A Coach's Diary

One of my favorite Michael Jordan commercials is his, "Maybe It's My Fault" commercial. Michael says,  "Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I led you to believe it was easy when it wasn't. Maybe I made you think that my highlights started at the free-throw line and not in the gym. Maybe I made you think that every shot that I took was a game-winner, that my game was built on flash and not fire. Maybe it's my fault that you didn't see that failure gave me strength; that my pain was my motivation. Maybe I led you to believe that basketball was a God-given gift and not something that I worked for every single day of my life." This is my favorite commercial because it made Jordan real. MJ was such a super-hero to so many of us, but this commercial made me realize that Jordan was not born the great basketball player who ever lived - he worked hard to become the greatest basketball player who ever lived. He tried, he failed, and he tried again. His failure fuel...

Faith = Salvation + Works Isaiah Thomas is an undersized, 5'9 point guard in the NBA who has WORKED hard and overcome adversity to have a great career. He was the very last pick in the NBA draft in the 2011 NBA draft by the Sacramento Kings and played in Sacramento and in Phoenix with the Suns before becoming a star and MVP candidate for the Boston Celtics. In 2017, Isaiah finished 5th in the MVP voting as he led his team to the best record in the Eastern Conference. That same season, he broke his hip, requiring surgery and him to leave the playoffs in the middle of the conference finals. During that playoff run, Isaiah also lost his sister in a one-car collision. In a game of giants, Isaiah went from being the last pick of the draft to an NBA All-Star and MVP candidate. He was then faced to live and compete with the broken hip and the sudden, tragic death of his sister. Isaiah is still WORKING hard and trying to fully recover from the injury, and he has not been able to recreate t...

Set your athletes (and their families) up for success with a great and effective onboarding experience. Onboarding is an HR term referring to the process of introducing a newly hired employee into the organization (BambooHR). In sports, onboarding would be the first practice of a new season or when you have a new team member joining the team. Onboarding can set the tone for a new athlete's experience and can impact how well they perform and how long they decide to stay. Harvard reports that a quality onboarding experience creates 54% greater new hire productivity (Kierstead). How does this affect how we coach and run our teams? If we create a positive experience when new athletes join or when the new season starts, we can set our athletes up for success and for a great experience. Use the onboarding process to clearly define roles, responsibilities, and expectations for your athletes and their families. Clearly define team goals and individual expectations. Help your athletes and t...

Marcus Paige was a star for the legendary North Carolina basketball program from 2013 to 2017. North Carolina is one of the top college basketball programs currently and historically, and Marcus hit one of the biggest shots in North Carolina history against Villanova in the 2016 National Championship game. North Carolina ended up losing on a last-second shot when Villanova leader, Ryan Arcidiacono, made a clutch pass to Kris Jenkins who hit a clutch shot from three, but Paige's shot elevated him into being in a position of being mentioned with the best of the best from North Carolina, including Roy Williams, Vince Carter, Dean Smith, and Michael Jordan. The video below is a clip of Marcus Paige's speech on senior night: Listen, Learn, and Pay Your Dues When Marcus committed to North Carolina, they already had an All-American guard who played his position. Marcus could have gone to other schools where he would have been expected to start immediately, but he was willing to go to ...

Great opponents bring the best out of us. They push us harder and farther than we can push ourselves. They force us to rise to the occasion. It is important to appreciate and respect our opponents because they push us to be the best that we can be. COMPETITION REVEALS THE GREATNESS THAT IS ALREADY WITHIN YOU. When Michael Jordan came into the NBA, there was a lot of competition and several great rivalries. Magic Johnson and the Lakers were going at Larry Bird and the Celtics. Dr. J and Philadelphia were competing for championships against the Lakers and Celtics, and Isaiah Thomas and the Pistons were just getting started. Michael Jordan and the Bulls had to claw and fight t heir way to the top of the league just like all of the other greats before them and like all of the greats they were competing against. The competition that Jordan faced beat him and beat him up early, but they made him stronger and better. Michael said that the mentality of the leaders of the Chicago Bulls when the...

Cliques and the division that they cause are a quick way to separate teams. Great teams have great cultures, and great cultures are inclusive cultures where everybody feels like they belong, valued, and safe. When you have teams that are divided, they are more likely to break down when they face adversity, but when teams are together and invest in each other, they have what they need to fight through any storm, together. Diversity is the variety that makes up a team or community. Inclusion is how much the team and the community feel like they belong, valued, safe, and included. Most of our communities are growing more and more diverse, and it is important and valuable to find ways to use that diversity as a strength. When you have people on the team who look and think differently and have different skill-sets, you can avoid groupthink and find ways to maximize what each teammate brings. Plus, recognizing and appreciating diversity and inclusion is Biblical. In Matthew, chapter 22, the ...

We all have blind spots, and those blind spots can have real effects on our teams and our athletes. My coaching style is to press and pressure you into mistakes, and then try to convert those mistakes into opportunities. I want my teams and athletes to be smart and versatile, but I also want them to be able to run people out of the gym if they aren't able to keep up. I have a specific way that I like to teach how to pressure, and it usually works, but one season I had a team that couldn't figure out how to rotate the way that I wanted them to rotate, and we struggled. I had an older, mentor coach come in and observe a practice so that I could get another set of eyes on my team and how we can grow in our ability to rotate on defense. The coach immediately saw the problem - we needed to make a small adjustment in the way we set up. I was so locked in with tunnel vision while trying to fit my athletes in the box that I had learned and mastered how to teach, but I didn't realiz...

Teams that have a great culture where everyone is engaged, energized, passionate, and on the same page tend to beat teams that don't have great cultures. Think about it - if you have a connected team where everybody feels like they belong, valued, and are safe competing against a team with athletes who aren't engaged, energized, passionate, and together, of course you have a better chance of winning. This is something that author and HR visionary Eric Mosley has written about and created great teams around, and this is something that can help your team maximize its potential. When talking to  researcher, author, and professor  Brene Brown, Eric said that great teams do three things great - they talk, they give thanks, and they celebrate each other. Great Teams Talk Eric said that Harvard did a study about the efficacy of regular check-ins and reported that these check-ins helped teams and team members perform better. He said that it didn't matter what they talked about - h...

Sometimes I wish that we could win every game that we play. It would be fun if we could control the leagues and tournaments that we play in so that we face just enough competition to push us, but that we always win and take home the top medal or trophy. But the reality is we can't win them all. We don't make every shot, We don't hit every pitch, we don't catch every pass, and we don't put every kick in the back of the net. We learn valuable lessons from losses, and learning how to deal with adversity is important. Michael Jordan said, "My innate personality is to win at all costs. If I have to do it myself, I'm going to do it. Every time I step on that basketball court, my focus is to win the game, and it drives me insane when I can't. I wouldn't be here without the lessons that I learned at a very young age. The competitiveness within me started when I was a kid." Michael Jordan said that his parents provided him and his siblings with all of t...

Never forget that God knows the future and that adversity is a bridge to a deeper relationship with God. Magic and Larry Bird had a legendary rivalry. As stated in a documentary about their rivalry, "They were two stars thrown together by the cosmos to compete (TheNBAHistorian, 2013)." They first met in college for the 1979 NCAA championship when Magic's Michigan State Spartans beat Larry's Indiana State Sycamores. Magic said that he had a real dislike for Larry. They played each other in the NBA Finals 3 times, and Magic won twice while Larry won once. Magic said the hate was so intense that he hated anybody in green. But he says that now they are great friends. They started as rivals and ENEMIES, but they pushed each other and they brought the best out in each other. "LARRY, YOU WERE WHAT A BASKETBALL PLAYER SHOULD BE. THE BIGGEST REASON THAT I AM HERE IS BECAUSE OF YOU MAKING ME GO TO THAT GYM EVERY SUMMER, NOT ONLY STAYING FOR 4 HOURS, BUT I FIGURE I BETTER S...

Have you ever noticed that some athletes excel under some coaches but struggle and melt while playing for other coaches? Kelsi was a player who had a lot of talent but struggled with her confidence. She could do complicated moves and mazes in training, but she struggled to replicate them in games. She always told her parents that she didn't feel confident enough to try what she was working on in private training sessions in practice and games because she had a fear and anxiety of messing up. Going into Kelsi's senior year, her high school hired a new coach, and almost immediately, her parents saw a change in her confidence, energy, and performance. Kelsi had a great senior year, and when her parents asked her what changed, she said that it was that she felt more comfortable and confident playing for her new coach. Kelsi said that her new coach made her feel confident because he believed in her, and she felt safe because when she made a mistake, he helped her through them and th...

One thing that people mention when they talk about Michael Jordan was his work ethic. He didn't take a lot of days off, and when he was in the gym (or the golf course, in a card game, ping pong table, etc.) he was competing to be the best he could be.  In the Last Dance documentary, studio analyst and reporter Ahmad Rashad said, "Michael played every game as if it was his last. Every single game. It was never a day off. He knew that it was going to be somebody in the crowd who never saw him play before. That is what kept him going." Staying in the competitive mindset and always competing is a skill that can be a real difference-maker. Today, Ja Morant is an NBA star and viral sensation, but Ja was once an unknown and un-recruited high school basketball player trying to earn a college scholarship. Murray State assistant coach James Kane peaked his head into an aux gym at a small AAU combine where Ja Morant was playing three-on-three when Ja was in high school. Many high sc...

Week 19 | STONES Remove the STONES in your life by showing up with faith and doing the work with and through faith. God will take care of what you can’t, and He will do what you can’t do. Have you ever faced a big issue and you didn't know how you were going to overcome it? Peyton Manning was one of the best quarterbacks ever and was well into a hall of fame career when he suffered a series of neck injuries and had to sit out the entire 2011 season. That summer, Peyton was turning 36 years old, and many people thought that he would lose all of his arm strength because of age and injuries. Instead of letting the doubters push him into retirement, he used it as motivation and led the Denver Broncos to the top seed in their division in 2012, but they lost in the playoffs. The Broncos won the top seed in 2013 and the second seed in 2014, but they lost in the playoffs both years. In 2015, Peyton fought through foot injuries and criticism to lead the Broncos to their Super Bowl 50 win be...

On the first day of practice, every season, a middle school and high school coach that I know asks his athletes to Circle-Up. In the circle, the coach asks every athlete to say their name, who their favorite basketball player is, and why. The coach encourages the players by telling them to value, accept and appreciate everybody's choice, whether they agree with it or not, without judgment. He tells his team, "Our team is a safe space and a judge-free zone. We have to learn how to express ourselves, talk to each other, and how to listen without judgment. We want our teammates to feel safe and free to tell each other how we feel." At the end of the first practice, the coach asks every athlete to say one thing that they are excited about for the season and one thing that they want to get better at.  On day one, the coach has learned something about everyone on the team, and the teammates start to learn something about each other. One question a lot of coaches ask is, "H...