  One thing that stuck out to me was how he feels that he was a big part of that team, even though he never played in a game.  I want all of my managers to feel that included every season as well. 

You can find the original article here.

Like clockwork, Jim Harrick’s cell phone buzzed on April 3.

So did those of other members of UCLA’s 1995 men’s basketball championship team, like Ed O’Bannon, Tyus Edney and Steve Lavin.

Another year, another text from Tony Luftman, a manager on the 1995 team, with the same simple message:

“Thank you for letting me be a part of your team.”

But more than 20 years ago in 1994, Luftman hadn’t yet developed into that reliable friend. He was just another wide-eyed rookie on the team – a college freshman who had failed his first big test.

It wasn’t a history midterm or a pop quiz in math, but in a meeting with one of the best teachers UCLA had to offer.

The invitation didn’t seem real: a dinner with legendary coach John Wooden.

The manager found himself sitting anxiously in Wooden’s Encino condominium, meeting the legendary coach for the first time and describing the transition to life as a college student.

“Well, I’m just a manager,” Luftman said before Wooden abruptly cut in.

“Well, I’m just a coach,” Wooden said, pausing before he went on. “Tony, ‘just’ implies a sense of diminished value or importance. No one is ‘just’ anything.”

So he wasn’t “just” another basketball manager.

He was a crucial component in UCLA’s 1995 championship run to an NCAA record 11th national title.

Gene Pingatore – More Than Basketball

Photos of St. Joseph boys basketball coach Gene Pingatore, who has 999 career wins as of Feb. 9, 2017. 

The following article is about the career of Coach Gene Pingatore, a legendary coach at St. Joseph’s high school.  I was first exposed to him as the coach in the movie Hoop Dreams.  This gives a very different side of coach than what was presented in the documentary.  Below are some key parts that I took away.  You can read the article in full here or after the jump.

-  Kathy Taylor excused herself Thursday at St. Joseph High School because Taylor knew if she talked any longer about the generosity of her boss, high school basketball legend Gene Pingatore, the tears would begin to flow.

-  The same emotion oozed out of the woman behind the welcome desk who, unsolicited, shared the memory of Pingatore sending her son souvenirs at the hospital without even knowing him. Longtime St. Joseph assistant Bill Riley, at Pingatore's side for 34 years of structuring young lives, used the word "incredible" at least a dozen times describing the coach's impact on all those who have been "Pinged."

-  "I have just as fond memories of coaching what we would call the lesser individuals, not just the great players but all those kids — and my managers, who were unbelievable.”

-  "It said, 'I am successful because I was part of your program,'" Pingatore said. "Teachers get that all the time. Don't forget I'm a teacher. I'm a high school coach, but this is my classroom. … This whole thing here is more than just basketball. That's what I want to call my book: 'More than Basketball.'"

-  "Longevity was never on my mind," Pingatore said. "I never got up one day and said, 'I don't feel like going in today.' Never. The basketball always was … interesting."

-  "They have such high expectations now; every kid should get a scholarship or go to the NBA," Pingatore said. "Parents are definitely different, and I never thought I'd say it, but kids are too. At one time, high school coaches could control everything. Now, after March it's off to AAU. Some have personal trainers. Everybody's feeding the kid information."

-  "He's the same guy, runs the same stuff and I bet the tenor of everything he does is pretty much the same as it was in the 1970s," Fenwick coach Rick Malnati said. "He's sort of like our pizza recipe. You do something, you do it well. You are the constant."

-  "To this day, we do a lot Knight's way: defense, motion offense, being demanding," Pingatore said. "If I had to zero in on any one thing why we've been successful, it's that we kept things simple and did it over and over again … and I attribute that to Knight.''

-  "You have to be your own personality," Pingatore said. "If you're not, kids will see through that."

-  Kids see the same Pingatore every day of every year, consistency he sought to describe by recalling a young coach in the 1980s asking him how he got his players to perform a complicated pregame drill.

-  "Prior to that, I had been in that coach's locker room to see his team trashed it and there were candy wrappers everywhere," Pingatore said. "So I said, 'Coach, the first thing you need to do if you want to do that drill right is have your kids pick up their candy wrappers.' … Little things matter."

Change of Speed/Change of Direction

It is important to learn how to play at different speeds as a basketball player.  Even if you are one of the fastest players on the court, players and teams can adjust to you if you just play ‘fast’ the entire game.  They can figure out how much space that they need to give you and adjust on how they anticipate and beat you to a spot.

When you can play at different speeds, you are much less predictable and you can get by your defenders more effectively.  Below is a really good change of speed and change of direction drill by current Indiana coach and former Marquette coach Tom Crean.  Here he is working on changing speeds and different finishes, including pull-ups and layups.

This is a great ball-handling drill, as it works on different dribble moves, a great shooting drill, and a great drill to teach finishing moves.  Instead of just doing full-court crossovers, this is a good alternative through which you can get game-like dribble moves and reps.

At 8:20, Coach Crean talks about the importance of player development and individual workouts.  He says that they put all of their player through many of the same workouts because they don’t want any player leaving the program without being able to handle the ball with their head up and without being able to make a play getting too the basket.

Ball-Handling
Like Coach Crean did, we will use different dribble moves on our change of directions.  One great point coach made about their crossovers is to ‘keep the ball low and quick, below the knee and around the ankle.’  He also moved the cones around so you are working on your dribble moves at different lengths.

Finishing Moves
Around the 6:10 mark, Coach Crean mentioned the need to score, and it is important to work on finishers.  We work on 1 leg layups, 2 foot layups, bully jump stops, up-and unders, and different pivot moves around the basket.  All of those can be implemented in this drill.

Be Like Brady

Tom Brady Celebrates Another Touchdown

The article below is full in excerpts from a Sport Illustrated article that you can find here.  I originally came across this article on Facebook through a Huffington Post article. 

My biggest takeaway is this:
- You have to make a decision on what type of person that you want to be.  Do you want to dedicate your life to this and be the best, do you want to put in the work to be great, do you want to go with the flow and be average?

- In all things, you have to find balance and stability while still searching for the best practices available to help you grow and become your best self.  Don’t settle for status-quo ‘just because.’

- Its important to have stability in a world that is constantly changing.  The Patriots having a constantly changing roster, but have stability at the key parts of the organization: ownership, head coach and quarterback.  Though all the pieces around Brady on the field is constantly changing, his support group, family, friends and health team, remains the same.

Football Is Tom
"You'll hear people say, Football doesn't define me," says Guerrero. But that's not Brady. "Football isn't what Tom does -- football is Tom. This is who he is."

'Figure It Out'

The article below was borrowed from Bob Starkey at HoopThoughts.BlogSpot.com.  You read the original article here.

It's been a while back, but I posted briefly about a concept that I hold dear to my coaching philosophy -- the ability to teach your players to figure things out on their own.

There are three things that I think coaches should stress, teach and demand on a daily basis regardless of what their philosophy is in regard to X & Os, discipline and team building.  I believe you should be teaching players to Talk, to be Tough, and to Think.  Figuring things out is a major component to thinking.

One of the most underrated things that the best coaches teach, in any sport on any level, is that of educating their players how to think on their own.  Few were better than Coach Newell.

“I wanted players with initiative, guys who could control a difficult situation on their own.  People may not realize that years ago, you couldn’t bring a player over to the sideline to talk to him.  Players had to stand out in the middle of the court during your timeout.  They changed that rule during my second year in coaching (1947) and I was madder than hell.  I felt my team could always interpret what I was teaching; we didn’t need all these damn meetings.  I didn’t want my players depending on me.  I figured I’d teach ‘em during the week, and when the game comes along, it’s up to them.  That’s one reason I didn’t like to call timeouts.  I didn’t want the players thinking that every time they got in a little jam, I’d bail them out.  I wanted to make them figure it out.”

-Pete Newell

Not surprisingly an article on Geno Auriemma written by Paul Doyle of the Hartford Currant points the same feature out in the UConn coach: 

It goes back to the practices. Yes, Auriemma and Dailey recruit mentally tough players. But Auriemma challenges them every day. He'll run "break the press" drills with six practice players facing his players and tell them to figure it out.

"He just tests your will, he tests your mind and your heart, every day in practice," Lobo said. "So you are prepared in moments to be able to make those shots because you've been in mentally challenging situations before."

LaChina Robinson noted: "When you talk to Sue [Bird] and Swin [Cash] and those guys, obviously they played on great teams, but they talk about how he would put them in situations where it was almost impossible to succeed. Every day in practice. So he made it impossible so that in the games it would be easy."