A Coach's Diary

“Kids must buy into YOU and what you do in order to be successful.” - Former NBA Coach Hubie Brown This is especially true in today’s world where kids seem to ask, “Why?” after every instruction. When I was a kid, asking why was a health hazard, but it is so common today that if you don’t have legit answers, you risk not being effective enough to engage your student-athletes to drive performance. So how do you get them to buy into you and what you do? Spend some time getting real with them and let them know who you are and why they should buy what you are selling. A simple way to do that is get in a Circle, ask 1-3 get-to-know you questions, and start the relationship building process. The Circle is an effective relationship building tool because everyone is equal and included in the Circle, and everyone has the opportunity to listen and share in the Circle. Try asking these three ‘favorite’ questions to get the party started: 1 - What’s your favorite thing to eat (or what is your favo...

Managing relationships on teams is just as important - if not more important - than managing Xs and Os. Two important questions that coaches and teams who are looking to increase their team's self-awareness and connectedness are:  How well are we working together? How might we get better at it? Treatment Agreements are a very important part of what I do as a coach because every athlete wants to receive feedback, praise, and criticism differently. Treatment Agreements systematically help us answer those two questions proactively and reactively. Some athletes want to be praised publicly and criticized privately, and some need the complete opposite. For some athletes, how they receive praise and feedback truly doesn't matter, but for many, how we communicate with them could be the difference between our athletes giving us their best effort or shutting down on the team.  Our athletes also respond differently to how coaches praise and criticize them versus how their teammates prai...

Every coach searches for ways to build that special chemistry that all great teams have. In The Culture Playbook , Daniel Coyle calls the warm sense of cohesion, the shared willingness to speak up, and the team thinking and feeling as one entity,  psychological safety - being able to be yourself without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status, or career. Team chemistry, or psychological safety, is built through the exchange of belonging cues - small, meaningful, and impactful, behaviors that say: "You belong here, you are valued here, you are safe here, we share a future together, we care about you, you have a voice, and you matter." Our brains are wired to search for both danger and safety. When we join a group, we scan for potential dangers. This keeps us from locking in and performing at our best. If we have to waste our time and energy trying to belong, we won't have enough left to do our job at a high level. Amy Edmondson of Harvard says, "When peopl...

What do I do when my athletes don't want to play for me? This is a common question that might be becoming even more common in today's society of transfer portals. We want our athletes to enjoy playing for us, but that is hard to do when part of your role is making them feel comfortable being uncomfortable. Former pro and college football coach, Leeman Bennett, once said, “A coach is someone who makes you do what you don't want to do, so you can be who you've always wanted to be.” Pushing your athletes, holding them accountable, and keeping them happy, hopeful, and engaged can be a tricky balance to find. But how do we do it effectively? I recently attended a Human Resource training for educators that presented tools on how to retain teachers. They gave us 4 effective tips that coaches can also use to retain athletes: 1 - Understand What They Want We want to win, and we want our athletes to become the best they can be. We hope that these are their main goals as well,...

Let's say that you are a coach, a teacher, a principal, or in a leadership role and you are starting a new season, a new year, or starting a new leadership position; what are some of the first things, from a cultural standpoint, that you would think about or do to set the tone for success? Daniel Coyle is the New York Times bestselling author of the Culture Code. He has worked with and learned from some of the best leaders of the best cultures in the world. He was asked this question, and the first thing he said was he would think about the relationship between connections and safety. He says connection and safety are the foundations of a great culture. "WITHOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY, YOU CAN BE AS SMART AS YOU WANT TO BE, BUT YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ADD UP TO MORE THAN THE SUM OF YOUR PARTS BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT GIVING PEOPLE A VOICE."  - DANIEL COYLE When teams win championships, they often talk about how close they are and how strong their relationships are. When the LA R...

I just came to a terrifying realization. I am the decisive element for my team. My approach to EVERYTHING creates the climate. My daily mood and interactions make the weather. As a coach, I have the power to make or break my athletes. As a coach, I have the power to make an athlete’s life miserable or full of joy. As a coach, I can be a tool of torture and pain or a source of inspiration and encouragement. I can hurt or help, humiliate or humor, harm or heal. In everything, every day, it is my response that decides whether a conflict or crisis will escalate out of control or de-escalate. And in everything I do, every day, I impact how my athletes believe in themselves or doubt themselves. I impact whether they live and play with peace and confidence or live and play with anxiety and fear. ... You can substitute teacher for coach , students  for athletes, and classroom for team. But you can't substitute any thing for the impact that a leader, a coach, or a teacher has on their athle...

"No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship." - Dr. James Comer My mother spent over 20 years in the trenches of education as a middle school principal. Anybody who has spent time on a middle school campus knows the joys and struggles of working with, teaching, and training middle school students. It takes a special kind of love, patience, and skill to reach and teach middle school kids. One of the most impactful things my mother shared with me when I was first going into education was, "They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." What she meant was, kids don't care if you are the smartest, most accomplished teacher the world has ever seen; if you can't connect with them and build meaningful relationships with them, you won't be able to inspire and motivate them to learn and perform at the highest levels. Effective teachers form authentic, caring relationships with their students (Cacciatore). Research...

I heard a dad once ask another dad, “Do you and your daughter ever just go outside and shoot?” The dad being questioned was worried because his daughter wasn’t performing to her full potential on the basketball court, and this was the other dad’s subtle way of reminding him that the game should be fun and there should be some unstructured, fun moments where a dad can shoot with his daughter without focusing on achievement and the score. Sports can be both fun and competitive, and when done right, they can help us learn more about ourselves and grow as people. But we often place more of an emphasis on success and achievement than on mental health, well-being, joy. School culture can be very similar. We often spend more time focusing on achievement and test scores than on the well-being and social and emotional health of the people we work with and the students we teach. The classroom can be so focused on achievement that we often value people for what they do and can achieve over who th...

At the end of a conference basketball game, Michigan head coach Juwan Howard and Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard walked towards each other, seemingly to give a post-game handshake. When Coach Howard walked close to Coach Gard in the handshake line, Coach Howard said something and continued to walk by. Coach Gard then grabbed Coach Howard, and he stood in his way, not allowing him to keep walking. They grabbed each other, exchanged words, and Coach Howard put his finger in Coach Gard’s face. The other coaches, players, and police tried to get in between the two coaches, but the situation continued to escalate until Coach Howard slapped one of Wisconsin’s assistant coaches. Sports are intense, and at that level, millions of dollars are on the line. It is easy to understand how two competitors can get so intense. We teach our athletes to play through the final buzzer, so we have to coach them through the final buzzer. Sometimes that coaching leads to disagreements and frustration, but as l...