A Coach's Diary

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...

"I'm excited to try this tomorrow with my students!" I was reading a book called, Coaching for Equity ,  and the author said, "If we close conversations with an opportunity for the client to name what they've learned and how they feel at the end of the conversation and they say, "I'm excited to try this tomorrow with my students!" - then they bring a moment of awareness to the positive emotions that come up from learning, and they've increased their resilience. I thought, "How cool would it be if our athletes were this excited at practice? How cool would it be if our athletes said, 'I'm excited to try this tomorrow,' or, 'I'm excited to try this in the game?'" When I first started coaching, my head coach said something that has impacted the rest of my career. He said, "No one can get better if you think they suck, and no one will want to learn from you if they don't like you and if you don't like th...

There are a lot of guys who have no idea what their roles are.   They have no idea where to shoot.   There are guys who DON’T KNOW HOW TO PLAY. LeBron James, Draymond Green, 2 Chainz and special guests come together at a local New Orleans barbershop to talk the NBA, Olympics, music, football and more.    You can see the entire video here: At about the 9:25 mark, Record producer Steve Stoute starts out talking about business resumes and the fact that for all of the skills that are on resumes, they never talk about a person’s work ethic.   He says that everybody gets credit for stuff that you didn’t do when you are part of a team because that is part of being on a team.   But he likes to ask, 'What role did you play in driving the outcome vs. being a teammate of the outcome?"    Great coaches, great CEOs, and great managers have to decide:  Is it the guy or is the environment that the guy was in?   Are you the driver or just a...

(Harish Balasubramani/Illustrations director) The following article is something that I will share with all of my managers!   It is a really good look at the value and importance of a really good manager if you realize that you are more than ‘just a manager.’   Tony Luftman was a manger on the 1995 UCLA men’s basketball team that won a National Championship.  One thing that stuck out to me was how he feels that he was a big part of that team, even though he never played in a game.  I want all of my managers to feel that included every season as well.  You can find the original article here . Like clockwork, Jim Harrick’s cell phone buzzed on April 3. So did those of other members of UCLA’s 1995 men’s basketball championship team, like Ed O’Bannon, Tyus Edney and Steve Lavin. Another year, another text from Tony Luftman, a manager on the 1995 team, with the same simple message: “Thank you for letting me be a part of your team.” But more th...