A Coach's Diary

Buzz Williams, the head men's basketball coach at Texas A&M, was recently a guest on Jon Gordon's podcast, and he left some very good gems. Coach Williams talked about how he got his start in coaching, and there are lessons in his climb and how he became a Division 1 head coach.  He said that when he was first getting started as a team manager at the junior college and NAIA, anytime he met a person/coach with a business card, he would send them a handwritten letter once a week.  He also worked basketball camp every week of every summer.  By his senior year of college, he was writing 420 coaches a week.  He slowly worked his way up the coaching ranks.  He spent 13 years as an assistant coach, and he has spent 13 years as a head coach. God Gives Us What We Can Handle Coach Williams said that his focus throughout his career was to be the best that he could be for the job that he has, that he has been blessed way more than he deserves and that he k...

Buzz Williams, the head men's basketball coach at Virginia Tech, talks about icing the ball screen.   At the end of the video, around the 5:30 mark, he talks about how important it is to teach and coach toughness and playing hard everyday for basketball and for life. - Any time a rotation is forced you are at a disadvantage.   So, they use ice so they don’t have to have an extra defender to rotate over.   You have the handler and the screeners man to contain the ball so that the other 3 guys can stay on their other 3 guys.   - The more simple and precise you can make anything, the better.   You get slippage any time you make stuff personnel specific, so having a set system or plan helps with consistency and limits mistakes and game slippage. - Make sure you spend time on other coverages that are different than what you do.   The % of icing the ball screen, even in college, is still low.   So he has to work on the other coverages.   ...