A Coach's Diary

Legendary UCLA coach John Wooden once wrote, “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” You can talk a good game, but do you walk the walk? We can spend all our time and energy worrying about what others think of us, but never forget that character comes before reputation. Character is the foundation and frame of our house, and our reputation is the finished product people can see from the street. The stronger your foundation, the stronger you are. After the birth of Jesus, John the Baptist began preaching in the wilderness of Judea. After Jesus, John is probably the most important person in the Gospels. John was the Israelites' first prophetic voice in over 400 years, so he was the link between the Old and the New Testament. His message was to, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near (Matthew 3:2),” he was called The Baptist because he baptized people who...

One of the hardest parts about being a leader is having to set a line of expectations and then actively live above that line. It’s easy to say, “Work hard, show up early, stay late, compete in every drill, every day, and don’t take any shortcuts,” but nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. I’ve heard many coaches say, “Do as I say, not as I do.” We know what we need to do, but we don’t always do it. Jesus knew this too, and He addressed this when He was talking to His disciples and the crowds of people about the teachers of religious law at the time to His disciples and crowds of people in Matthew 23. Jesus said, “So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. Everything they do is for show. On their arms, they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels.” (M...

I am in the middle of watching the second season of Last Chance U, and ELAC coach John Mosley is frustrated with his team. He has a few high-level transfers in his starting lineup, including a 7 foot 1 inch center from LSU, but Coach Mosley is struggling to get his starters to buy into the hardworking, blue-collar culture that has brought his program success in the past Instead of continuing to start his more high-profile athletes, Coach Mosley has chosen to turn to his tougher, harder-working bench athletes whom he can trust to do what he demands, make the adjustments he needs them to make, and do what he is teaching. His assistant coach said, “There are only 5 guys and 40 minutes, and the dudes that are playing are doing what they are supposed to do.” There are consequences when we do not do what we are supposed to do or are asked to do, and there are rewards when we do. Parable of the Great Feast In Matthew 22, Jesus the priests and elders, the Parable of the Great Feast, a story ab...

I was talking to a coach who had an athlete who was struggling with playing time. She wasn’t doing everything she needed to do to earn the playing time, but worse, she wasn’t being truthful with her parents. She was telling her parents that the coach was playing favorites and she wasn’t one of them, and the parents were giving the coach a hard time because of it. The advice that I gave the coach was to make sure that he was giving clear and effective feedback to the girl and her parents that explained why she wasn’t playing, and how she could earn more playing time. Author and speaker Ashley Merryman says effective feedback does three things: 1 - Makes people think differently   2 - Helps people take ownership of the problem  3 - Helps apply new thinking and new behaviors I told him that Merryman has an acronym called T.R.A.C.K.E.D. that gives a guideline for how to give effective feedback that accomplishes those three things: T - Trustworthy - Can they trust you?  R - ...

I was talking with a coach about creating an excellent bench environment for his team. He has 12 athletes on his varsity basketball team, and as they get deeper into the season, athletes at the end of the bench are starting to realize that their place is at the end of the bench, and they are starting to react negatively to their role. Their body language is getting worse and worse, their attitudes are starting to turn negative, and the once positive environment that they had in the pre-season is now eroding because of a lack of equity in playing time. On every team, there are starters and there are bench players. It's just part of team sports. But so often, we talk to the bench players about how they can be great teammates and supportive of their teammates on the court or field, but we don't as often talk to the starters about how to also be great and supportive teammates to the ones who don't play as much. It’s easier to cheer for and support a teammate who is a good perso...

Run your own race, and run it the best you can. Everybody is running their own race, and comparison is the thief of all joy. I once heard a low-major, D1 basketball coach tell the story of a kid on his team who was one of the top ranked 8 th graders in the country when he was 14 years old. This was the kids 3 rd or 4 th college team, and according to the coach, the kid had so much success so early that he never really learned how to manage adversity. On the other hand, there are 100s of college athletes who were late bloomers and were never close to being ranked in middle school who find a lot of success at the college level. Everybody is running their own race. Athletes start their sports journeys at different times, for different reasons, and with different abilities. Some athletes hit the ground running and find success early, and some don’t find success until they have put years of work in. Some athletes are stars when they are younger and fizzle out when puberty hits, and some ...

According to NCAA data, there are about 7,400,000 high school athletes across the country and about 460,000 NCAA athletes. That means that only 6% of high school athletes will play sports in college. Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way. There are other opportunities to play sports in college for schools that don't participate in the NCAA. The NAIA is a league through which smaller athletic programs that are dedicated to character-driven intercollegiate athletics are able to offer around 77,000 student-athletes each year the opportunity to play college sports and compete for $800,000,000 in scholarship opportunities, and for 28 national championships. Junior college is also an opportunity to play college sports. The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) is home to over 22,200 2-year student-athletes, and to over 1,500 2-year junior college programs that follow a similar scholarship structure to the NCAA, with D1, D2, and D3 colleges. Leagues like the NAIA and ...

Have you ever had a teammate who always messed up and made the same mistakes over and over again? That can be frustrating, especially when you are in an environment where you have high expectations. When I was a young athlete, I would hate it when we would have to run for our teammate's mistakes. We always had one teammate who never touched the line, who always messed up the drill, and who could never remember the directions or plays. While leadership requires holding the people around you accountable to the standards that are communicated, how we hold them accountable tells a lot about who we are as people. Actress Viola Davis once said, "I don't know what the definition of grace is; only that it meets you where you are and it doesn't leave you how it found you. You want some grace in your life because you are never going to arrive perfectly at any place." In Matthew 18, Jesus gives us an example of how we should hold the people around us accountable, even if the...

Former NBA champion Joe Dumars once said, "On good teams, coaches hold players accountable; on great teams, players hold players accountable." Accountability is an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility for your actions. Accountable teammates know what is expected of them, and they are empowered to do their best work, while teammates without accountability lack the motivation and discipline needed to achieve their goals. A lack of accountability is one of the biggest problems that can hold teams back. When nobody wants to be at fault or take responsibility for their mistakes, there can be a lot of finger-pointing and blame within the team. Doing the little things right, every day, like showing up on time, touching the line, and doing your job can be the difference between a winning season and a losing season. Great teams can't just rely on great coaching to hold teammates accountable; teammates have to be able to do that for each other, and teammates have to b...

In our house, we have a saying: No Troll Left Behind . For us, this means nobody is left to do life alone no matter what is going on. We are family, and we do what we can for each other. When someone does well, we celebrate together. When someone is struggling, we rally around them and support them as they find their way back. We also try to live this out in sports. When someone new comes to our team, we try to make them feel like they are an important part of our sports family. We do whatever we can to welcome them in, and we do whatever we can to bring them along with us. But on most teams, somebody gets left behind at one point or another. It might take someone a little longer than the others to learn a play, a skill, or a rotation, and it can be frustrating for a teammate or a coach waiting for a teammate to catch up, but  No Troll Left Behind . It is our job as teammates and friends to do everything we can to help catch them up and to support them. Every athlete has a decision...

Have you ever been on a team where one athlete's bad attitude affected everyone in the group? There is a saying that, "One bad apple spoils the bunch." The phrase is used to describe a situation in which one person's negative attitude can negatively affect the entire group, causing them to have a similar negative attitude. I'm not sure how or where this phrase began, but it does have some basis in science. When apples begin to decay, they emit gasses. If the rotting apple is mixed in with other apples, the good apples can absorb the gasses and begin to rot as well. It is important to keep good apples away from bad apples. I've had similar experiences on teams. I have had teams become torn apart because the negative attitudes and behaviors of one teammate went unchecked. I have also had similar experiences with individual athletes. They allow one bad apple, one negative influence, or one correctable character flaw to negatively affect who they are, and it kills...