A Coach's Diary

My favorite part about coaching is watching my athletes grow because when we grow as people, the potential for the team grows. But we have to believe in ourselves, believe in each other and in our leaders and believe in the process. The good thing about belief is that it doesn’t have to be big or deep at first. Just believe enough to show up, keep showing up, and do the next right thing. If we do that, if we keep showing up, our confidence, belief, and our ability will grow together. We have to have faith. In Matthew 17, a crowd was waiting at the bottom of a mountain for Jesus and his disciples. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him. (Matthew‬ ‭17:14-16‬) The boy had a demon inside of him, and after Jesus healed him by removing the demon, the disciples asked privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demo...

My favorite Steph Curry story comes from his very first college basketball game. We know Steph Curry as an NBA champion, an NBA MVP, and the best shooter of all time, but there was a time when Steph was known as an undersized, not-good-enough, underrecruited freshman who went to Davidson in part because no major program recruited him. Steph started his first college game as a freshman for Davidson, but he had 9 turnovers in the first half, and they were down 18 points at half-time. His coach, Bob McKillop, said that he had to make a big decision at half-time. They were down big, and they had to decide whether or not they were going to keep the struggling freshman in the lineup. When they were recruiting Steph and watching him play in high school, they watched him play in a game in Las Vegas where he was awful. He kept turning the ball over, he was missing shots, he was getting beat defensively, but he never stopped playing, he never showed frustration, and he was never impacted by the ...

Every coach and athlete has been afraid, nervous, and anxious before or during a game at some point (or all of the time). They are natural responses when you are doing something that you love because when you love something and you want to be good at it, there is some pressure that comes with it. I knew a great athlete who would put her hair in her mouth every time she got nervous. She was confident in herself and her abilities, but she was still nervous in the big games. We gave her 5 simple tools to help her with her nervousness: 1 - Focus on the now . Don’t focus on what could happen; focus on doing what you need to do right now. Now could mean tying your shoes, putting on your jersey, getting a good stretch, or making the game-winning shot. Don’t worry about what could happen. Keep your mind focused on what is happening and on doing the next, best thing. 2 - Find a routine . When you have a good routine, you can focus more on the now instead of allowing your mind to wander. Having ...

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...

I believe that we must have faith.   I believe that we must truly believe; not just give a word service but believe that things will work out as they should providing we do what we should.   I think our tendency is to hope that things turn out the way that we want them too much of the time, but we don’t do the things that are necessary to make those things a reality. - John Wooden -