A Coach's Diary

Here is a really cool article on the Mindfulness Movement that is starting to spread into sports.   Financial businessman Russ Rausch was looking for more meaning in life, despite his business and financial success, and discovered the power of mindfulness through reading and studying The Master Key System by Charles F. Hannel. He then went on to create Vision Pursue, a company focused on improving the way that people experience life by improving their mindset. He worked with now Dartmouth assistant athletic director Ian Cannole and former NFL player Jon McGraw to create the business and an app to help athletes improve their mindset through mindfulness and meditation. One of the pillars of this training gets at the reason Rausch started Vision Pursue in the first place. Most people, Rausch explains, don’t abide by an “expanding A” view of the world, meaning they derive their sense of self-worth from their accomplishments, leading to an existence in which they can never trul...

Care. Care. Care. The number 1 character trait necessary for an athlete to add value to his or her team is to care. To care about doing your best. To care about helping your teammates be their best. To care about helping your team be its best. The worst thing a player can do in a team sport is to not care. To not care enough to be their best. To not care enough to help their teammates be their best. To not care enough to help the team be its best. When you care, you grow, improve and you get better. When you don’t care, you don’t grow and you bring down the team as well. If you don’t care, don’t play. Don’t waste your time, don’t waste your teammate’s time, and don’t waste your coach’s time. Find another team, another coach, or something that you do care about and invest your time and energy into that. If you do care, work hard everyday to be a better player and a better teammate.

The article below comes from Mike Greenberg's podcast,  I'm Interested,  in which he interviews Shake Shack founder and restaurateur Danny Meyer. Failure is a part of success.  There is no better way to learn and grow than by trial and error.  Don’t be afraid to try.  Don’t be afraid to fail.  Don’t be afraid to strikeout, or miss the shot, or get knocked off the ball.  Each time you fail is another opportunity for you learn how to do better. When you fail, be humbled – not stubborn – and be willing to listen and learn.  Failing, listening and learning is how you grow and get better.  Sticking with it and being persistent and having grit is how you become the best. Learn how to ride out the storms and you will get there, as an athlete, as a coach, as a parent, and as a person.   This goes for the coaches you play for or the employees that you hire, or the players that you coach.  Patience and loyalty is i...

The article below comes from Mike Greenberg's podcast, I'm Interested, in which he interviews Shake Shack founder and restaurateur Danny Meyer. When you talk about what you look for in a great teammate, coach, teacher or employee, 51% is based on who you are as a person, and 49% is based how good you are at what you do. If you do everything right as a coach - great Xs and Os, timely timeouts, good scouting reports and sub rotations, etc, then you can only get a 49 on the test. If you are a great player, can shoot, pass dribble and defend, then you can only get a 49 on the test. Who you are when you aren’t on the field is just as important as your ability and make up the other 51%.  We can easily see and measure stats, but who are you in the dugout?  What are you doing to raise the performance of everyone else on the team?  What are you doing to make this team the type of team that the best players would want to work at?  That is just as imp...

Know, accept and master your role.  That is the mark of a good teammate in any sport and in any field.  We all have been given certain gifts, and when we use those gifts, no matter how big or small, popular or unseen, we make the team better. -  If you are a shooter - shoot with confidence. -  If you are a defender - defend with heart and toughness. -  If you bring energy off the bench, cheer loud and proud for your teammates. The best teams have the best teammates - teammates who know, believe in, accept, and master their roles. "Being a teammate means you only have one agenda: the team.  There can be no personal agendas on a championship team.  A teammate is someone who is over themself and into the team.  Being a teammate is immersing ourselves into doing everything we can to help the team and our teammates succeed. "Know and understand your role.  In order for the team to win, it has to use the strengths that it has in ...

College scholarships – and success in general in sports – can’t be the parent’s dream.  It HAS to be the kid’s dream. And the level of success or the level of college or professional that they are working for has to be the kid’s dream too. You can’t give a kid D1 dreams if they don’t have D1 talent, or D1 size, or D1 athleticism, or D1 work ethic or desire. They have to grind their own grind and dream their own dreams. Now, what we can do is instill in them the kind of character and the character traits that lead to success in any and all ventures in life.  The characteristics or hard work, persistence, grit, being humble, being a great teammate, toughness, finding their passion, putting in extra work to achieve goals, goal setting, etc, work for sports and they work for life. Instead of dreaming for your kid through sports, teach them through sports.  Teach them how to be a better person by teaching them the characteristics that it takes to ...

While they often get a bad 'rep,' and rightfully so, good trainers do a good job of pushing kids to work harder - often times more so than their school coach.  In talking with one trainer, he told me that us coaches just have to make sure that the kids know how much we believe in them and then they will give us all that they have. Kids have enough anxiety and pressure when it comes to performing in sports, and we coaches can sometimes add to that because we criticize - or coach - our kids, which includes correcting their mistakes.  If we spend more time on correcting than we do praising, it can be easy to see how kids might start to doubt themselves and our belief in their abilities. While corrective criticism, direction and honestly is absolutely necessary for growth in anything, and especially in sports, we have to make sure to couple that criticism with positive affirmation.  We have to make sure that our kids KNOW that we believe in their ability to succeed...

I think most people want to be good and try to work hard to accomplish their goals, and often when things don’t work out how we want, instead of blaming others or making excuses, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and really decide if we are working as hard as we think – or as hard as we need to – to achieve our goals. Trey Burke, a point guard for the New York Knicks, recently had to look himself in the mirror and figure out what type of player he was going to be and how hard he was going to have to work to become that. Trey Burke was a star at the University of Michigan, helping lead them to the National Championship game.  He was then a lottery pick of the Minnesota Timberwolves and traded to the Utah Jazz.  After 3 years with the Jazz and 1 season with the Washington Wizards, Burke found himself out of the NBA and in the G-League.   It was there where Trey Burke said that he had to look himself in the mirror and he realized that he wasn't workin...

Where you are and where you are going are based mostly off of the choices that you make. The rest is based off how you react to those choices. Every choice that you make matters: Do I get to the gym early, or do I rest? Do I put up extra shots, or do I hang out with my teammates? Do I read this extra chapter today? Do I stay late in the office tonight? Do I spend extra time with my family this weekend? Everyday we are faced with hundreds of choices that we can make. Each choice has its consequence. Be intentional in how you make the choices that you make.

If you want to make it - become the best you can be, get a scholarship, play professionally, become a doctor, own your own business, become a millionaire - you must do these three things: 1 - Work Hard 2 - Work Smart 3 - Work consistently Some of us do one of these things, and fewer do two of these things, but very few do all three of these things.   Working hard means taking yourself out of your comfort zone.  If you want to be your best, you have to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable.  Working hard is a choice.  Make the choice to go to the gym.  When you get their, you have the choice to either work hard or to not work hard.  It's easy to make excuses to not go to the gym, or to study, but if you want to be great, you have to make a conscious decision that you are going to work, that you are going to work hard, that you are going to work smart, and they you are going to do it consistently.

The habit of TRYING is the first step to success.  Try.  You will be amazed at what you can accomplish if you just try. Use ‘try’ as a mini-challenge that keeps you growing and progressing into becoming the person that you want to become.  Accomplishing anything requires a start, and starting requires a willingness to try.  Try to do better, try to do the right thing, try to give your best as consistently as possible, and try to get out of your comfort zone. To do so, your try must be great.  -         -  Your try must be greater than your fear. -           -   Your try must be greater than your doubt. -            -   Your try must be greater than any embarrassment that you may suffer from failing or from not accomplishing what you set out to do. Success does not come from being a spectator.  Success comes from jumping in and being partici...

Success is smart – it will test you at many turns.  Its biggest test is failure.  Success wants to know if you will quit.  Remember that failure is a part of all successful team and individual journeys.   Don’t fear failure because it happens to the best of the best.  If you fear the consequence of failure, put equal fear to the consequence of never trying.  What would happen if you tried and it actually worked out?  At some point, it will!  Imagine if you knew you would succeed but you didn’t try.  How would you feel then? Try, and don’t quit.  Act, and don’t quit. Don’t define success by wins and losses.  Define success by starting, trying, acting and giving your best effort.  If you do those and ‘win,’ then great.  If you do those and ‘lose,’ its still great as long as you learned from your mistakes, got better, and didn’t quit.  Eventually you will win, and with the right attitude, you will proba...

We as coaches have to teach skills.  We have to teach how to shoot, pass, dribble and proper footwork, among other things. One of the most important things that we must teach is decision making.  Basketball is a reactionary sport.  We have to teach them how to read, react, and make great decisions.  You have to be able to play and make choices – all of the time. 17:00 – We run plays to create even a small advantage – a late closeout, and out of position defender, an opening on a back cut or back screen, the defense in a scramble rotation.  What we have to practice every day is how to take advantage of that small advantage and score.  We have to teach them to play in those situations, what to do and how to attack.  How can we turn our small advantage into a big advantage?

A Humble Mind You cannot grow without a humble mind.  You can’t receive advice or constructive criticism or instruction (that can really help you) from your coaches, teachers and parents if you don’t approach it with a humble mind.  You have to approach every class and practice like, ‘Man, I could really use this this. I NEED this.’  A humble mind is a mind that knows that it can learn from anybody at any time.  A humble mind knows that it needs to be a lifelong learner if it wants to be the best that it can be.  A humble mind knows that it has to keep working hard, consistently and every day, to become the best that they can be. If you think that you already know everything a coach or teacher is trying to teach you, or that you don’t need to hear this lesson because you already know it, or you think this drill is for somebody else because you can already do it, then you will miss out on something that could have really helped you; as a student, a...

Character drives The Process which drives The Result Results > What you want to accomplish The Process > The work you put in, over time, for the results you want Character > Who you are as a person Focusing on building character will help your athletes embrace the process more which will lead to better results. Who you are as a person will tell how hard you are willing to work (the process) for the results that you want.  Build, grow, and developing character will help you work harder, better and smarter through the process of achieving the results that you want. Of course every team wants to go undefeated and win their championship, but above that, every team should want to strive to maximize their ability.  Everyone will experience loss, and while nobody wants to lose, losing isn’t the worst thing in the world.  Worse than losing is wasted talent. John Wooden once defined success as, “Success is peace of mind which is a direct re...

This past week for our professional development leading into the new school year, we were blessed to have Brett Ledbetter come to talk to us about the importance of building character in our kids and athletes in helping maximize the ability of our teams.  The link to his power point can be found here:  please click here We were asked to answer survey questions about his visit, and below are the questions and my responses so that I can remember to ignite commitment, get kids to their sweet spot, frame struggle as development, and measure commitment level of out athletes. How do you ignite commitment levels inside the classroom (or with teams)? We try to identify what the individual goals of each of our kids are, we try to give them the road map on how to achieve those goals, and we give constant and consistent feedback throughout the process on how they are moving towards those goals.  It is cliche, but we understand that the relationship with the kid/athlet...

An Ear To Hear A Teachable Spirit Be Humble Enough to Learn As school starts, these three things are important for any student, kid athlete, teacher, parent, coach to remember. Have an ear to hear and listen to learn when your coach, teacher or parent is talking.  There are two types of students and athletes – the ones who really listen to the coach and learn what he is teaching, and the ones who aren’t.  The ones who are bought-in and the ones who aren't.  The student-athletes who are bought-in and intentionally listen will perform better every time. Have a teachable spirit that is willing and eager to learn and apply new things that will help you and that will make you better.  A teachable spirit means that you are willing to learn new things, and that takes being humble enough to know that you don’t know everything.  Be humble enough to learn because there is always a chance to get better and to learn new things if you are willing ...

I have always been fascinated with the footwork of soccer players.   Soccer and basketball really do complement each other in terms of strategy, conditioning and footwork.   You have to play in space, move together, and be able to win your one on one matchups within the team concept.   One thing that soccer players do is have really neat warm up drills that teach the proper footwork that they apply in games.  Below is a video posted from Manchester City.  It’s a good 5 minute warm-up that can be a switch up from what you do every day in practice. This coach uses 26 cones for 18 players and he goes through a series of movements around, through, and over the cones.  He will give a movement, like bunny hops over the cones, and on his whistle, the players will either run to the center of the circle or to the outside of the circle and back.  They did 2 sets of each exercise, and each exercise lasted about 15 seconds.  Enjoy the video and the...

It's like driving: when you can dribble (drive), you can go anywhere you want to go.  You have to have your eyes up, you have to pay attention, but you can go wherever you want to go. When you drive, you have to keep your eyes on the road and you can't look down.  It's the same when you dribble - you have to keep your eyes up.  When you are looking up, you can see everything around you.  When you look down, you can only see what is below you. Stay low in a good stance so that if the defense crowds and pressures you, you can quickly and explosively get away.  If you are standing up tall, the defense can crowd you and pressure you backwards.  Be ready and in position to attack. Use your fingertips.  Learn how to make music with the basketball.  Play with the basketball.  Have fun with the basketball.

Greg Amsinger, Jim Thome and Joe Girardi chat about their kids playing baseball and the lessons they try to pass on to them. Some of the key takeaways that I got from this 6 minute video are: - Point out the good things that they did. - Teach them to want to come back the next day because they enjoyed it – be encouragers. - Ask them their thought process behind certain plays and actions to teach them to take ownership over what they did. - Don’t forget how tough games can be.  Encourage and embrace your kids. - Enjoy the love of the game. - Let the coaches coach your kids and set the example. - Talk the game on the ride to the park, don’t talk the game on the ride home.  Embrace that time together with your kid. - Take your kids outside and work with them.  Work with them as much as they want.  When they want to work on their game, make yourself available. - Let them play other sports to teach them to be athletes.

If you want to be good at anything, you have to PLAY!  If you want to be good at sports, you have to play sports.  A lot.  I’m not talking about practice or games; I am talking about playing.  Playing on your own with your ball, having fun, and learning what you can do with it.  If you want to be good at basketball, you have to play with the basketball the same way kids play with toy race cars and barbies.  The more you play with it, the better you get.  You have to learn all of the tricks and moves and shots that you can do with it.  The more you play with it, the more ‘tricks’ that you learn, and the more your skills and talent grows.  But, you have to play. If you want to be a great quarterback, you have to play with how you can throw the ball.  You have to play with how hard you can throw it, you have to play with how many different routes you can throw to, and you have to play with how many ways you can throw the ball....

Noah Webster once defined joy as the passion or emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good. Joy is being happy about what is going on in your life and being excited about what is about to happen. Do you bring joy to those around you?  Do you bring joy to those you coach?  Are others excited to play for you or to be around you?  Find joy for yourself first and then be a joy to others.

Two athletes transferred to a new school and new team.  The parents of both athletes asked their new coach if he thought their kids would like the new team. The coach responded to both parents with a question:  ‘How did they like their old team?’ Player A’s parents’ response:  He didn’t like the coach, he didn’t get along with his teammates, and they didn’t get along with the other parents. The coach’s response:  ‘Then there is a good chance he won’t like it here either.’ Player B’s parents’ response:  ‘He didn’t want to leave!  He loved his coach, he got along great with his teammates, and they loved the other parents.  We HATED to leave!’ The coach’s response:  Then he will probably love it here as well! Not every team is great, not every coach is great, and parents won’t always be best friends with other parents, but your attitude about the situation is the biggest predictor of success and enjoyment.

Question: What does 'basketball is mental' mean? Answer:  So as you think, so will it be .   Your thinking affects your behavior and you have to have the right mindset.  Making the decision that this is what you want to do is the first step.  From there, you develop a strategy, and it has to include working harder than anyone else is working.  Working harder and smarter.  Don't put yourself in a box - play with the game and think outside the box.  The fundamentals are building blocks for the advanced stuff, but use your creativity to take your game to the next level.  The mental influences those decisions that you make and how you see the game. Then you have to have the effort, the stamina and the strength to handle the competition.  There is a difference between wanting to be mediocre and wanting to be great.  If you are training, and you aren't contemplating quitting or you are close to death - you aren't pushing yourself hard en...

Notes from one of the best shooters of all time - Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf teaching how he shoots! 1 - Follow Through 2 - The arc of the shot 3 - The feel of the shot - Hand is not too close; fingers comfortable and natural, not too spread out - Finger tip control - have a gap so you aren't palming it - Off hand guides the ball; not too close and not underneath; be comfortably strong so it feels good but they can't knock the ball away - Its good at the beginning to line up the seams to help with your follow-thru - The follow through softens up the shot and lets it hang around the rim - Legs shoulder width apart to create a balance - Elbows in so your elbow and follow-thru is aligned with the basket - Index finger to the basketball and the rim - Backspin on the follow-thru - Focus on a target - right over the front of the rim Find what is comfortable for you and repetition.  Do it over and over again and pay attention to details.  The best shooters shoot the same s...

Doc Rivers talks about when one of his sons complained about playing time: No coach wants to lose.  If you do the right thing, minutes go up. Kids need to learn how to fight for it and need to hear the truth father than hearing you bash the coach.   "I support you and I know you can play.  But, you have to keep working and earning your spot [while respecting the coach and your teammates and while being a great friend and teammate].