Are We Pressuring Athletes to Perform Too Fast, Too Much, Too Soon

I was reading an article last night from WeAreTeachers.com that made the claim that we are pressuring our kids to read to much, too fast, and too soon, and it made me think about the youth sports world, my own family, and whether or not we put too much pressure on our kids athletically too fast and too soon.

The article claims that reading has long been a privilege and a way to pass time and share culture, but it has recently become a forced method of information acquisition.  This made me think of a quote by Kobe Bryant where he said that

"Sports used to be something that kids go out and do for fun. But now it’s become so regimented where parents start to inject their own experiences or past failures onto their children, and it just takes the fun out of it.”

I have three young daughters who I am trying to teach to love sports, but it is a struggle for me to let go and let them own their experience.  I specifically struggle with how much should I teach and push them vs how much should I let them have fun, explore, and just be kids.

The easy answer is to just let them choose, but what is best is not often easy.  Us parents can choose all we want to just show up at games and just cheer our babies on, but when the competitive juices start flowing, and they start pushing, and their parents start yelling, we often want nothing more than our babies to show up and show out and outplay their babies.

I also think that the youth sports culture has been tainted with the influx of money and attention.  I long for the days where kids didn't specialize until high school and where academy and select sports were unheard of for 4 and 5-year-olds.  

The article states that when it comes to reading, we move so fast that kids have little opportunity to become comfortable and find joy in reading. Instead, they are moved to start to analyze what they are reading, and they are being asked questions about the main idea and inference in early elementary school.

I see similar aspects in sports.  Instead of letting kids learn and explore naturally, we pay for specialized skill coaches, tactic coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, mental health and performance coaches, and any other kind of coach who might give our kids an edge. This level of instruction and focused training is reportedly causing burn-out in our athletes minds and bodies. 

The article also claims that our expectations are sometimes unreasonable. Our students suffer failure after failure because we are in the wrong, and many develop anxiety about reading from their first experiences with it.  It is documented that mental health and anxiety is on the rise, and the level of expectations we place too early can't be good for all of our kids.

I'm still trying to figure this thing out for myself and my own family, so while I love information like this, I don't have the blueprint.  What I do have is a sense of purpose and a vision for what kind of people I want my kids to be as they grow.  I want to share my love for sports and my knowledge for sports with my kids, and I want my kids to be the best people that they can be.  If that means that they are nothing more than recreation level athletes, that is just as great for me as if they went onto be professional athletes.  As long as my kids are happy and growing as people, I am happy, and articles like this help me keep things in perspective: don't give them more than they are ready for too fast and too early.

What Do You Want to Get Out of Sports?

The reality is, everyone retires from sports, and most people do it without playing professionally and most don't get college scholarships. Knowing this, it is important to keep our athletic experience in perspective.

Knowing that we all retire, what do you want to get out of sports?

Knowing that we all retire, what do you want your athletes to get out of sports?

When I was an athlete, I wanted to be a pro. I wanted to play basketball at North Carolina and then go to the NBA. I learned in high school that it would be hard enough to get a college scholarship to any school, and then in college, I realized that it would be even harder to play pro. But I got out of it what I wanted. I was able to travel around the country playing basketball, I met some great people, and I was able to get my school paid for in the process. I had a great experience that I look back on with pride and joy, I still love sports, and I still love them enough that I choose to share my love of sports with kids.

As a parent, my ultimate goal is that my kids have a great experience, I hope they maximize their potential, and I hope that they enjoy the process as much as I did. If they want to be division one athletes, I will gladly help them through the process while making sure that we are doing so in a healthy way. If they just want to play for fun, I will gladly create a fun experience for them (while teaching them how to have a goal and the importance of hard work, teamwork, and the other foundational things that I think are important to sports and life).

Bleacher Report did a great job documenting Cole Anthony and his journey through the COVID shut down and leading up to the NBA draft. The thing that stands out about him is his love for the game of basketball. In anything, we should have goals that drive us, and his goal is to be one of the best basketball players in the world. But the fuel behind that dream has to be a love for what you do. Roy Williams said that his favorite part about Cole's game was that he loves to play basketball. He said that he means love with a capital L-O-V-E.

Cole Anthony's father, NBA vet Greg Anthony, said that Cole has a purity and passion, and love for the game. He said that the true greats in the game have always loved the game. They don't fall in love with the lifestyle; they fall in love, and stay in love, with the game. 

There are so many articles and stories about the statistics of kids quitting sports and why. I would love it if one of my daughters played for the US National teams of their favorite sports. If that is their goal, I will help lead and guide the way. But my hope and dream are that when we are grown, my girls still love sports. I hope that they call us on Super Bowl night, and during the Final Four, or the World Series and want to talk about the games. I hope that when we are on the beach with my grandkids, all of my girls will come out and want to throw the football or kick the soccer ball with their old dad. I hope that when they come and visit me for Thanksgiving or Christmas, they will play a game of horse with their old man.

So we focus more on having fun and loving the game first.

What do you hope and dream for your kids, and what role do sports play in that?

Bring It

They might tell us that we weren't good enough, and they might beat us, but they won't say that they didn't 'feel us.' They will feel our fight. They will feel our hunger. They will feel our will to win. They will feel our grit, our determination, and our tenacity.

If we make them feel all of that, we will win a lot more than we lose. Most importantly, if we make them feel all of that, we can leave every practice and every game proud of what we did.

1 - Did you work as hard as you could?

2 - What is one thing you were proud of today?

3 - What is one thing that you want to get better at for next time?

4 - How can I help?

Coach People, Not Plays

The best coaches coach players, not Xs and Os. Don't be so focused on the plays that you ignore the quality of relationships with your athletes.

The quality of the relationships that we have with our athletes is as important as anything we can do. They are more important than (almost) any play you can draw up or drill that you can teach.

"Culture eats strategy for lunch."

Positive relationships help even our best athletes reach their full potential under less stress because we, as humans, are hardwired for relationships and to connect with others. Some neuroscientists even argue that our need to connect with others is even more basic than food and shelter and is the primary motivation of one’s behavior.

At the core of positive relationships is trust. Caring is the way that we generate the trust that builds relationships (CRT and the Brain). When we intentionally build trust and relationships, our athletes will be more willing to put themselves out there and compete with the courage that we need for them to be at their best.

"We feel the safest and most relaxed when we are connected to others we trust to treat us well."

So if we want confident athletes who are prepared to go out and compete, we need to work on building better connections, relationships, and culture with the team.

Ask and Listen
We spend a lot of our time talking to athletes, but taking the time to listen to them will help us build better relationships. It's important to maximize our practice time and no parent wants to see their athletes sitting around talking for too long, but taking a couple of minutes at the beginning, middle, and end of practice to ask simple questions like the ones below can have a big impact on your team’s success over the course of a season:

1 - What is something you learned today in school?
2 - What is something that you are excited about?
3 - What is something that you are confident with?
4 - What is something that you want to get better at?

After a few weeks, imagine how much more you can know about your athletes, and imagine how that relational equity can help them improve and buy-into what you are selling? Plus, when you really start to get to know your kids, you will know what motivates them and what is holding them back.

Build better relationships and you will have built better players and better teams.

What Triggers You?

We all have experiences where we get so triggered, so mad, that we blow up on everyone around us. Coaching is such an intense profession, and as much as we talk about relationships and growing people, it is highly driven by wins and losses.

Coaching and communicating can lead to miscommunication and unintended conflict. We have this thing in our brains called the amygdala - our brain's guard dog - that stays alert and keeps us safe. 

When that kid second-guesses us in the middle of a big timeout, or that athlete talks back in the middle of an important and intense defensive drill, or when that angry parent starts to storm across the court, coming to talk to you about what his daughter didn't play in the final few minutes of a big game, that triggers what many of us call Fight, Flight or Freeze mode. That feeling of the hairs rising on the back of your neck, or your body getting hot, or the sudden need to ball up your fist (or the sudden need to run to the locker room) is your amygdala reacting and hijacking your train of thought.

There have been (many) moments when I have reacted in ways that I am not proud of - responding from a state of escalation that ends with hurt relationships and loss of trust, sometimes permanently, when I should have stepped back, taken a second, and deescalated myself before engaging with (or yelling at) my team. Don't get me wrong, I will still get intense and yell if I feel like I need to raise the energy of the team or if I need to get a point across (or when my amygdala takes over because we didn't box-out), but I try to do so intentionally and strategically, not out of reaction.

We all get escalated and hijacked; the key is knowing what triggers us and to see these triggers coming before they take over. We need to be able to manage our emotions and responses because we are the 'emotional thermostat' of the team, and our energy influences and affects our team's mood and productivity. 

Emotions are contagious, and our brains have a negativity bias, meaning we see and focus on negative experiences more than positive ones. So we have to fight to see the good in things.

3 Key Strategies that can help you calm your amygdala and deescalate yourself are:

1 - Identify What Sets You Off
2 - Label Your Feelings
3 - Create an Early Warning System

I know that a player backing down from a loose ball sets me off. I also know that inconsistency from the referees, especially in crunch-time moments, really sets me off. I am a pretty calm coach, but I do have my triggers, and being aware of them and being able to anticipate them helps me stay calm because I can prepare myself and calm myself at the first signs of being triggered. Knowing what triggers me keeps me from taking the bait.

Affect labeling, or defining what is bothering you, helps reduce its intensity and brings you back down to normal. Just saying to yourself what is happening, like, "I am getting angry," or, "I get so frustrated when they don't box-out, or, "My wife is trying to trigger me right now," helps you reframe your thoughts and reduce the impact, and it takes you from being the lead actor in a horror film that ends with you going off the deep end with your team (or wife) and puts you in the role of director where you can regain control of the situation and extinguish the fire instead of adding to the flames.

Once you start recognizing your triggers, start to notice your physical reactions to them. If you notice your body getting hot, your jaw tightening, or for me - the feeling of blood rushing to my head and my fists balled up, that is a cue to take a step back, power down, and regroup. Taking just 10 seconds before you react can save you from a lot of trouble, and after 90 seconds, you can get to a complete emotional reset because that is how much time it takes stress hormones to leave your body after they have been activated.

The S.O.D.A. Strategy is a good and simple strategy to use when you are triggered and escalating:

Stop - Stop and pause instead of reacting and taking the bait. The first 10 seconds is the key. That is the amount of time it takes stress hormones to move through the body to your brain (prefrontal cortex).

Observe - Use the 10-second rule so that you can power down, respond (not react), and extinguish the fire.

Detach - Detach from trying to be right and focus more on trying to get it right. This requires listening to the other person and seeing what they see. Remember that your body can emotionally reset in just 90 seconds.

Awaken - Shift your focus from yourself to the other person. When our amygdala (the brain's guard dog) reacts, it is because we are trying to protect ourselves. But from what? When you start thinking about the wants and needs of others, you realize that they might not know or understand what is going on, that they might be scared or reacting out of fear, or they might need more clarification. Or they might just be upset, defiant, and belligerent, and that warrants a different response, a different set of tools (and possibly a different blog post).

Remember that emotions and body language are contagious. Use a calm voice, slow down, and start calm so that will help everybody power down and reset emotionally. I heard a speaker tell a group of teachers that a phrase that he used at a middle school campus when kids starting escalating was, "Don't go 13."

This week, start thinking about the things that trigger you, how you can see them coming, and how you can deescalate so that you can respond to conflict appropriately and effectively and without biting someone's head off.

A lot of the knowledge shared here, including the S.O.D.A method can be found in the wonderful book, Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain by Zaretta Hammond.

 

Building Deeper Relationships Lead to Better Play

A big part of coaching is our ability to connect with our athletes and their families. A quote that will stick with me is, "He made me feel seen, heard, and cared for as a learner." As coaches, we can easily change that quote to say, "My coach made me feel seen, heard, and cared for as an athlete, and as a person."

We are wired for connection. We all have different reasons for why we started playing and why we have stayed around the game, but at the foundation of sports is the human need to connect. Our brain's two main goals are to stay safe and be happy. We internally protect our self-worth, our self-determination, our well-being, and our connection to the community.

To get our athletes to perform at their best for themselves and for the team, we need our athletes to feel like they are valued members of the team, and we do that by minimizing threats and maximizing well-being.

Sometimes, one of the biggest threats to our athletes can be ourselves. We have all seen those students who misbehave in certain classes and for certain teachers who do great in other classes or for other teachers. We see athletes that struggle for one coach and who excel for other coaches. One of my goals as a teacher and a coach is to be the coach/teacher that finds a way to help all kids find success and maximize their potential. I want to be a kid's opportunity, not their threat.

What I learned early in my coaching career is that some of my athletes were raised differently than I was, some of them just don't care as much as I did, and some don't have the same work habits that I did. Also, some kids don't respond to criticism and coaching the way that I did. I spent the first few years of my career complaining about it, but now I find ways to adjust. I realized how unfair it was to my athletes to think that they learned like I learned and have the same cultural ideas and beliefs and expectations that I had. 

There are a few foundational things that I think you have to do if you want consistency, structure, and sustained success as a team, but I had to learn how to communicate those 'must-haves' to my athletes in a way that they could buy-into and believe in those things so that we can be successful as a team while getting to know my athletes better so that I can know what makes them tick, what makes them respond, and what motivates them so that they can be the best players that they can be.

The first step in connecting with athletes is beginning with intention. The act of committing to the process of building better relationships with your athletes gets your brain, and your will, ready, and it gives your brain ready and permission to build the stamina and courage needed to get through the process when challenges come.

The next steps are self-reflection and self-awareness. Some of our athletes do things differently, talk differently, have different habits and value systems - and that is okay. Inward reflection means being willing and able to listen and change so that we can respond positively and constructively to athletes who might be different.

Two ways to self-reflect are to know what your frame of reference is and to start to widen your cultural lens.

1 - What is your frame of reference?

Know what values and belief system that you have. Know what your parents and coaches taught you. What are your non-negotiables? What do your players, and parents, need to know about you and your coaching style so that they can be successful. These questions provide a foundation for why you do the things that you do.

Then, be able to answer that question for every athlete, and family, on your team so that you can better understand why they do the things that they do.

2 - Widen your cultural lens.

We all live and operate under a set of norms and beliefs, and those norms and beliefs, no matter how foundational they may be to you, they might not be foundational to all of your athletes - and that is okay.

Start each season with team expectations and community agreements. This lets everyone knows what your expectations are. It also helps you better understand what their cultural beliefs and expectations are. 

When your athletes are consistently doing something that does not fall in line with team beliefs and agreements, you have the team agreements to fall back on.

If they keep doing what is keeping them from doing __________, __________, or __________, it might be a behavior issue, or it might be a simple misunderstanding that just needed a conversation.

Our athletes today are very aware of culture, their identities, and the world around them. They need more of a connection upfront and that takes effort from us. Throughout the season, we have to continue to focus on that connection and sense of belonging. Doing so keeps the team happier and the locker room better. 

When we have happy and safe athletes, you have created an environment where they want to come and when they are more willing to give their best, try new things, and buy-into the team.

Dealing With Adversity | Cole Anthony and UNC

One of the hardest parts of sports is handling losing streaks! It's so hard to quantify the effect that one basket, one goal, one score, and one point can have on the players, the coaches, and the whole team. We have had games where we played really solid and just didn't make enough shots and lost. We have played games where we played terrible and won. Usually, the locker room after wins and practice the day after wins are so much happier than after losses, no matter how we played.

There is a quote that says, "Winning heals everything." No matter how much we tell ourselves that the process is what matters, and play the game - not the scoreboard, and other great quotes that focus on how we play and not the outcome, at the end of the day, winning sure does cure a lot.

But sports are a lot about managing moments, and we have to be able to manage, learn from, move on from losses 

Cole Anthony just got drafted by the Orlando Magic in the NBA. He went to North Carolina last year, and he came in as one of the highest recruits in the country. It looked like a perfect match - Anthony is a known winner and a high profile athlete, and UNC is one of the best basketball programs in the history of college basketball. But his year was not what many expected. He spent a lot of time out with injury, and when he did return, his team struggled to find wins down the stretch.

Here is a great video documenting his year at UNC:

Legendary coach Roy Williams gave this quote about adversity in the video:

What you can take from adversity is just how to handle it. And that is the way it is in life. When you face adversity, you can't just roll up into a fetal position and go into a corner and start crying - you have to come to play, and you have to try to get better every single.

Cole talked about playing harder and playing better when things aren't going well, and the importance of keeping hope.

Cole Anthony's father, former NBA player Greg Anthony, said that this was one of Cole's toughest seasons because it was the first time that he had to deal with collective and individual disappointment. He said that losing can be frustrating and it can take a toll. 

Losing can be tough. Adversity can be tough. Be we have to fight through it all.

There will be tough seasons, and there will be bumps in the road. The key is to learn from those experiences, appreciate them, and hopefully, those experiences will help you become a better player and person.

When you are in the middle of a losing streak, ask yourself these questions daily:

1 - What I am I doing well?

2 - What can I do better?

3 - What does the team do well?

4 - What can the team do better?

5 - What is my favorite part of this game?

6 - What is my favorite part about being on this team?

7 - What has been the best memory so far this season?

8 - Who is my favorite teammate, and why?

9 - Who is one teammate I want to get to know better, and why?

Having positive thoughts can help you stay positive through adversity. Have fun, keep pushing, keep getting better.

Intensity and Consistency

UNC's legendary men's' basketball coach, Roy Williams, says that the toughest part of the transition from high school to college, and the toughest part of transitioning to the highest level in college is the level and consistency of your intensity and your ability to compete.

I see this at all levels of athletics. Talent is the great separator, but we all know the quote, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard."

Even with elite youth athletes, what separates the elite from the really good is the consistency of intensity and competitive levels. The elite are big, strong, and fast, and they keep going. The elite makes second effort plays, and third effort and fourth effort. The elite outlast their opponents. 

If you want to take your game to the next level tomorrow, compete longer and harder. Don't give up on the play after you get beat; get it back. And keep doing it over and over again. This will build your stamina, and it will increase your skill level. This will also help you close the gap between you and someone better than you until there is no more gap.

Your level of intensity has to be really, really high, and it has to stay up there. You have to take pride in competing. Take pride every day in being able to play your best - no matter who you are playing.

Manage the Moments

A big part of coaching, and life, is managing moments. It is being present, appreciating and building on the good, and appropriately responding to the bad.

Before every game, I tell my athletes that we are going to do some really good things, and we are good to do some bad things. When we do good, let's try to keep that going. When we do bad, let's already make a deal that we are going to move on from it together.

It's all about managing those many different moments in the game. 

In this video, JPatterson messed up during a recorded filming and Marty Smith just happened to pass by: 

Marty shared some kind words that helped JPatterson manage the moment, and future tweets, JPatterson said that he nailed the next take.

Know going in that there are going to be ups and downs. Manage the moments in the game. Manage the moments in life. Don't get too high on the highs, and down get too low on the lows.

Jamal Murray | Stay Hungry

Jamal Murray was a recent guest on the Knuckleheads podcast. They talked about his growth from a youth star in Canada, to Kentucky, to the NBA. QRich asked him how he kept his edge and kept working hard and stayed hungry to stay at the top of his class when a lot of you phenoms get complacent and fall off.

Quentin Richardson: The guys are the best at a young age don't always finish that way.

You were already one of the best players and one of the most skilled kids on the team in high school, so what made you keep working and keep feeling like you had to prove yourself?

Jamal Murray: I put a lot of work into my craft. I'm not out here just trying to get better - I am trying to be the best player every time I step on the court. I put the work in, and coming from Canada, it was the guys in the states with the hype and the mixtapes, and I know I am better than this kid, I just know that he has the cameras and the support behind him. It is just a matter of me going out there and proving it, and I keep that chip on me everywhere I go.

Prepare You Child For the Path

I was talking to a father of a youth soccer player. His son had just received his first mid-year evaluation. His son is 10 or 11 and a multi-sport athlete on a team where most other kids are full-time soccer players. Dad said that the coach killed his kid in the evaluation, and part of it had to do with the fact that his son split time with other sports.

Player evaluations from coaches, even at this age, can be tough. A lot of the time, it's the first time someone outside of the home is critical of an athlete, and it can be tough for a kid, and parent, to hear.

Dad's response to his son was spot-on. He told his athlete that he had two choices: he could either get his head down, pout, and feel sorry for himself, or he could learn from what the coach told him and use it to fuel him and get better.

Hearing this reminded me of the quote, "Prepare your child instead of preparing the path for your child."

Part of a coach's job is to tell you what you need to hear to get better. If you want to be the best that you can be, you have to receive and appropriately respond to criticism. Some coaches feed it to you smooth, and some give it to you raw. It's important to prepare our athletes to receive it no matter how it comes in a way that will help them get better.

Hear the message, not the tone.

The Grass Might Be Greener ...

We often hear the quote, "The grass isn't always greener on the other side." I recently heard a coach add to the quote, "The grass may be greener on the other side of the fence, but the water bills are probably higher too."

I have seen so many kids switch teams or transfer because they think another situation might be better for them.  

Sometimes they are right and making that switch was the best move for them. I have seen athletes leave one environment for another and thrive. I have seen kids who were JV players struggling to stay on the team in high school transfer to a different school, blossom in the right environment with the right opportunities, and work themselves into becoming college athletes.

Sometimes they were wrong, and the grass wasn't greener. They changed the situation but they didn't make the changes that they needed to make internally, so the same problems followed them. When there is a lack of character, toughness, work ethic, grit, and/or talent, there is no guarantee that a different environment is going to improve those qualities. We have to be able to reflect and look at ourselves first and see what we can do as individuals to better our situation before we put the blame on everybody else.

Sometimes when they make that switch, they realize that the grass was greener because they had to invest more of themselves into the process. This can end up being positive or negative. We can go to a different environment where they demand more of us and rise to the challenge, or we can buckle under the pressure. Only the person knows what they can and can't handle.

1 - Look at yourself, and see if you are getting the most out of yourself and your situation. "Am I doing everything that I can do to be the best that I can be," and, "Am I enjoying the experience?"

2 - If you aren't doing all you can, or if you aren't enjoying the experience, "Ask yourself, will a change of environment change my effort?" Also ask, "Will a more enjoyable environment help change my effort?"

Sometimes a change in effort is all that is needed. Sometimes a change in environment is needed. Sometimes a change in mindset and outlook is needed.

Good luck on your journey!

Be Coach-ABLE

One of your most important 'abilities' is your ability to be coached.

"How well can you take in, learn, and apply new information?"

The better you are at that, the more skills that you can add to your game, the better the player you can be.

Every practice we teach and learn. The goal is to learn it so well that the next practice, we can build on what we learned. 

It's like climbing a ladder. We start at the bottom, and every time we learn something new, we take one step up the ladder. The only way we can move up is by learning, applying, and remembering that information. If we can't remember or apply it, we are stuck at the same level.

Keep climbing the ladder of learning, and you will keep climbing the ladder of success.

But it starts with listening, learning, and knowing that you don't know everything.

Playing Up

This is a mindset that I grew up on. When I was in middle school, I would have my parents drop me off at the rec or the park so that I could play against the high school kids and men. I have to admit that I used to be scared to get on the court, but I knew that playing against the older guys would help me get better.

One thing that really helped me was that one of the older guys was a good friend of mine who encouraged me and gave me the confidence to get out there. He just told me that I could play with them, he kept pushing me to get out there, and he would pick me to play on his team.

There were good days, bad days, and ugly days. On a Monday, I would have a great day of playing and feel like I made it, and then a couple of days later, I would get laughed out of the gym. There were so many ups and downs and emotions, but I just stuck with it.

Over time, I became one of the older guys. It became 'my' gym. I became a leader. But I did it because I didn't stop. I didn't quit. I just kept coming back. I also found a way to make an impact. My goal was to get 2-3 steals and 1 layup off a steal every game. Another goal was to get 2-3 rebounds and a basket off the rebound every game. My final goal was to make one catch and shoot jumper each game.

Playing against the older guys is tough. Playing against better people every day is hard. But it makes you tougher, stronger, and better.

The Dilemma

Growing up, we were taught to finish what you start. If you want to play this season, we aren't going to quit in the middle of it just because things aren't going our way.

At the beginning of one season, I had a JV parent call me and tell me that she was going to pull her daughter from the team. She and her daughter were upset that she wasn't getting the in-game opportunities that they wanted, and it was affecting her life outside of basketball to the point where they felt it was best if they cut ties now.

To her surprise, I told her that this might be the best move for everybody. What mom didn't see (or hear) was that her athlete wasn't giving any effort in practice and that she was telling her teammates that she didn't really like basketball and that she doesn't want to play.

Mom was upset that I wasn't on board with making her stick it out, but this wasn't the right environment for her, and because she didn't want to be there, it hurt the team and her teammates.

We tried encouraging her, we tried to bring her in early and keep her late to work on her game, but she just didn't want to be there and she didn't want to play anymore.

She stuck through the rest of the season, and it was hard on her and the team.

Every situation is different. I am not saying that we should give up on kids, and I am not saying that we should pull kids off the team just because they are unhappy. 

Sometimes, we have to work harder, sometimes we have to find our role, sometimes we have to wait our turn. Sometimes, the level is a little too high for us, or there are too many people playing our same position, or politics might be getting in the way. 

I am just presenting a different side to, 'We started something and we are going to finish it.'

To Love The Game Is The Greatest

When I was growing up, there was a school down the street from my house, and I used to spend a lot of time on their basketball court.

I was there on nights before big games.

I was there during the summer mornings getting work in before most people woke up.

I was there most summer nights.

I was there when life just got hard, times were tough, and I need to get away.

Now, I am there on Friday nights with my daughters and their teammates, pushing them a little harder than they probably want to be pushed, but trying to help them get ahead and stay ahead.

Little reminders like this help me remember what these Friday nights are really about - falling in love with the game.

The court has always been my safe space.

Winning is fun. The games are great. But nothing is better than the sport itself. Nothing is better than having a ball and a hoop.

There is Something In Your Nose

TEACH | CORRECT | HOLD ACCOUNTABLE | INSPIRE | RE-TEACH

Kobe Bryant once said in an interview that if he has something in his nose, he wants to be around people who will tell him that he has something in his nose.

He doesn't want to walk around all day with something wrong because people are afraid to tell him.

If you want to be the best that you can be, you have to want people to tell you when something is wrong or when something can be done better.

The best coaches and leaders have the gift of telling their athletes what is wrong in a way that inspires and empowers. They don't do it in a way the brings people down; they lift their people up. A big part of coaching is inspiring your athletes while building their confidence and skill.

If you go around telling them how bad they are, that isn't going to inspire them nor give them the confidence to do anything. If you don't tell them what they are doing wrong, then they won't ever get better.

As coaches and leaders, we have to find that sweet spot between correction, accountability, and inspiration.

Check On Your People | You and They Matter

Check on your people. We are in the middle of a pandemic, social and racial justice, and the election season that just won't stop.

There are a lot of reasons for your people to be struggling mentally today. Check on them. Make sure that they are okay. Make sure that they know that you are here for them.

Great leaders create great teams by making sure that everyone feels like that matter, on a great team, that does stuff that matters. Make sure that you are connecting with them in a way that they know they matter and what we are doing together matters.

I played for a coach in college who had a great mindset on making where you are matter and meaningful. I asked him if his goals were to coach at a big-time college. His response was, "You have to make where you are big-time."

Your role in your job is big-time. It matters. You matter. Your player's matter. Your team matters.

Communicate with them in a way that they KNOW they matter. Make where you are at big-time.

How Many People Can You Lead Up The Mountain

Sherpas are a Nepalese ethnic group of about 150,000 people. They are known for their climbing skills, strength and endurance at high altitudes. Tenzing Norgay was one of the first of two men to climb Mount Everest in 1953.

Many of them work as guides and porters who help clients climb to the top of Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks. Their job is very dangerous. It has a 1.2% mortality rate. No other service industry in the world has a mortality rate that high.

When one Sherpa was asked how many times he has climbed Mount Everest, he said that he couldn't remember - he only keeps count of the number of people that he helps get up and down the mountain safely.

As a coach, one of our goals needs to be to bring as many people up the mountain as safely as possible. The success stories are great to celebrate, but the unsuccessful ones are the ones who haunt us.

I remember being a young college coach and one of our athletes wouldn't run as hard as he could; so I made him run again. Then again. Then again. After a few unsuccessful attempts to get him to work, I kicked him off the court. That killed our relationship, and he was kicked off the team before we were able to restore it.

We were able to get him to a new college and on a new team, and he didn't make it there either. That hurt me even more. I still think about how I could have better handled that situation.

Coaching is building relationships and growing and developing people. It is bringing people along. When the relationship is broken, it is easy to let it stay broken. But our athletes need us. For that athlete, you might be their best chance at their best life.

Adopt the mindset of that Sherpa - "How many people can you lead up the mountain?"

What Are We Saying To Our Athletes?

On a Facebook sports group page, a parent posted this:

While I sit here this morning between four U11/U12 girls games I hear parents and coaches making comments like:
"Jesus Christ! What are you doing?"
"You're terrible!"
"Wake up! You shouldn't even be out there if you are going to play like that!"
"Why did we even drive here this morning!!!"
"That (goal) was your fault!"

This reminded me of a speech that I heard about the power of the words of sports' parents and coaches. What we say to our athletes now becomes their inner voice later.

I am in no way a judge of what should and shouldn't be said to your athlete. Sometimes our athletes need to be pushed, and no one knows your athletes better than you do. I have said some of these things myself. Sometimes, one or two of the things is real feedback that accurately reflects performance.

It is easy to judge a parent or a coach based on an overheard comment. Yesterday, I was at a game where I heard a parent yell in anger, "Take him out!" I assumed he was telling his son to take out another kid, but after I stayed around and watched a little longer, I realized that he was yelling at the referee to take out a kid from the other team because the kid was taking out, with his elbow, every kid that got in his path. I say that to say that it isn't our job to judge what we don't know.

But, through this process (or experiment) of raising athletes, listen to how your coach talks to your kid, and think about how you talk to your kid. I don't want my kids' coaches to be too lovey-dovey and to not hold my kids accountable; I want my kids' coaches to be tough with love. But, I also don't want a coach putting negative thoughts in my kids' heads that will negatively affect them when they are adults. Know what you want for your kid.

"The games are fun, but what matters is what they become because of the games."

4 Questions When Dealing With Adversity

I have a young daughter that plays soccer. She is pretty good (for a 5-year-old). She scores a lot of goals, and she stops a lot of goals (that is our team mantra - 'score goals, stop goals'). My fear for her as her coach-dad is that she has so much success now that she won't know how to handle adversity when it comes. I don't want her to fail - I want her to win every game that she ever plays! But, if she does happen to lose (we all lose), I want her to be able to handle it.

Last night at soccer practice, she lost in a drill and she started crying. She was playing around and not focused when we were teaching how to do the drill, and it affected the way that she played. It was such a good learning lesson for her, and for me. I learned how she responds to adversity. She learned the importance of paying attention and doing your best. It was a small, teachable moment that hopefully will have a lasting impact.

After practice, I said, "It's not fun losing, right?" She said no, and I told her that is why we have to pay attention and try our best. We don't win everything, but we have to do our best.

We have to learn how to deal with adversity. We have to learn how to deal with setbacks. There is a lesson to be learned in everything.

Here are 4 questions to ask yourself when facing adversity:

1 - What happened?

2 - Why did this happen?

3 - What could I have done differently or better?

4 - What can I do better now?

We Are In This Together

Thankful to Dayanara Gail Arandela for the inspiration.

Coaching kids is one of the most fulfilling things that we can do. It can be hard, it can be challenging, but there is nothing like seeing kids grow and succeed because of the leadership and instruction that we are providing.

I always say that if you have a good coach, be thankful. The true gems are few and far between.

On the flip side, we coaches have to fully invest in the kids, and families, that we teach, coach, and lead. Our responsibility is to give them everything we can. It responsibility is to teach them how to be better players and better people. It is to love them, care about them, teach them, and help them grow.

Coaches, when you get players who are bought in, who are respectful, who are tough, and who are coachable, be thankful. Thank them. Celebrate their character strengths. Help them grow their character weaknesses.

Coaching and playing is a true partnership. We are in this together.

X's & O's of Building Character

Every season as a high school coach, I had a very similar trajectory. I always started the season with the goal of building character first in my athletes, doing the right things, and coaching kids up on the court and off the court to be better athletes and better players.

Then, we start to win and I feel the pressure to keep winning, and sometimes the character piece takes a back seat to the winning.

Then I see a video like the one above and quotes like the one below and I get back on track and back to doing things the way that they should be done.

We signup to coach. We want to teach our kids how to play, we want to compete, and we want to win through the process. But if we want to get the most out of the game, our players, and ourselves, we will use the sports that we coach to build character.

There is a real, huge relationship between building character and performance.

Building character is just like building muscles. When you work on it and put consistent demands on it, you build muscle and character. If you want more character, you can have it. You just have to organize your life and invest in character for it to shine.

Character matters! When character in action happens, highlight it. 

Here are some ways to develop character:
- Have a theme for the day
- Have a theme for the week.
- Have each player select a character muscle that they are going to work on for the day. Have your players write down and define that character muscle, and have them reflect on what they did well and what they can do better.
- Find ways to leverage adversity. When bad things happen, teach how using that character muscle will help them get through the adversity.
- Display articles and quotes that drive home the importance of character. Feed that character muscle to them all of the time.
- Encourage players to bring in quotes and articles.
- Have former athletes come in and talk to them about character and how building character affects them in life.

The most important thing that we can do is be a great example. Be THE example. Be a great role model for the character strengths that you want to teach others. Be the strength that you want your players to embody, and do so most importantly in difficult times when people and the team and you are struggling. Your players are watching you. They watch you like a hawk. You can say one thing publically, but they know the truth is manifested in who you are under duress. Someone is always watching. Your character as a coach is always under display.

When you are building your character, they will feel it. You don't need a PhD in character to teach it. You just need to be committed.

Control The Minutes That You Get

We play the game to play. As athletes, want to be out there, involved, and making plays that will help our team win.

As parents, we want to see our kids out there, involved, and making plays that will help our team win while having fun and learning lessons that will help them now and later in life.

As coaches, we (most of us) want all of our kids out there, involved, and making plays that will help our team win, while teaching life lessons that will help them now and later in life.

When we first start playing on rec teams, everybody plays. It's all about fun and learning. Everybody plays an equal amount of time and hopefully get the same opportunities that everybody else gets.

Then, we start playing on select and travel teams, and we start to see some separation. We start to notice that some kids are just a little better or more prepared than others. While we might still get to play at least half of the game, some kids get to play a little more. And some kids get the ball a little more.

As we get older and get to high school, we start to notice that playing time isn't equal at all. Some kids play the whole game and some kids don't play at all.

If you are one of those athletes who lost a lot of playing time through that process, or if you are their parent, it can be hard to go through, and it can be hard to watch. Believe it or not, it's hard on a lot of coaches. Most coaches want all of their kids to have a great experience playing and, they want to find a role for every kid so that they feel valued and important. But the reality is some athletes are just better than others, and if your job depends (on some level) on how many games you win, you have to put your team in the best situation to be successful.

Here are my two biggest pieces of advice if you aren't getting the minutes you want:

1 - Be the best teammate on the team

2 - Find the 1-2 hustle plays that you do better than anybody else and impact every drill, scrimmage, and every second that you get in the game.

Every great team needs a great culture and great teammates. Plus, when you are a great teammate, you have more fun and the people around you have more fun. You can change the team, and your experience, by being a great teammate.

I always say that every college team should reserve a scholarship for a great towel waver - someone who has the role of bringing energy, intensity, leadership, and character to every practice and game. Imagine what kind of career after sports, the 'Energy-Bringer' will have after playing?

Then, coaches look to their bench to bring in someone who can either be solid and continue what the starters are doing so that they can get a break, or because they need someone to come in and impact the game in a way that the starters can't. Two easy ways to impact a game are to 1 - REBOUND, and 2 - DISRUPT THE OTHER TEAM'S OFFENSE.

You get more shots than the other team when you get rebounds. Give your team more chances to score by getting the ball back by rebounding and getting all loose balls. During the most important moments of games, rebounds and getting the ball back are HUGE. If you can be that person, you can find more minutes.

Also, when teams are playing flat, coaches are always looking for a spark. Sometimes just playing good, solid defense isn't enough - sometimes your team needs a little more. That could be getting steals and deflections, taking charges, and knowing what the other team wants to do and not letting them do it. If they have a really good scorer, be ready to help early and often so they can't get going. If the person you are guarding likes to get the ball in a certain spot, anticipate that and don't let her. Be annoying and be a pest on defense!

As teams get older and the competition increases, so do the competition for playing time and opportunities. Find ways to bring good, positive energy, and find ways to impact the game!

In life, you won't always be the starter, or get the promotion, or get the staff-spotlight. But you can always be a great teammate, bring positive energy, and find ways to impact the team. Sports can teach us that. But, make sure that you are on teams, in sports and life, that appreciate and value what you bring.