A Coach's Diary

I started this page because I love everything about coaching, leadership, learning, and getting better.  I would read, listen to, and watch as much information as I could on how to become a better coach and leader, but I would forget so much if what I learned. This was just a place to store my thoughts, and before I knew it, I had an audience of 100 people, then 1,000, and now almost 50,000. What started as a 'place to store my notes' has become a nice little community of people who are trying to be better coaches, parents, athletes, and teammates. I try to stay out of politics as much as I can, and I try to focus just on sports and leadership, but I just don't think it would be right to not take a second and make mention of George Floyd and his death.  I have heard that he was loved and admired by the people who knew him.  I have heard him described as a good Christian, a good father, a good friend, and a good man. So much has already been said about his...

Don't quit. Don't give up. Be stronger. Last longer. Stick with things. Keep it up. Keep it up. Keep it up. Refuse to give up. Believe. If anybody can have it, you can have it.  You deserve it as much as everybody else. When it gets tough, the most important thing is the voice in your head and what it is saying. Anytime you find a really successful person, someone who is really doing great things, somewhere along the line they have developed the ability to go through adversity and to come out on the other side better, not bitter. Stand strong.  Be determined to do the best that you can and help others stand strong and determined to be their best.

When I was playing college basketball, I hated early morning workouts.  Every Friday in the pre-season we had a track workout, and the day before, we would have a team vote on whether we would prefer to workout in the morning before classes or wait until after classes. Almost every time, my team would vote to workout in the morning, and every time I would groan. One day, my coach called me out on it.  He asked me to find something positive to say next time instead of complaining.  When I would groan, it would bring down the energy in the room and have a negative effect on our energy.  My words impacted the energy in the room and it impacted our workouts. I started to fake being positive about the early morning workouts, and it actually started to improve my attitude, my mood, and my work ethic. I went from faking excitement to being motivated, to attacking our workouts. The point of training and working out is so that we can improve and beco...

One thing that I tell my athletes is that practice, especially practice at home by yourself working on your game has to be the best part of your day if you really want to squeeze the juice and become your best. At my house, we say the same thing.  We try to set aside time every day to work on our different sports, we try to make it family time, and we always say that this is the BEST part of our day. I hope that my kids look back with good memories of us being in the back in the late afternoon when the sun starts to set, shooting hoops, working on our soccer touches, having batting practice, or practicing our tennis swings. Jay Shetty is a former monk who is now an award-winning host, storyteller, and viral content creator who since launching his video channel in 2016, has garnered over 4 billion views and gained over 20 million followers globally. He repeated the quote, "The most successful people in the world, healthy, wealthy and wise, choose education over ent...

My older cousin used to train me when I was in middle school and high school. He would wake me up at 5 AM and take me to the gym and we would put in WORK in the summer. At first, I HATED it.  This was my summer vacation.  I wanted to sleep in and enjoy it. But then I got used to it and started to attack the workouts. That was the foundation that I used to become a college basketball player. Looking back, I am thankful because that taught me how to get up, get uncomfortable, and to work for my dreams. When I was 14 years old, he told me that I was one of the better kids in my area, but he said that all this means is that other kids were going to be coming for me.  Other kids were going to start waking up at 5 in the morning to catch me, and if I didn't keep working, they would pass me up and they would all talk about how good I used to be. But he said if I keep working, then they would say, 'man, he is good now, but he has ALWAYS been good.'...

Drew Hanlen trains some of the best basketball players in the world. He says that one of the biggest mistakes that he sees from players is that they waste too much time practicing skills and moves that they don't use in games. Drew says that all over social media, you see players juggling tennis balls and players picking up cones, and players who can't make layups with their weak hand working on James Harden step-back threes.   He feels like the training industry that he is in is in part responsible for this. Different drills that work on micro-skills, like 2 ball dribbling, do help improve skill and capacity, but it's important that the skills work is transferable to the game.  Use your time more efficiently and effectively by doing drills and working on skills that will give you better game results. Drew says that as long as you aren't creating bad habits, putting in some work is better than no work, but work on the right skills so that the work that you ...

One of the hardest things for me is seeing an athlete with potential but who lacks work ethic. What is even harder is when their parents see it and push them to get more out of their potential, especially when they are young, and it lesds to burnout. Trying to find that balance between teaching your kids how to work for what they want vs allowing them to explore their passion organically and allowing them to lead the way can be hard. Pushing an athlete too hard or too early can cause burnout.  Not teaching an athlete how to work hard will hurt them in different ways. Just remember its their race.  Not ours.  We can only love and support and give timely wisdom and advice.