A Coach's Diary

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...

The reality is, everyone retires from sports, and most people do it without playing professionally and most don't get college scholarships. Knowing this, it is important to keep our athletic experience in perspective. Knowing that we all retire, what do you want to get out of sports? Knowing that we all retire, what do you want your athletes to get out of sports? When I was an athlete, I wanted to be a pro. I wanted to play basketball at North Carolina and then go to the NBA. I learned in high school that it would be hard enough to get a college scholarship to any school, and then in college, I realized that it would be even harder to play pro. But I got out of it what I wanted. I was able to travel around the country playing basketball, I met some great people, and I was able to get my school paid for in the process. I had a great experience that I look back on with pride and joy, I still love sports, and I still love them enough that I choose to share my love of sports with kids....

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?

The best coaches coach players, not Xs and Os. Don't be so focused on the plays that you ignore the quality of relationships with your athletes. The quality of the relationships that we have with our athletes is as important as anything we can do. They are more important than (almost) any play you can draw up or drill that you can teach. "Culture eats strategy for lunch." Positive relationships help even our best athletes reach their full potential under less stress because we, as humans, are hardwired for relationships and to connect with others. Some neuroscientists  even argue that our need to connect with others is even more basic than food and shelter and is the primary motivation of one’s behavior. At the core of positive relationships is trust. Caring is the way that we generate the trust that builds relationships (CRT and the Brain) . When we intentionally build trust and relationships,  our athletes will be more willing to put themselves ou...

We all have experiences where we get so triggered, so mad, that we blow up on everyone around us. Coaching is such an intense profession, and as much as we talk about relationships and growing people, it is highly driven by wins and losses. Coaching and communicating can lead to miscommunication and unintended conflict. We have this thing in our brains called the amygdala - our brain's guard dog - that stays alert and keeps us safe.  When that kid second-guesses us in the middle of a big timeout, or that athlete talks back in the middle of an important and intense defensive drill, or when that angry parent starts to storm across the court, coming to talk to you about what his daughter didn't play in the final few minutes of a big game, that triggers what many of us call  Fight, Flight or Freeze  mode. That feeling of the hairs rising on the back of your neck, or your body getting hot, or the sudden need to ball up your fist (or the sudden need to run to the locker ...

A big part of coaching is our ability to connect with our athletes and their families. A quote that will stick with me is, "He made me feel seen, heard, and cared for as a learner." As coaches, we can easily change that quote to say, " My coach made me feel seen, heard, and cared for as an athlete, and as a person ." We are wired for connection. We all have different reasons for why we started playing and why we have stayed around the game, but at the foundation of sports is the human need to connect. Our brain's two main goals are to stay safe and be happy. We internally protect our self-worth, our self-determination, our well-being, and our connection to the community. To get our athletes to perform at their best for themselves and for the team, we need our athletes to feel like they are valued members of the team, and we do that by minimizing threats and maximizing well-being. Sometimes, one of the biggest threats to our athletes can be ourselves. We have all...

One of the hardest parts of sports is handling losing streaks! It's so hard to quantify the effect that one basket, one goal, one score, and one point can have on the players, the coaches, and the whole team. We have had games where we played really solid and just didn't make enough shots and lost. We have played games where we played terrible and won. Usually, the locker room after wins and practice the day after wins are so much happier than after losses, no matter how we played. There is a quote that says, "Winning heals everything." No matter how much we tell ourselves that the process is what matters, and play the game - not the scoreboard, and other great quotes that focus on how we play and not the outcome, at the end of the day, winning sure does cure a lot. But sports are a lot about managing moments , and we have to be able to manage, learn from, move on from losses  Cole Anthony just got drafted by the Orlando Magic in the NBA. He went to North Carolina las...