Practice, weight room, sprints, conditioning, reps on reps on reps.
It's definitely hard on the body and on the mental aspect of it.
It's not just about doing it right. It's about doing it so many times until you just CAN'T GET IT WRONG.
It's all about conditioning and reps. We do a lot of repetitions just to make sure that being on the floor and being tired and being in pain, we will be able to handle it in the biggest moments.
Sports are hard. Sports can be devastating. Bad things happen in sports. But bad things happen in life. Going through adversity helps you learn how do deal with the bad stuff the right way, and how you respond is what makes you a better person, makes a better athlete, and what helps you succeed in life.
Whatever you are going through on the court, on the field, or on the mat, you are going to get through it.
You can't have the fruits without having the roots. You can't expect to be used without being prepared. Fruits are success. Roots are the work that you put in to get the success that you want. The more work that you put in, the more success that you get out. And you can't expect to get what you want - results, playing time, opportunities, wins, etc. - without being prepared and putting the work in. Do the work to get what you want.
When people criticize you - coaches, other players, parents, etc - you can let it hurt your feelings or you can let it motivate you to get better and prove them wrong.
It's not healthy to let everything that everyone says about you affect you, and you don't have to try to prove yourself to everyone, but always find ways to motivate yourself and to improve.
The Girl At The Gym I was at a gym and I saw this girl and her dad going through basketball drills. She was obviously very skilled for her age, but these boys (who I assume go to school with her) were giving her a hard time about not using the correct hand on left-hand layups. I saw her put her head down, and she didn't have the same energy the rest of the workout. After their workout, I overheard their dad say, 'You can't get down about what people say to you. There will always be people who criticize you. You have to decide for yourself if that criticism is real. If the criticism is real, use it to get better so that next time they see you, you can finish better with your left hand. If the criticism isn't real or valid, just ignore it. Either way, don't let it affect your workouts anymore.'
The funniest part of this whole experience was that I stayed around and watched the boys practice and it was obvious that her skill level was so much more advanced than the boys. Don't let people occupy your mind that has no reason to be there.
The Soccer Player
I knew this high school girls soccer player. He was talented and had the potential to play at a lower level in college. He and his parents wanted to work for a Division 1 scholarship, so they joined one of the best teams in her area. The jump in competition, expectations, and intensity was a lot for him (and his parents) to handle. The coach of this new team was honest and demanding. It got to the point where he couldn't take it anymore, lost his confidence, and lost his love for the game. His parents' approach was to blame the loss of confidence on the coach. Throughout the process, the coach was telling him what he needed to work on to get better and tried pushing him to do so. The coach was tough on him, as he is on all of his athletes because he knows how hard you have to work to make the gains that he wanted to make. When the coach would push him, instead of encouraging him, the parents would talk negatively about the coach. In the end, the athlete stopped working because he thought the coach was just mean and unfair, and the family claimed that the lack of progress was because the coach didn't like him when in reality, the coach was trying to do everything he could to help him.
If the parents could see that the coach was showing him what he needed to do to reach the dreams that he had, they could have helped their son use his coaching and criticism as motivation to get better, and he would have had a realistic chance to play Division 1 soccer.
How we approach criticism and adversity will go a long way in determining how successful we can be. If we use it to motivate us, we will continue to get better and better. If we let it bring us down, it can stop us before we reach our full potential.
As the saying goes, 'Pressure can burst pipes or build diamonds.' Let the pressure turn you into the player that we all know that you can be.
In the video below Brett Ledbetter shows a clip of the movie Whiplash to a group of coaches. Whiplash is a movie about a young, talented musician and his hard-driving coach who feels like it's his job to do what it takes to get the most out of his students, even to the long-term detriment of the students.
They discuss the parallels of this music teacher and many coaches that we see that act as it it's their job to push their athletes as hard as they can to get the most out of them, using fear and intimidation at times, ignoring or ignorant to the long-term damage that they could be doing to their athletes mental health.
This leads to a couple of great speeches by Dr. Jim Loehr, a leading sports psychologist who teaches and encourages coaches to have the right mission as they lead young athletes
We Hold Their Dreams in Our Hands
It's so important for coaches to understand the extraordinary power you have in the lives of athletes that you interact with.
You hold their dreams in your hands. You are the conduit through which they are going to fulfill what they believe to be their destiny.
Something important resides in your realm of control. If you believe in them, if you support them, if you reach down inside of yourself and give them a sense of empowerment that they can do extraordinary things, you can be an enormous source in their life.
You can also, with that same power, literally take them apart, and in some cases, they are never the same.
Our Voice Becomes Their Voice
A lot of times when you see the screamers, you see that the coach is ostensibly working to help their athletes become everything that they can, and they cannot stand anything but perfection because they know that their athletes are capable of it.
These coaches draw the line in the sand that separates the winners from the losers, but what they are really doing is meeting their own needs. It's not about the players, it's about the coach and the coach's tragic need to feel a success because he defines his essence with how well his athletes perform on the biggest stages, and it is the coach that is purified in making sure that his reputation was not contaminated.
These coaches have the mission wrong, and when you do, you can do extraordinary damage to the lives of athletes because you yield extraordinary power. The voice that you give to them everyday when you speak to them will one day be the voice inside their heads. It starts with their parents and if you are a powerful role in their lives, they will take on your voice. And remember, is that the voice that you want in their heads until they die? Most coaches have know clue the power that they really, really yield in the lives of the people that they are working with.
Jon Gordon recently did a great podcast with author and popular speaker Molly Fletcher. Fletcher recently released a book called The Energy Clock that teaches you how to create a life full of energy by aligning our energy and time to what matters to you the most. Molly Fletcher was once a high-power sports agent. Her job and life was very busy, but she said that during a lunch with her parents where her phone kept blowing up with the calls of professional athletes and coaches, she realized the importance of being present and in the moment with the ones that you love and knowing how to shut off your job when you need to.
Her parents came into town, and they went to an 'awesome place for lunch.' She said that from the time they sat down, her phone wouldn't stop ringing. Instead of letting those calls go to voicemail so that she could enjoy time with her parents, she answered every call.
Her mom asked her a powerful question, "What do they want?" Her intention behind the questions was, "Was it an emergency or could they have waited a minute?"
Molly's response was my favorite part of the story. She thought to herself, "I had filled all of my clients' cups up plenty where I could have enjoyed that moment with my family."
We have to be intentional in life about times in which we need to be present with the people in our lives who matter most, and also be intentional about filling up the cups and the lives that we need to on our work lives as well.
A coach's life never turns off and the job never sleeps. Our kids, our parents, and the games always need something. There is always a conversation to be had, a practice to plan, or film to watch. We have to do our job. We have to identify our non-negotiables - the parts of our jobs that we HAVE TO do.
But we also have to be intentional about giving our families the time and energy that they need as well. That balance is hard, but being aware of the need for balance is the first step.
I would be careful to not give everything that you have to your work and at your work and then not have the time and energy to give at home.
Ask yourself, "What are you chasing?" Be intentional about where and how you are spending your time and energy, and be intentional about who you spend it with. Make sure that you are spending it on stuff that really matters to your chase, at work and at home.
So many people struggle with energy and purpose, so being intentional about knowing what you are chasing, what brings you energy and value, and what you want your legacy to be can really help with this and help you spend time on what really matters and stay present and in the moment when it matters.
Every day this week, spend time working on your game outside of practice.
Everyday.
If there is something that you are struggling with at practice, practice that at home.
Don't be the same player with the same struggles next week that you are today.
PLAYERS: Every practice, your coach teaches you something new or you work on something. In between practices, work on what you were taught so that you are better at the next practice. This is how you get better; by working on your game on your own.
PLAYERS: Learn from your games too. If there is something that you struggle with in games or something that you don't understand or something that you want to do better, practice it. If you lose the ball in certain spots, miss certain shots, or don't feel comfortable at certain times, work on those skills and situations on your own in between games.
PARENTS: Watch your kid at practice and during games so that you can provide valuable feedback for them and help them grow. Watch what they work on in practice and help them practice this at home. Watch what your athlete's role is in the game, and help them improve their ability to execute at home.
Help your athlete by being aware of what your athlete needs help with.
COACHES: Talk to your athletes about their strengths and weaknesses. Let them know, with examples, what they do well and what they struggle with. Give them guidance, resources, and tools that will help them improve their strengths and weaknesses.
Talk to their parents about where they stand and about their strengths and weaknesses.
I am short, my wife is short, and our basketball playing daughter(s) are short. Instead of running from it, we embrace it. We tell our daughters now that they will never be the biggest or tallest on the court, so they have to be the toughest, smartest, hardest working kids on the court. There are some things that we just can't help, and genetics is one of them. But we don't have to allow things like size hold us back. There are smaller players at every level of all sports having success, but it takes a different level of character and commitment when you are undersized to compete at the highest levels.
I was once at a high school basketball game where an assistant basketball coach from the University of Arizona was recruiting a smaller guard, and I asked him about the athlete's ability to play at the next level. Here is a summary of his response on what it takes for a smaller guard to play at the highest level of college basketball:
"To be undersized and successful at the college level, you have to be able to knock down the 3 consistently to stretch the defense, and you have to be able to make floaters and pull-up jumpers consistently because you aren't going to be able to get to the basket and finish against the taller bigs that protect the rim.
You have to be a leader on offense that can get wherever on the court that you need to get to without getting in trouble, without getting trapped, and without turning it over. Smaller guards gave to be able break the defense down, get into the paint, draw help defenders, and then make the right reads and the right play when they get there.
Defensively you have to be an absolute dog. This means being the toughest kid on the court. You have to be willing and able to pick up and pressure your man without getting beat. You have to find ways to disrupt the ball-handler and the offense by getting deflections and steals as often as possible while being in position and not getting beat.
You have to know where you are supposed to be and be there and you have to know where your teammates need to be and lead them so that they are there. Then you have to make plays. If you can do that, you can play and have success at the next level while being undersized."
Several years ago, I was a small college basketball coach and we had an undersized point guard who absolutely dominated games. When I asked him what he felt was the best part of his game, he said it was that nobody could stop him from getting wherever he wanted on the court. I asked him, 'Why don't you score more (not that he needed to),' and his response was, 'I can't score on everybody, but I can get where I need to make the plays so my team can score.'
I thought that his level of awareness of his game was amazing and that this was a great goal of all guards - to be able to get wherever you need to get on the court and then be able to make the right play when you get there.
What also made him special was that he was a conference defensive player of the year. He could keep other point guards out of the paint by moving his feet, turning them, and 'standing them up' when he cut them off. He would not allow bigger players to post him up. He would push them off the blocks and front them. When they got the ball, he would pressure up on them and make them uncomfortable. If they brought the ball low, he would get his hands on it and take it away from them or deflect it away from them.
He would never make excuses for himself, and he was the ultimate leader, competitor, and winner. He knew that being short meant that you have to be the toughest kid on the court and you have to bring that toughness and competitiveness out of your teammates.
Us little guys and girls can have success out there, but we have to have a different mindset and level of competitiveness to offset what we don't have in size. We also have to have a different work ethic. But probably the most important thing that we have to have is that we have to be able to listen and be coachable. We have to learn and be students of the game. When our coaches are trying to teach us and put us in the right spots, we have to listen and do it right immediately. When are parents see something that can help us, we have to be willing to listen to them and apply what they are saying. Ballhandling If you are undersized, you have to be the best ballhandler that you can be. My advice would be to spend 20 minutes everyday dribbling the ball. It doesn't really matter what you do as long as you don't stop dribbling for 20 minutes. You can follow a plan, or you can just dribble while you are watching TV. Just keep dribbling. In The Lab is a really good resource for this. Dev has several videos that can help you become a better ballhandler:
Shoot Have a plan for how many shots that you want to take on your own every day and for how effectively you want to shoot the ball. A solid in-game goal would be to shoot 35% from 2, 30% from 3, and 80% from the free-throw line. On my own, I would work on different layup finishes, floaters, pull-up jumpers, 3's and free-throws. Try to make 6 out of 10 floaters and pull-up jumpers. I would try to make 5 out of 10 3s when nobody is guarding me in practice. I would try to always shoot for 8 out of 10 free-throws.
Defensive Slides Train your body to have quickness and stamina doing defensives slides to become a better defender. One of the best ways to do this is to do defensive slides around the running track. Another way is to do defensive slide line drills. You can slide to the free-throw line and back, to half-court and back, to the other free-throw line and back, and then the length of the court and back. Both of these will build your leg strength and stamina. Compete To Win Undersized players have to prove that they can help their teams win. Every time you step on the court, step on the court to win. Try to stay on the court in open gym. Try to do everything that it takes to win. Learn how to win games. If you can help your team win, coaches will appreciate you. Good luck on your journey.
TRUST. 100% trust. "I need to make sure that you will catch me when I fall. That is what bonds people; you didn't let me get hurt. From then on, we are going to have this bond because I know you will catch me and you will protect me, and I feel secure."
When you become that close, it becomes a family, and it makes that bond even stronger, and that is what makes a team so awesome. But if the chemistry of the team is not there, and the trust and the bond isn't strong, then that is when things start to fall apart
Placing your trust in others can be scary, but you have to learn how to trust your teammates and you have to be worthy of being trusted. Trust is what makes teams special, and teams are what makes this sport experience special.
Changing from 'Have To' to 'Want To' can completely change your life. It's all about perception and how you look at everything. If you look at everything as a burden, then everything will bring you down.
If you look at everything like an opportunity, then everything is an opportunity for you to get better, do better, and be better.
PLAYERS: If you aren't getting the opportunities that you want, one of the first things that you should ask yourself is, "Can my coach trust me to do my job more than the person who is getting those opportunities?"
If you truly feel like you can be trusted to get the job done, keep working hard and take advantage of your opportunities when they come. Your time will come, and when it does, play so well that the coach CAN'T take you off the court or field.
Tom Brady was the 199th pick and a back-up until Drew Bledsoe got hurt. Tom Brady played so well that he kept the job for 19 years and won 6 Super Bowls. If you can play, you will get your chance and you have to take full advantage of it to stay on the court.
If you feel like there are things you need to work on to gain that trust, then put the time and the work in. Be more consistent with your decision making. Be a more consistent shooter. Be more consistent giving your best effort. Be in the right place more. Make more plays. But it comes from putting in the work.
The best coaches on the best teams play the athletes whom they can trust. Sure, sometimes politics come into play and yes, coaches have favorites. But most of their favorites are the players who they can trust, the players who make plays, and the players who do things the right way.
COACHES: One of our most important jobs is to use sports to develop great people. We have to see, grow, and develop the person first and the player second. We have to make sure that our kids know that we care more about who they are and the person that they are becoming more than the athlete.
When we do this, we teach them to value character over performance and we can help them grow into healthy adults. Plus, an athlete with better character will be a better athlete because they will work harder and they will work smarter and they will do it with more grit.
Dr. Jim Loehr has a great quote. He says that "Who you become as a result of the chase is the most important thing." Sports allow us to become a better version of ourselves, and the pressure part of sports is just another way for us to grow and find out more about ourselves. Dr. Loehr asked Billy Donovan a powerful question. He asked,
"What is your purpose of coaching, and it can't be about anything materialistic. It can't be about winning, it can't be about financial security, it can't be about trophies, championships or any of those things. What are you trying to do every day and what value do you bring?
Coach Donovan said that it forced him to think on a deeper level about what his calling is, what is he supposed to do, and what is his mission is. Coach Donovan then said that there is an enormous amount of freedom in being who you want to be as a coach and doing things your way when you don't have to deal with and worry about the results.
When we focus on helping to develop better people, we have the freedom to do things our way and the right way. When we focus on developing better people, we will have stronger athletes who value hard work, character, and integrity. Coach K says, "Character drives everything." Character is who you are, what you do, and how you treat others. Character is YOU. The process is what you do. Results are a combination of who you are and what you do. To get the right results, you have to have the right process and the right character.
We have to have to teach, praise, and emphasize character.
ATHLETES: The best way to prepare for the games is to have great practices. But we also need to look at what we are doing between practices too.
There is only so much improving that can come from a few practices a week, and much of a coach's responsibility is to get the TEAM ready to perform together.
The best coaches find ways to get the TEAM ready while also growing individual players through player development, but there is only so much time that can be spent on player development.
If you want to be the best that you can be, you have to put in extra practice between practices. Pay attention to what your coach teaches in practice and your role. Pay attention to the drills that you do. Ask your coach what you need to work on individually, and practice all of that on your own.
On off days, get extra reps in. Find ways to come early to practice or stay late after practice to get extra work in.
Your growth and development is up to you. You can't rely on your coaches for everything. Know what you want to accomplish and go for your goals. Use your coaches as a valuable resource, but you have to put in the work.
The video below is the third part of a great conversation between Billy Donovan and Brett Ledbetter at What Drives Winning.
They talk about our legacies as coaches, how we are planting seeds in our athletes, and how to find freedom in our purpose as coaches.
Planting Seeds
The hardest thing in coaching is that we are always planting seeds in players, but sometimes those seeds don't sprout and take bloom until long after they are gone. And the frustrating part as coaches is that we want that plant to flower and to harvest right now while we have them, but sometimes that harvest happens at different times in people's lives.
We have to keep planting knowing that our legacy is ultimately the lessons that we teach our players, what they remember about us, and what they say about us long after we are gone.
Our legacy is more than wins and losses. Our legacies are the people that our athletes become as they grow up and start their own lives and families.
What Will Your Legacy Be?
At the end of our careers, our legacies as coaches will not just be our record or how many games we win. Our legacy will be how our athletes and their families talk about us after we are gone.
Our influences will carry on long after we are gone. There are things that we do as coaches that can, and will, have an effect for generations. The lessons we teach our athletes and how we treat our athletes will be embedded in them and it will influence how they interact with their own kids.
At the end of the day, we are going to be measured on how our players talk about us. When our players have their own children and they ask, "Who did you play for and what was he/she like," when that player starts to talk about you, then that is your legacy and how you are remembered.
The winning is great, but how your players talk about you, how they remember you, and the lessons that they learned from you is your true legacy.
The Chase
When you are going through this 'chase,' who will you become? Will bitterness come out? Does resentment, anger, and/or frustration come out?
There are so many things that get exposed and that we have to address. We aren't perfect, but through this chase and through this journey, we get the chance to become a better version of ourselves.
The pressure part of coaching is just another way for you to grow and learn more about yourself in and through adverse situations.
What is your purpose in coaching?
And, it can't be materialistic. What are you trying to do every day? What is your calling? What is your mission? What are you supposed to do? There is an enormous amount of freedom on being who you want to be as a coach without having to deal with or worry about results.
If we had control over our results, we would always get what we want. We don't, but we have control over the process and who we are becoming. We have control over what kind of changes we need to make in our life.
Doing what it takes to achieve sustained excellence in sports and in life is not normal. By human nature, we are lazy, self-centered, and seek instant gratification. We want the cookie, we don't want to do the extra sprint or touch the line, we want to take a break, we want to watch that extra episode on Netflix.
But to be great, we have to fight the urge of human nature. To be great, we have to wake up every morning knowing that greatness is often a battle between who we want to be and our human nature, and to be great coaches, we have to know that our athletes are battling the same issues.
When I was playing in college, we had to do times miles. One run, I had to run the mile under 5:50. I crossed the line right at 5:50. The whole next week, I had to do morning work because I didn't make it in UNDER 5:50.
My coach taught me a very valuable lesson that day. He taught me that good wasn't good enough. I wasn't happy about it, but I knew the standard and I knew the consequence, and now everybody in the team knew that coach would follow through on even the smallest things.
It's one thing to communicate high expectations with our teams. It's another thing to follow through every time. Billy Donovan gave us a quote from Florida tennis coach Roland Thornqqvist where he said,
"Your goal as a coach is to try to get your team to maximize its ability."
It's easy to be complacent when things are going good. But if you know that your team can be better, you have the obligation to push those buttons to get them to maximize their ability and be great. It might do some short term damage to relationships because being all that you can be really goes against human nature. It is human nature to be lazy and self-centered and to cut corners. But if our goal is to maximize our team's ability, it is our job as coaches to keep pushing. It is our job to make sure that they touch every line, that they make every time, that they are on time and prepared for practice, that they do every cut the right way, and that they compete in every drill.
When we let things slip, we are letting our potential slip with it. We have to be on a quest to expose our athletes to the truth about their performance and their potential and the reality of the situation. We have to confront and address things when they come up.
What we do as coaches is not normal, and what we ask our players to do is not normal. If we aren't doing something normal, then we have to act abnormally. It's abnormal to have the habits that it takes to have sustained success in sports. By human nature, we are lazy, selfish, and do things that benefit us first. But we have to wake up every morning understanding that we are in a battle with the human nature thay is within ourselves and that is within our athletes. We have to wake up every morning with the mentality to battle human nature because if we aren't prepared to do so, we won't reach our full potential.
Donovan says that there is often a big, pink elephant in the room that everybody sees that a lot of times goes unaddressed, and when issues don't get addressed, they end up flowering into bigger problems. So it's important to confront any issues that are there.
When you see something wrong, ask them. Ask your athletes, 'Are you okay? Is there a problem?" They might tell you the truth, and you might have something new to handle, but it's better to take the challenge on as it comes and not let the problem get bigger than it needs to be.
The best-case scenario is to confront the problem in a creative way that grabs and uplifts their spirit, but if the goal is to maximize our potential, we have to find ways to be truth-tellers.
95%
In most sports, athletes only have the ball in their hands for about 5% of the game, but that 5% carries so much emotional weight. When we score, we celebrate and we get celebrated and praised. When we make mistakes with the ball, we get down and we get criticized.
But what about the other 95%? What are you doing during the 95% of the game when you don't have the ball? How are you helping your team?
The 5% is important. The best players make plays when they have the ball in their hands or at their feet. Practice, practice, practice to maximize that 5% and to make plays to help your team.
But also try to find a way to make the biggest impact possible the other 95% of the time. The real value in playing is not just how well you play with the ball.
Encourage your teammates.
Be in the right spot. Get back on defense. Box out. Help your teammates. Talk. Take a charge. Set screens. Offensive rebound. There are so many things that go into impacting the outcome of the game. Don't be so consumed with the 5% of the time that you do have the ball that you don't focus on the 95% of the time that you don't have it. It's important to see the big picture in the game. Making shots will come and go, but the things that you can actually have control over are the things that you have to do 95% of the time. Why not focus on being great at those things?
Over the years, one of the hardest conversations come from parents concerned about their kid not playing. Their kid is a great, hardworking kid who loves [insert the sport]. All they want to do is play, and they can't wait to play varsity [insert the sport]. But now they are a Freshman on the Freshman team or a Sophomore on the JV team, or they have finally made the varsity, but it's not what they envisioned for themselves. Instead of being a starter, they come off the bench. Instead of getting equal playing time, they are only playing a few minutes here and there. Instead of coming home excited every day after practice, they come up feeling dejected and rejected and they are starting to lose their love for the game.
Parents are genuinely concerned. This is the first time that their athlete has been down and depressed about the sport that they love, and they genuinely don't know what to do for their athlete. Their athlete has always been a contributor on their teams. They work really hard, and they have always brought value and have been valued. Now, their role is very limited, and they are seeing the negative effects at home, including no longer wanting to play the sport that they love.
The two things that gave me heartburn the most as a coach are making cuts and determining playing time. I try to explain it to parents like a funnel as you go from middle school to high school to varsity. In middle school in Texas, we have A-Teams, B-Teams, and even C-Teams in some districts. This means there can be up to 35-40 kids in a grade playing basketball. By the time they get to high school as freshmen, most schools only have freshman A-Teams, and some might have a B-Team as well, and some schools combine middle schools. So it could be 70-80 kids trying to make a freshman basketball team of 12 spots, and there is just no way to keep everybody happy.
The funnel continues as kids progress through high school basketball. There are 12-15 roster spots just for freshmen on the freshman team, but some freshmen make the JV or varsity team. This could mean that those 70-80 kids that tried out have been whittled down to 15-20 athletes spread out over the freshman, JV, and varsity teams. This also means that some of those kids who might have played a majority of the game in middle school have more competition for playing time and roles. I see this especially with the former B and C team kids; they were able to play all of the time and star in their roles on their team, but it's harder now that they are with all of the A-Team kids.
At the JV level, you only have 10-12 spots that are spread out among freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. This means that not all freshmen are going to be able to move up to the JV team, and now there is even more competition for playing time. A sophomore or junior might have to compete with a very talented freshman for a spot and time.
The next step is varsity basketball, and most varsity basketball teams carry only 10-15 athletes, and it is spread out among Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors. This means that everybody who made the team as a Freshman will not make it all four years to become a varsity athlete. Some play multiple sports and there is natural attrition with this; some get jobs and quit, and some just fall out of love with the game. But some just get cut through the process.
As our athletes move through the system, we lose roster spots for athletes, and playing time is less spread out as well. As kids move from middle school to varsity, it becomes more about competition and less about participation. Coaches can and do lose their jobs if their programs aren't successful. It is important for them to play the athletes that will give them the best chance at winning.
In a recent podcast, former NBA great Dwayne Wade talked about being a dad of a high school basketball player. His son is not getting as many scoring opportunities as he once did. He said that he doesn't step in and interfere, but he teaches his son how to navigate through real-life situations. Wade said,
"We have to help our kids navigate through how the real world is going to be. The real world is coming for them all and our job is to teach them how to navigate through it. Everytime they go through something that they can't deal with, its our job as parents to parent them and to help them through it. The worst thing to do is coddle them and then when we let them out into the world, they don't know how to navigate. We grew up talking about having street smarts, but now we have to teach our kids how to have 'life smarts.'
It's important for parents to understand how this process works so that they can help their kids navigate through this process. It is also important for coaches to be aware of this process so that they can help their players, and their parents, navigate through this process. Parent meetings are stressful and they just aren't fun. But they are sometimes necessary. Players want to have fun and play. They want to be on the court doing what they love. Parents want to see their kids having fun and enjoying doing what they love. Coaches want to teach and coach; they want to grow and develop kids and athletes. This is a process that all parties have to work through together to maximize the experience for everybody. ATHLETES: Learn how to buy into your role, and if you don't like your role, continue to be a great teammate while working hard to get better. COACHES: We can just expect athletes and parents to accept their roles, or we can help them and teach them and coach them through this process. This journey is new for everybody, and we all want just want what is best for kids. Let's learn how to work together for them.
In the video below, former Florida basketball coach and current Oklahoma City Thunder coach Billy Donovan says that the best teams that he has coached have had 3 characteristics:
1 - Love
2 - Care
3 - Acceptance
He said that his players on his best teams had a love for eachother, they cared about eachother, and they accepted eachother.
He would often have players come to his house for team dinners, and one of his players mentioned how lucky coach was to have such a loving, caring, and accepting family.
Coach Donovan told his players that his family isnt't perfect, but that they are COMMITTED to trying to be the best that they can for eachother.
None of us are perfect. Our teammates won't always get along. There will be fights. There will be arguments. But if we can be committed to showing eachother love, care, and acceptance, we can create a memorable experience and we can maximize our abilities as a group.
With the new year here, so many people are creating New Years resolutions that so often don't work. But James Clear has a different approach that might be more effective.
This New Year, change your identity first. Figure out who you want to be and start living like that person would live. If you want to be a more successful coach, identify and act like a coach with the type of habits and success that you seek.
If you want to be a starter, start acting, thinking and living like a starter.
If we look at ourselves like we are the person that we want to be, then we won't need to rely as much on discipline and will power for how to act - it's just how we act and how we do things.
If you want to change anything in your life, change your mindset and truly believe that you are the type of person who is going to change to these habits and be successful this year and beyond.
A Secret To Success Is Accountability A couple of the biggest reasons why building strong relationships with our athletes are so important is so that they have someone that they can trust and someone that the can feel accountable to.
Accountability is one of the keys to success. All of the knowledge on how to become successful is out there, but most don't take advantage of the free resources. We need something to hold us accountable.
When we feel a deep sense of accountability to someone important, we don't want to let them down, so we work harder, smarter, and more consistently, and when you have a deep sense of accountability to someone you don't want to disappoint, then you can move mountains.
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