A Coach's Diary

I don't know too much about physics, but David Cowan once said that the gravitational pull on earth is so strong that most of the fuel that spaceships use to get to the moon is used just getting them beyond earth’s gravity. After they leave the earth’s gravity, the scientists rely heavily on lunar gravity to pull the space ship toward the moon. In her book, The Path, Laurie Beth Jones writes, that similarly, it is ‘escape velocity’ that requires most of the energy needed to pull us away from the bad habits that we have so that we can become the people we want to become, do what we want to do, and live the life we want to live. She says that we must have a compelling vision that is so powerful that it's very magnetism and gravitational forces will literally pull us toward it. She also writes that physicists are now aware of subatomic particles that hover in and around everything that exists, and that one characteristic of these particles is that they seem to take on the properti...

One off season, I was teaching my young athletes new moves to help grow their game, but when we would scrimmage and they would use the moves and mess up, I would get on to them. I realized that I was stunting their growth by not allowing them to be creative and try the things that we were teaching. I forgot that failure was a part of the learning process. Now, I try to say, “Nice try,” when they try something new that we have been working on, and I try to provide clear feedback on what they could do better next time. Sometimes, I just say, “Nice try,” smile, and let them continue exploring (when we were growing up and playing unorganized sports with our friends in the streets, we didn’t have our parents or coaches critiquing every single play).

What can I learn today? How can I be better tomorrow? Baseball manager Earl Weaver said, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." Legendary football coach Knute Rockne said, "Build your weaknesses until they become strengths." By asking yourself, "What can I learn today," and, "How can I be better tomorrow," you are starting the process of learning, growing, and getting better by learning how to learn (Mind Gym). Your mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open. Be open to teaching and constructive criticism. Be self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Know what you are good at, and know what you need to work on. Baseball Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, known as The Big Unit, said, "You never stop learning in this game. If you ever think you know everything, it will jump up and bite you. Hard." Michael Jordan said that every summer, he wanted to add something to his game. When you stop working and adding...

Have you ever been on a team where a leader needed to step up or have you ever wanted to be a leader but you felt like you didn't have the voice to lead? When Michael Jordan joined the Bulls as a rookie, they were a struggling team and a struggling franchise. They needed a jolt of energy and leadership, and Michael became that jolt and provided that leadership. The culture of the team at the time wasn't what it needed to be and felt like Jordan needed to do something about it because he wasn't used to losing. The Bulls didn't handle adversity well, and they would put their heads down and give up when they faced challenges or got down in a game, but Jordan's character wouldn't allow that to continue. His teammates quickly learned that Jordan wouldn't let them lose. Within the first couple of weeks, MJ proved to his teammates that he was the best player on the team and a leader worth following. Michael Jordan said, "My mentality was - whoever was the tea...

If you want your team to perform better, create an inclusive culture and climate. Research shows that when team members develop a shared understanding of the team's goals and align each team members' contributions to the shared goals, those teams outperform teams that don't. Research also shows that when all team members feel like they belong and when they feel valued for the uniqueness that they bring to the team, and when they feel safe, the team members are work harder, smarter, and more together. When a team has the right climate and culture, it can outperform other teams. How do you know if you have the right culture, what do you do if your culture needs to improve, and what do you do if you already have a strong and inclusive culture? Assess Your Current Climate The first step to shaping an inclusive culture and climate is to assess the current levels of inclusiveness of your climate. Observe your team so that you can plan your strategy for how you can communicate inc...

Research supports that expectations might be the most important key to success. When you believe in yourself, you do better, and when coaches believe in their athletes, they do better. Years ago, a study was done that showed something remarkable about a teacher's belief in students. Researchers told teachers that some of the students in their class could be expected to be 'growth spurters,' based on the students' recent test results. The test never happened, but at the end of the year, the students' scores on IQ tests matched the teacher's false beliefs. This study shows that our expectations and beliefs about our athletes matter in how we teach and coach them and in how they perform. In a more recent study , hundreds of students were involved in a study where they wrote essays and received critical feedback from their teachers. Half the students received an extra sentence at the bottom of the feedback. The students who received the extra sentence earned higher...

Have you ever tried coaching your athletes hard and they give you attitude or shut down on you? It is frustrating when I can't coach my athletes the way that I need to coach them, and sometimes I don't understand why they won't let me teach them the way that I need to teach them without shutting down. But the NCAA transfer portal is one of many indicators that let us know how important it is to think about the way we communicate to our athletes in today's world. One simple thing that I have learned to do is sandwich the meat of the conversation - the hard stuff - between the positive stuff. As often as I can, I try to sandwich my coaching and criticism between positive comments. It helps. At the end of many practices, I do let my athletes know that many coaches in their lives won't be as nice in the way that they deliver their messages, and they have to learn how to find the message in the coaching, criticism, or yelling so that they are prepared for different coach...

Doug McDermott was a 6-foot, scrawny freshman in high school, and went on to have a great division 1 basketball career, and is now an NBA vet. He was the 6th man as a junior for his high school team, but he embraced his role and did what he had to do for the team. Doug's father coached him in college at Creighton, and he said that growing 6-8 by the time he graduated from college helped Doug have success, but he also said that Doug just continued to get better. He continued to work. He embraced the value of nutrition and getting enough sleep, and he worked extremely hard in the weight room to develop his body. He was a gym rat, but an efficient gym rat. He wouldn't spend hours in the gym working part of the time and screwing around the rest. When he got to the gym, he had a vision in mind of what he wanted to accomplish. He got it done and then he went and enjoyed some of the other things that he likes to do. Have a plan. Follow the plan. Work super hard when nobody is around. ...

I was reading an article last night from WeAreTeachers.com that made the claim that we are pressuring our kids to read to much, too fast, and too soon, and it made me think about the youth sports world, my own family, and whether or not we put too much pressure on our kids athletically too fast and too soon. The article claims that reading has long been a privilege and a way to pass time and share culture, but it has recently become a forced method of information acquisition.  This made me think of a quote by Kobe Bryant where he said that "Sports used to be something that kids go out and do for fun. But now it’s become so regimented where parents start to inject their own experiences or past failures onto their children, and it just takes the fun out of it.” I have three young daughters who I am trying to teach to love sports, but it is a struggle for me to let go and let them own their experience.  I specifically struggle with how much should I teach and push them...

They might tell us that we weren't good enough, and they might beat us, but they won't say that they didn't 'feel us.' They will feel our fight. They will feel our hunger. They will feel our will to win. They will feel our grit, our determination, and our tenacity. If we make them feel all of that, we will win a lot more than we lose. Most importantly, if we make them feel all of that, we can leave every practice and every game proud of what we did. 1 - Did you work as hard as you could? 2 - What is one thing you were proud of today? 3 - What is one thing that you want to get better at for next time? 4 - How can I help?

I was talking to a father of a youth soccer player. His son had just received his first mid-year evaluation. His son is 10 or 11 and a multi-sport athlete on a team where most other kids are full-time soccer players. Dad said that the coach killed his kid in the evaluation, and part of it had to do with the fact that his son split time with other sports. Player evaluations from coaches, even at this age, can be tough. A lot of the time, it's the first time someone outside of the home is critical of an athlete, and it can be tough for a kid, and parent, to hear. Dad's response to his son was spot-on. He told his athlete that he had two choices: he could either get his head down, pout, and feel sorry for himself, or he could learn from what the coach told him and use it to fuel him and get better. Hearing this reminded me of the quote, "Prepare your child instead of preparing the path for your child." Part of a coach's job is to tell you what you need to hear to get...

We often hear the quote, "The grass isn't always greener on the other side." I recently heard a coach add to the quote, "The grass may be greener on the other side of the fence, but the water bills are probably higher too." I have seen so many kids switch teams or transfer because they think another situation might be better for them.   Sometimes they are right and making that switch was the best move for them. I have seen athletes leave one environment for another and thrive. I have seen kids who were JV players struggling to stay on the team in high school transfer to a different school, blossom in the right environment with the right opportunities, and work themselves into becoming college athletes. Sometimes they were wrong, and the grass wasn't greener. They changed the situation but they didn't make the changes that they needed to make internally, so the same problems followed them. When there is a lack of character, toughness, work ethic, grit, an...

This is a mindset that I grew up on. When I was in middle school, I would have my parents drop me off at the rec or the park so that I could play against the high school kids and men. I have to admit that I used to be scared to get on the court, but I knew that playing against the older guys would help me get better. One thing that really helped me was that one of the older guys was a good friend of mine who encouraged me and gave me the confidence to get out there. He just told me that I could play with them, he kept pushing me to get out there, and he would pick me to play on his team. There were good days, bad days, and ugly days. On a Monday, I would have a great day of playing and feel like I made it, and then a couple of days later, I would get laughed out of the gym. There were so many ups and downs and emotions, but I just stuck with it. Over time, I became one of the older guys. It became 'my' gym. I became a leader. But I did it because I didn't stop. I didn't...

Growing up, we were taught to finish what you start. If you want to play this season, we aren't going to quit in the middle of it just because things aren't going our way. At the beginning of one season, I had a JV parent call me and tell me that she was going to pull her daughter from the team. She and her daughter were upset that she wasn't getting the in-game opportunities that they wanted, and it was affecting her life outside of basketball to the point where they felt it was best if they cut ties now. To her surprise, I told her that this might be the best move for everybody. What mom didn't see (or hear) was that her athlete wasn't giving any effort in practice and that she was telling her teammates that she didn't really like basketball and that she doesn't want to play. Mom was upset that I wasn't on board with making her stick it out, but this wasn't the right environment for her, and because she didn't want to be there, it hurt the team...

On a Facebook sports group page, a parent posted this: While I sit here this morning between four U11/U12 girls games I hear parents and coaches making comments like: "Jesus Christ! What are you doing?" "You're terrible!" "Wake up! You shouldn't even be out there if you are going to play like that!" "Why did we even drive here this morning!!!" "That (goal) was your fault!" This reminded me of a speech that I heard about the power of the words of sports' parents and coaches. What we say to our athletes now becomes their inner voice later. I am in no way a judge of what should and shouldn't be said to your athlete. Sometimes our athletes need to be pushed, and no one knows your athletes better than you do. I have said some of these things myself. Sometimes, one or two of the things is real feedback that accurately reflects performance. It is easy to judge a parent or a coach based on an overheard comment. Yesterday, I was...

We play the game to play. As athletes, want to be out there, involved, and making plays that will help our team win. As parents, we want to see our kids out there, involved, and making plays that will help our team win while having fun and learning lessons that will help them now and later in life. As coaches, we (most of us) want all of our kids out there, involved, and making plays that will help our team win, while teaching life lessons that will help them now and later in life. When we first start playing on rec teams, everybody plays. It's all about fun and learning. Everybody plays an equal amount of time and hopefully get the same opportunities that everybody else gets. Then, we start playing on select and travel teams, and we start to see some separation. We start to notice that some kids are just a little better or more prepared than others. While we might still get to play at least half of the game, some kids get to play a little more. And some kids get the ball a little ...

One of the hardest things to witness is an injury to a player. Nobody sets out trying to get hurt, but injuries happen. Injuries can affect so many people. Of course, they affect the player, they affect the team, and they affect the coaching staff who has a goal to win as many games as they can. Injuries also affect parents. Injuries are hard on parents. We love watching our kids play. We want our kids to have a great experience playing sports. We don't want to see our athletes hurting, physically or emotionally. But again, injuries do happen. Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. I heard a great message one day that started with the quote, you can't have a TESTIMONY without going through a TEST. Injuries are a test. Your testimony is your story. Steph Curry's testimony is that he was under-recruited and over-looked his entire life. He fought through that, and he became one of the best college basketball players of his time. Steph then had to fight thro...

Have you ever been in the middle of the storm when your team needs you to lead? - The other team is going on a big run and you don't see a stop in sight. - Your leading scorer gets hurt. Then your second-leading scorer gets hurt. Then your third-leading scorer fails a class. Your fourth-leading scorer has to miss practice for tutorials. - They keep adding classes to your teaching load. Storms and adversity are part of life. We tell our athletes this all of the time, but it is important for us to remember this as well. Each obstacle is just a test. It is an opportunity for us to get better and rise up. One thing to always think about is the message that you are sending through your words and your body language. One great quote to remember is,  "The culture of the team is seen on the face of the coach."  If someone looked at you today, would they see positivity, hope, and grit? Would they see victory or defeat? A big part of being a leader is making other people believe tha...

I coach mostly soccer and basketball right now. I have found that these three rules or expectations are a great place to start with my teams and my individual athletes. The first two are measurable, while the third is something that we will work on for the rest of our careers. If you can be great at these three things, you can play for and have success with almost any team and at almost any level. Everybody wants to score, and everybody wants their kids to score. When we score, we smile, we are happy, and we feel valued. A lot of that is just the nature of sports. We celebrate every point, and we celebrate the person who scores. There is nothing wrong with wanting to score and celebrating the shooter, but there is so much more to athletic success. I try to get my girls and my teams to focus on these three. If we do these three things right, we will win most games. If an individual does these three things, they will be recognized as one of the best players in the court or field. We cele...

Scholars believe that for any student to perform at their best, teachers must believe that they can learn, and students themselves must have confidence in their own abilities. Expectations are one of the most powerful determinates of academic success. William James once said , "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." He also said, "As you think, so shall you be." As coaches, it is so important for us to believe the ability and potential of our athletes. Doc Rivers says, "I am not going to coach to who you are. I am going to coach you to who you should be someday." The more that we believe in our kids, the more our kids will grow. See the gold and potential in your athletes. See what they can be - the best-case scenario - and speak that into them. Have high expectations for them, and help them grow into those expectations. Help them manage their thoughts. Help them remain confi...