A Coach's Diary

In 2015, Robin Roberts asked Kobe in an interview, “What have you learned about yourself through these 20 years of being in the NBA?” Kobe said, “I’ve learned to always keep going. Always. No matter what happens, the storm eventually ends, and when the storm does end, you want to make sure that you are ready. Our one foot in front of the other because eventually, that storm passes.” We all face storms. Storms are a part of life. But if you want to do the things that you want to do and achieve the goals that you want to achieve, you have to be willing to fight through the storms. Have a goal. Have a plan. Then execute the plan. Stick to the script while learning and making the adjustments that you think will help. But don’t quit. Don’t stop. Keep going, because the storms will pass, and when they do, you want to be ready.

I love sports. They bring me great joy. I love playing sports, I love coaching sports, and I love watching sports. I often tell my teams that the goal is to work hard to become the best that we can be while enjoying the process. What is the point of going 30-0 if you are miserable, and going 0-30 just isn't fun. Joy is a feeling of pleasure and happiness that comes from Jesus, our faith, and the hope that something good is going to happen to us and through us. Good things and bad things happen every day. Choosing joy means that we find and celebrate the good things that happen in everyday life. One of my major goals is to find joy in everyday life and not have to wait for or rely on moments of celebration to experience joy. Sports are supposed to be fun, but there are a lot of things that steal the joy out of sports. You won't love everything about sports just like you won't love everything about life. When I played basketball in college, I was miserable at first. We ran so...

Kobe Bryant was a killer on the court who was known for never backing down from a challenge, a moment, or an opponent. He had a level of confidence and fearlessness that very few can match, and that, matched with his drive and discipline, is what helped him become one of the greatest athletes ever. But he had to overcome a lot of adversity when he first came into the NBA. He didn’t start at first, and he played limited minutes as a rookie. His teammates weren’t the most welcoming and they didn’t have a hard time telling him. One of the lowest moments of his rookie season came when the Lakers were taking on the Utah Jazz in the playoffs. At the end of the game, Kobe shot 4 airballs in a 5-minute span. He cost his team the game and the series with those air balls. It could have completely ruined some people. Most people don’t even want the ball in their hands at the most important moments of the game, but Kobe did and failed in the worst way. His teammate Shaq, with who Kobe had an up an...

Have you ever been around someone who loves what they do? Have you ever been in the gym with an athlete or a coach who loves being in the gym? Have you ever been in the locker room with a team that loves each other? You can feel the love. It pours and overflows throughout everyone who comes into its presence. Love is one of the most powerful forces in this world. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ’  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If we want to live a full life, it will help to start living a life where we are who we are, love what we do, and love who we do it with. Klay Thompson is a great example of someone who loves what he does. He is one of the most beloved players in the NBA. The Golden State Warrior team and fan base absolutely love him. He missed 2 1/2 years because of 2 majo...

Mindsets are beliefs that you have about yourself and the world. It is how you see the world and it affects how you think, feel, and act. One test of your mindset is how you answer the question, “Is the glass half full or half empty?” How you see the water in the glass is your mindset. How you see, think, and feel about yourself is your mindset. How you see, think, and feel about the world is your mindset. Science and research say that our mindset has a direct effect on our success. If we believe in ourselves and our ability to do hard things, we can do hard things. If we don’t believe in ourselves and our ability to do hard things, we won’t. In the Bible, it is written that as a man thinks, so is he. The Bible also says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” You have the ability to learn how to do hard things. In fact, you can do all things through Christ who gives us strength (Philippians 4:13). Having a Growth Mindset is believing that you have the ability to lear...

In both education and sports, we are seeing an exodus unlike anything we have ever seen before. Teachers are leaving   the profession at higher rates than ever before, and the transfer portal in college sports is filled with more athletes than ever as well. HOW DO WE GET PEOPLE TO STAY AND ENGAGED? Now more than ever, leaders and teachers in coaching and education could benefit from creating a culture shift that keeps people happy, hopeful, engaged enough to come back. Gallup is a global analytics and advice firm that helps leaders and organizations solve their most pressing problems. They have  done studies that show that engagement and job satisfaction increases when we are able to do what we do best every day. SKULL SESSIONS Before the Georgia Bulldogs defeated Alabama to win the 2021 college football national championship, they talked about how they use what they call Skull Sessions to create the deeper relationships that they needed to get an edge to get them closer to t...

Kobe Bryant spent a lot of his childhood in Italy because his dad played professional basketball. When he came to the United States, he said he was behind a lot of his peers because he didn’t grow up playing basketball in America. When he was asked about this, Kobe said that at 13, he had a ‘kill list,’ and everybody who was ranked above him was on it. His missions was to kill (on the basketball court - not in real life) everybody who was above him. To do this, he focused on building up his weaknesses. He said it is hard working on your skills playing AAU basketball because you are always playing games and always trying to win. But each year, he would work on something new so that by the time he was 17, he was a completely different player while many of his peers were the same players with the same strengths and weaknesses. My college roommate has a son who is a top 5 player in the country. His journey is the same. As a freshman in high school, he was not a nationally ranked player, bu...

When I was in college, my head coach's big thing was 'Be Tough.' He would say that everybody was talented, and everybody had skills, but two things that separated the good from the great were consistency and toughness. We would run timed miles every week, not because they were great for basketball conditioning, but because they were great for making us tough. When you are on a track running a timed mile, it is you verse yourself. Every week, he would lower our time based on how we did, so each week we had to beat ourselves. By the end of the season, I was more mentally tough than I had ever been because I had to be to keep going. It was one of the hardest experiences of my life, but it was one of the most important experiences in my life. My college coach is the one who taught me that I had the ability to do hard things. That is grit - the ability to do hard things. The sports world is full of stories of grit. One of my favorite grit stories is the story of Olympic track at...

When I get up and speak in front of people, I get nervous. I question whether they are going to buy what I am selling, or if they are going to see me as a fraud. It could be in front of a classroom full of students, in front of my team in a pre-game speech, or in front of a group of educators or coaches, but that nervousness and anxiety never really leave. I don't expect nervousness or anxiety to ever fully leave. Getting rid of them is not my goal; my goal is to learn how to control and direct anxiety when needed. Tennis legend Billie Jean King said, "Pressure is a privilege - it only comes to those who earn it." I have earned the privilege to speak in front of people in different capacities, but I still want to be seen as competent and for people to 'buy what I am selling.' In The Talent Code, author Daniel Coyle wrote that the content of our pitch doesn't matter as much as the set of cues with which the pitch was delivered and received. Three things play a ...

In The Culture Code , Daniel Coyle wrote about a guy named Nick whose job was to go into different groups and sabotage their performance. To do so, Nick had to be one of three types of bad apples: 1 - The Jerk who was overly aggressive and defiant 2 - The Slacker who gave little to no effort 3 - The Downer who was depressed and saw the glass as half-empty Nick took turns playing these three roles in 40 different, 4-person teams in what was called, "The Bad Apple Experience." In almost every group, Nick's behavior reduced the quality of the team's performance (he was really good at being a bad apple). When Nick was The Downer, everybody came on to the team super energized, but when he would act quiet and tired and put his head down. Eventually, the team started to behave tired, quiet, and with low energy as well. When Nick was The Slacker, something similar happened. The group quickly picked up on his vibe and started slacking too. The interesting part of the experimen...