Every Kid Needs An Important Role

There was a high school coach in Texas, who was also the head of the middle school program (that is how it works in Texas).

This coach was known for the relationships that he builds with the kids that he coaches, and the impact that he has on their lives.

A couple of ways that he does that is by not turning any athlete away and by finding a specific spot and role for every athlete on the team.

They said that he gives every athlete a position and role, he encourages and inspires them, and he teaches them how to master their role.

Being intentional like this helps make every athlete feel valued and important. They give it their all because they are completely bought in. They perform their job at a high level because they have been taught how and they know what is expected of them.

Now, that role might be the 3rd person from the right on the 3rd string kick-off team, but imagine how disciplined a team is if the buy-in, instruction, expectations, and relationships run that deep?

From now on, that is the line as a coach, and you can either live and lead above it or below it.

How U | Teach Them What You Want Them To Do

One season, I had a team that just couldn't shoot it very well. We had one really good shooter, and everybody else wasn't very skilled at shooting. We played very hard, we were aggressive on defense, but shooting was not a strength of ours.

I spent the first few practices complaining about our ability, or lack thereof, to shoot the ball. During one of my complaining sessions, my dad asked me, "What are you doing to teach them how to shoot?"

That question changed my career as a coach and as a teacher. From then on, I stopped being a victim of my personnel, and I took ownership over what I taught them and their skill and ability.

All it took was a mindset shift and good guidance from dad.

Instead of saying my team can't do this _______________," ask yourself three questions:

1 - Why can't they?
2 - How can I teach this?
3 - What am I allowing them to do? Don't be a victim of your personnel. If your team can't shoot, teach them how. If your team can't dribble, teach them. If your team can't play defense, teach them. If your team has bad footwork, teach them. Instead of saying, "We can't do this ___," teach them how. Coaches are teachers, and teachers have to teach them the skills, on and off the court, that they need to be successful on our teams and in life. Take ownership over your ability to teach, to inspire, to motivate, and to grow your athletes.

Listen First | Red and Me

NBA legend Bill Russell wrote a book talking about his relationship with head coach Red Auerbach. He wrote:

"From the first, Red's method of coaching me was by observation, listening, and conversation."

Russell said that he was a private person and a man of few words. Red realized that and respected it. He used that information to coach Russell.

Russell further wrote:

"His attitude was: 'How can we do this together?' He approached it by asking himself, 'Russell is a good ballplayer. What can I do to help him win games?' That would have been sufficient. But he went further: 'This is a man I like and respect."

Coaching, teaching, and leadership are about a transfer of information. The best way to transfer that information is by connecting with your athletes, getting to know them and their personalities, how they learn best, and how they receive information best. 

This is done by listening first. Listening first is how we get more information about our athletes and their agenda. Teams and cultures of high expectations are done through relationships, unity, and trust.

The better we know and respond to our athletes, the better we can coach them.

Are You Contagious? | Kemba Walker | How U: Maintaining a Positive Spirit

Kemba Walker, the point guard for the Boston Celtics, is known for his crazy crossovers and his positive energy and positive spirit.

In a recent playoff game, NBA announcers talk about his positive energy and his positive effect on the team:

They talk about his smile. They talk about how he goes out of his way to say hello and ask how people are doing when they walk into the gym.

They talk about how even the most cantankerous and competitive coaches find it impossible for them to stay mad when Kemba Walker walks into their office with a smile on his face.

They talk about how contagious he is. He is the guy that everybody wants to play with, whether it is a practice scrimmage or a drill.

What do your teammates say about you? How do you impact the locker room? How do you make people feel? Do you maintain a positive spirit through the ups and the downs?

How Do You Handle Not Playing? | Lexie Brown

So many players and parents look for resources on how to handle a lack of playing time and adversity.

WNBA player Lexie Brown was recently interviewed on the Knuckle Heads podcast with her dad, former NBA player Dee Brown, and she had a great response on this topic.

Lexie was asked how she handled not playing her first year and what she learned from that experience. Adversity is something that we all have to learn how to deal with. Lack of playing time is hard on everyone, especially when you are used to being one of the best players on your team.

Her response was so on point!

"You have to handle all situations with grace because you never know what is going to happen."

Even if you know you aren't going to get the playing time that you want, remain one of the hardest workers on the team. Stay in the gym. Come early and stay late.

We all have moments where we can handle situations better. But through it all, be a good teammate, bring energy on the bench. No matter how annoyed or upset that you might be on the inside, don't bring bad energy to the team.

How you handle adversity reveals your character. This is a great lesson from a professional basketball player on how to handle adversity the right way.

Our Brains Are Wired For Connection

When we create partnerships with our athletes and their families and establish authentic connections, we build mutual trust and respect.

We can then leverage that trust bond to help our athletes rise to higher expectations.

We can also give feedback and constructive criticism in ways that our athletes are able to take it in and act on it.

Creating partnerships also allows us to hold them to higher standards and challenge them more.

Simply put, partnerships with our athletes help us coach them better and tougher so that we can get the most out of them because they know we care and have their best interests at heart.

Get to know your athletes, what their interests are, what motivates them, what triggers them, how they best learn, and what their goals are.

via: Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain

Start This Month

What if you would have started a new routine, program, or habit just one month ago?

What if you start one this month?

🏀  Make _____ shots every day.
⚽  Get _____ touches every day.
⚾  Take _____ swings every day.
🥎  Hit _____ serves every day.
🏐  Hit _____ were against the wall every day.
🏈  Run _____ routes every day.
🥊  Shadowbox for _____ rounds every day.

Tonight, set a goal, write it down, post in on your fridge, and every day that you complete it for the next month, check it off.

See where you are in one month!

Keep Our Kids In The Right Environment

The environment

The culture and environment that our kids are in plays a big role in their growth, their development, and their experience.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard about a kid who was struggling on one team with confidence, bully issues (from teammates and coaches), and playing time to the point where they wanted to quit playing, and went to a different team and started to blossom because they were in the right environment.

I have also seen kids who are in great environments but for whatever reason (more exposure, more competition, false promises, a great salesman of a team manager) left and started to suffer from all of the negatives listed above to the point where an athlete with a world of potential was ready to quit playing.

The environment is important, and it is our job as coaches and parents to help put our kids in the right environment and to help them navigate through adversity the right way.

I am not saying that we need to move our kid from team to team each season, I am not saying that coaches need to be soft and not hold kids accountable. I am also not saying that a kid should be forced to stick out a bad situation season to season.

We just have to be mindful of healthy adversity, healthy challenges, and healthy environments and use sports to help our kids learn how to navigate appropriately through all situations so that when they get older, they have the gifts of discernment and wisdom because of the experiences that they have gone through, and that they still have joy, optimism, confidence, and ,hope because of the experiences as well.

The Best Coaches Take Responsibility

The best teams have coaching staffs that are willing to share and and recognize that team morale and how the team feels about the work is such a critical part of everything.

When kids aren't learning and getting betterz the best coaches don't blame kids or blame parents. The best coaches ask themselves, "What can I do differently to differently to reach and teach my kids?"

When coaches take responsibility for the teaching and learning, the environment is better, the culture is better, and morale is better.

The best teams are teams where everybody works hard, and it starts with culture and leadership.

With the best teams, athletes and coaches work hard, but they don't work harder because someone makes them work harder.

🏀  They work harder because they want too.
🏀  They work hard because of the environment.
🏀  They work hard because they are working collectively with others on something that is important.
🏀  They work hard because they are workig with others on something that is bigger than themselves.

One of the most important things that we can do as coaches is create an environment where our people can feel free and confident to do what they do best.

What Does It Take To Educate The Athletes That You Serve?

What Does It Take To Educate/Coach The Students/Athletes That You Serve?

If we want to teach our kids, all of our kids, then we have to be able to answer that question.

To answer it, we have to know something about them. We have to know how they learn, what they want to learn, what matters to them, and what their needs are.

We can't assume that we know. We have to be active in getting to know them.

And we can't pass that responsibility on to anybody else. We can't just pass it on to another coach or to someone who looks like them. We can and need to use others to help and as resources, but if we want to meet the needs of all of our kids, we have to be willing to grow as teachers and build real connections and relationships with our kids.

The best teachers don't expect students to learn they way they teach. The best teachers teach the way that children learn.

Think about how you build relationships with your students and how those connections help you teach them in a way that they can and want to learn.

Also think about some kids that you haven't been able to reach and how you can do a better job of teaching them in a way that they can and want to learn.

Research more here: https://youtu.be/SzhJrohxHiA

Coaching the Uncoachable pt. 2

Last week, I wrote a blog about coaching uncoachable players. This is the second part of that blog.

I previously stated that I don't label athletes as 'uncoachable.' It is important to find ways to reach, connect with, and motivate athletes. Having a connection with our athletes lets them know what we care about them, and it also helps us better teach and respond to our athletes. When we have a connection with them, we know what they already know, we know what matters to them, and we know how they learn. That connection piece is the first part of coaching difficult athletes.

The next part is establishing standards and boundaries, communicate expectations, and to have measurable goals.

My theme for my daughter’s 5-year-old soccer team is ‘score goals and stop goals.’ It is easy and measurable. Did you score a goal there or did you stop a goal? If you did, you did your job. If you didn’t, you did not do your job. We teach so much more, including skills, teamwork, and hard work, but those two clear, non-negotiable goals are simple ways for us to put a measurement on our play.

The more clear that we can be in our expectations, the more that we can hold our kids accountable.

When you have an athlete that is considered uncoachable, make sure that you are clear in your expectations and give them action items that they either do or they don’t do.

Instead of saying, “You need to play harder,” tell your athletes, “You need to get to get the first touch, you need to get every loose ball or rebound.” When you tell a kid to play hard, you give them an out. They might think that they are playing hard. But when you say that you need to be the first one on the ground for a loose ball or a fumble, the answer is either yes or no, and it can be verified by the film.

I once coached a very talented high school basketball player. He just didn’t compete and work like we needed him to. We stopped telling him to work hard and compete, and we started identifying areas on the court, in practice and in games, where he needed to be better. Instead of saying work harder on defense, we said that his man should never get into the paint. Instead of saying work harder, we said that he should never give up an open shot. Instead of saying compete, we said that his man should never get an offensive rebound.

We stopped talking in theory and started talking in action. Then we started teaching. We taught him how to dive on the floor for loose balls and created drills where he had to practice it. We showed him how we wanted him to play defense and we set up drills for him to practice it. We taught what we wanted to see, we set up drills to practice it, and we measured it the rest of the season.

By the end of the season, he was doing MOST of what we asked. We went further in the playoffs than our school had in the history of our program. We identified what we wanted. We communicated what we wanted. We taught what we wanted. We practiced and drilled what we wanted. We measure it and monitoring it. We didn’t assume anything, and we won.

Throughout the process, we had constant conversations with our athlete about how he was doing, what we needed him to do, how he could do better, and how much we believed in him. We were in constant conversations with his parents too so that there was clarity in conversation all around.

When we didn’t get what we needed, we held him accountable, and we told him why.

This is the process that I use with all of the kids that I coach, but it is most needed with the kids who struggle with buying-in and their parents. Believe in what you do and what you are teaching. Be clear in your expectations. Listen and work with your athletes and their families so that you have a shared vision for them as individuals, for their family, and for their future.

If there is not a fit, after you have gone through all of the checks and balances, understand that this might not be the right fit. There are thousands of coaches and thousands of players. We might have to find a better fit for everybody, but do your best to not throw away kids without teaching them what you need for them.

Try living by this quote: 

"There are no bad kids, only bad instruction."

Take on the burden of athletes learning, growth, and success. When they aren't succeeding, look at what you can do differently. But do so in a way that you don't put unfair pressure or stress on yourself.

Good luck!

Culturally Responsive Coaching

Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) is the idea that students learn better when the material and teaching connects with their culture, their backgrounds, and their experiences.

Instead of just giving students materials to learn from textbooks and worksheets, learning improves when we help make meaningful connections between the students and what we are teaching. When we help make these connections and build relevance between what they are learning and their lives, we can increase rigor, we can develop high-level academic skills, and dive deeper into the learning.

The same can be said and should be said when we are coaching. When a lot of us were growing up, we were at the mercy of our coach. Whatever system he/she wanted to run is what we ran. We didn’t have much of a say-so and the coach was the judge, jury, and executioner.

We are learning in the classroom that helping students connect with the learning increases achievement, and the same is seen in sports.

Instead of only teaching one offense, or one defense or one style of attack, it would do us coaches well to continue learning new ideas so that we can tailor our systems to match our personnel.

We have seen this shift in football with the spread offenses. Football coaches are spreading out their best players, putting them in space, speeding up the game so that their players can do what they do best.

The same is seen in basketball. Steph Curry completely changed the game with his ability to shoot, and what James Harden and the Houston Rockets are doing is something that we haven’t seen before either.

While sustained success is something the Rockets are still looking for, I commend their efforts to put the ball in their best players’ hands and let them do what they do best.

Culturally responsive coaching is not just the system and the style of play; it is how you teach and interact with your athletes every day. It is building a relationship with them, it is getting to know who they are, where they come from, and why they play. It is getting to know their culture, their background, their experiences, and connecting all of that to the game and building life lessons around it. It is figuring out how they learn best and teaching in a way that will help them become successful.

When we are more culturally responsive, we build deeper relationships with our athletes and their families, we build stronger trust, and we can build stronger teams.

As the saying goes, “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Being culturally responsive helps your athletes know how much you care about them as people. Being culturally responsive allows us to have higher expectations for our athletes because we know their goals and their strengths.

It improves their performance because it helps our athletes feel valued and empowered. It helps all of our athletes build cultural competence and learning capacity.

It helps everyone understand different perspectives, appreciate others’ strengths, and build empathy.

It can help all of us reflect on our own experiences and identity and see how it affects our attitudes and coaching styles.’

CRC helps create an equitable experience for everyone, even the athletes that aren’t playing as much. It keeps them engaged because the coach keeps an interest in them and is in constant communication with them.

Next Play Teammates

Basketball, like all sports, is a game of mistakes and random events. Mistakes will happen; we just have to manage how we respond to them.

Having a next play mentality is important. We have to be able to move on quickly from a mistake so that we are in the moment and prepared to make the next play.

Have a plan for responding to future, inevitable mistakes.

The best players and the best teams know how to respond to mistakes, they know how to move on, and they know how to stay focused and in the moment.

One thing that could help is having 'Next Play Teammates.' A next play teammate is someone whose job is to recognize mistakes and to immediately cheer for their teammates, yell next play, and help them move on.

Every great team has great teammates, and those teammates don't have to be on the court. They can be a teammate, manager, or trainer, who supports from the sideline. That teammate can be the person who rebounds for teammates, who make sure their teammates stay lifted up and inspired, and who helps their teammates move on from mistakes.

Coaches, identify great teammates who can help your team move on from mistakes. Encourage them and show them how much you appreciate them.

Appreciation As A Difference Maker

I will never forget my toughest coach. He was my best coach, but he was the toughest.

It was all about life lessons, grit, mental toughness, growth mindset, get better everyday, etc.

He had high expectation, he had a clear vision on what he wanted, and he payed attention to every detail.

We won; a lot. We finished as a top 10 team in the country. A lot of it was because of how much and how hard he pushed us.

But what really put us over the top and took us from a good team to a top 10 team in the country came during our conference tournament at the end of the year.

We knew coach cared about us, but he never said it. He never really told us that he appreciated us, so it could be a cold environment at times.

Before the start of our tournament, he pulled the leaders aside and told us how much he cared about us, how thankful he was for everything that he had done for him and the program, and how proud of us he was.

That meant the world to us, and we went on to win the tournament.

I believe that he prepared us to have success in the tournament with everything that we did throughout the season, but that final conversation was the difference maker.

You can't have a championship level team without high expectations, talent, and work ethic. You have to push your team to get them most out of them. But true, honest appreciation is a difference maker.

It think it is the same as a parent and a spouse. I can be very tough on my own kids. Sometimes I realize that I can be tougher on them than the love that I show.

When I find myself pushing my kids too hard, I try to take a step back and just tell them how much I love them, that I am proud of them, and that I love watching them play.

Mamba Mentality is great. We should all strive to get better daily if we want to be the best thag we can be. But we have to have gratitude and appreciation for our athletes if we want to get to the next level.

Don't Tap Out

Don't tap out.
Don't stop.
Don't quit.
Keep pushing.

Two people walked into the fitness center at the same time, and they got on the treadmill next to each other at the same time and started jogging at the same time.

They noticed each other and started competing with each other.

One person upped their speed, then the other one.

One person made a steeper incline, the other one.

Faster and faster.
Steeper and steeper.

After 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes and then an hour, one of them said to themselves, "I don't want to go anymore. I have had enough. " That person stopped and left the gym.

The other person pushed for just a couple more minutes, got off, and left too; satisfied with victory.

Will Smith has a great treadmill quote. He said:

"The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I'm not afraid to die on a treadmill. I 
will not be out-worked, period. ... But if we get on the treadmill together, there's two things: You're getting off first, or I'm going to die."

Work Ethic and Focus

I try to stress to my kids the importance of putting in the work.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book where he said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master something. While the over/under on that varies from athlete to athlete, the mindset behind the idea is powerful.

You can't be great over night. It just takes time and consistency.

To put in the time, consistently, it takes an extreme amount of focus. It takes focus on your goals, focus on the work in practice, focus on the details, and focus on doing the work the right way.

One of the things that people said that made Michael Jordan great was his ability stay focused and present in the moment.

Work ethic and focus leads to sustained success and greatness.

What Kind Of Teammate Are You?

PLAYERS: How do you want your teammates to think and feel about you?

TRY THIS: Write 1-3 sentences stating what you hope that your teammates would say about you in an interview, or on the ride home with their parents, or at the dinner table with their family. Then work, play, and live up to that statement.

When I was playing, I would hope that my teammates would say that I want Reggie on my team. He makes me feel confident, and I believe in him. When I play with him, I feel like we have the best chance to win. He works really hard, and he makes me want to work harder.

Russell Westbrook is a polarizing figure. Many people outside of his locker room think that he is too mean, too tough, and too out of control. But when you talk to guys inside the locker, most of his teammates LOVE him.

One TV analyst had this to say about Russ:

His energy is contagious. When you see a guy work like that on a nightly basis and love the game and love to compete, you are either going to join in or you are going to get exposed.

People love playing with guys like that. Be that teammate. Be the teammate that works hard and encourages and inspires everyone else to work hard.

Think intentionally about what kind of teammate you are and what kind of teammate you want to be. Make sure that your actions match your goals. Act like the athlete, and the person, that you want to be.

Kris Middleton | Handling Adversity

Have you ever felt like a coach did you wrong? Or felt like a referee cost you a game? Or felt like you didn't get opportunities that you deserved?

What was your response to the adversity?

Kris Middleton was a nice player in college and was a 2nd round pick.

He didn’t play a lot at first in the NBA, and he went to the G-League.

He says that turned him around. It was his first year not having success and not really playing. He said he knew that he had a lot of work to do, and he put in the work.

Early in the year last year, he was benched. He didn’t pout. He took his punishment, he put the work in, and he improved. Now he is an All-star and making a lot of money.

His story makes me think about how I handle adversity and how my players handle adversity. Some questions to ask yourself and your athletes:

How do you respond to adversity?

How do you respond to losing playing time?

How do you respond when you aren’t getting the shots that you want?

Do you pout?

Do you make excuses?

Or do you work harder?

Be like Kris Middleton. Put your head down and put in the WORK.

Thinking Partners

Coach Mike Bayer works in mental health and personal development. He recently spoke to Jon Gordon on his Positive University Podcast about the benefits of having a 'Think Partner.'

"Whenever we are evolving, the world around us shifts a little bit. Whether we are evolving in our relationships, or have kids, or a new job. For me, I love having a thinking partner to talk about it with. Someone else can really point out those blind spots in us.

Mike went on to talk about his relationship with Dr. Phil. He is a regular on Dr. Phil's show, and he talked about how Dr. Phil has been a Thinking Partner for him and a mentor:

"We normally go to lunch all of the time; at least once a week. Usually, I bring ideas to him and we start riffing. Even the first time I was going on television for my last book, I went to his house and I gave him my pitch, and he would coach me on how to do it, what to say, and thinking about who I am talking too. It has been an amazing mentorship that I never would have expected."

Having someone to talk through ideas with helps me make sure that our vision is clear, and that we are moving in the right direction. It also helps me make sure that my communication is clear and effective.

So many times, I think that a certain offensive or defensive scheme would be a good move for our team, only to talk to an assistant coach or think partner and realize the wholes in my ideas. The same can be said for personnel, and even how I am interacting with and communicating with my athletes.

If we want to be the best coaches that we can be and be the best that we can be for our teams, we have to be able to put our egos aside, be reflective and introspective about what we do, how we do, and why we do. Having a Thinking Partner can really help with that.

We still have to have the power of discernment and make the best decision for our teams, but having another resource, another set of eyes, and another set of ears to bounce ideas with can be very valuable.

I wrote about Coaching PLCs and the benefits of building your own coaching community here: https://acoachsdiary.blogspot.com/search/label/PLC.

Truth In Sports

The best coaches can look you in the eye and tell you the truth.

The best players can absorb that truth, whether it's positive or negative.

Handling adversity and handling truth is important.

It may not be easy to hear, but you have to respect it.

As coaches and parents, we have to be honest with our athletes. We can do it in a way that inspires them and doesn't bring them down.

I like to use the sandwich method. The bread on the outside are positives, and the meat is the truth in the middle.

When my athletes aren't playing as hard as they need to play, I start our conversation with something positive that they do:

"You had some good touches out there."
"You made some good passes."
"You looked like you and your teammates were having fun!"

Then, I give them constructive criticism, and I try to tie it to their goals and dreams for themselves:

"You didn't play as hard as you could have. If you want to be the type of player that you want to be, you have to play harder than everyone else."

I also try to tie the correction to something measurable:

"You were beaten to the ball too many times. You have to be the first one to get a touch."
"You girl beat you to the basket too many times. You have to do a better job of staying in front of her."
"Your man got too many rebounds. You have to do a better job of boxing out."
"The running back got to the edge too many times. You have to do a better job of setting your edge."

I always finish with a positive, affirming remark:

"I love watching you play."
"I believe in you."
"I know that these are small things that you can correct."
"I can't wait to watch you do these things better at the next practice/game."

The best athletes don't want you to be fake or disingenuous. They want real feedback and real advice on how they can get better. Let's teach our kids early that real, honest feedback is something to be valued. Let's teach them not to allow real, honest feedback to get them down. Let's teach them how to respond to real, honest feedback and to seek real, honest feedback.