A Coach's Diary

The word compete  comes from the Latin root word competere , which means to strive together. Your competition is not the enemy – they are your growth partners and you are striving together to make on another better. You want your teammates and your competition to be his or her best so they challenge you more so you’ll be pushed to be at your best. As a coach, be careful about how you approach competition because you don’t want to pit players against one another to the point where teammates have dysfunctional relationships by trying to defeat and establish superiority over each other. Change the opponent by redefining what competition is.   Competition: a partnership to challenge each other. Instead of being fueled by negative energy (fear that the other is going to be better) be fueled by positive energy knowing your competition is helping you be your best and knowing that your competition is your growth partner.

The following was a write up from a Facebook post regarding Wilt Chamberlain. Wow.. where to begin? Here is something I posted on another thread: My dad ref’d a few of Wilt’s Globetrotter games. He played point guard to show off his ball handling, shooting, & passing skills - never before or since seen by a guy over 7’ tall. Th ey would get a ladder & place a quarter on top of the backboard. Wilt would take one step, jump up & get the quarter. With a 9’6” standing reach, he would have to have at least a 45” vertical to get the quarter. It’s listed many places as 48” which seems very possible. The blocked shot in the photo came off a one step jump. Wilt averaged 8.1 blocks per game in the 112 games in which there are multiple credible sources of verification, video being the best - like the nationally televised Christmas Day 1968 game against Phoenix where he blocked 23 shots. Blocks didn’t become an official NBA stat until the ‘73-‘74 season, and the ‘official’ single...

In season, we work on guarding the ball 1 on 1 everyday.  We do it from different spots, angles and positions.  We switch up between guarding the ball in full court, half-court and in the post.   We mix up between starting from a closeout position, from a girls coming downhill at us, and from a check-ball situation. Over time, our athletes get better both offensively and defensively in 1 on 1 situations this way.  Basketball is a team game with full of individual battles.  Players have to be able to win their 1 on 1 battles for the team to have success. The video above is how we teach 1 on 1.  Active hands and active feet, stay square to your defender to prevent blow-bus,  contest the shoot and rebound. UConn Defensive Keys - Arms length away to provide pressure and to keep the 5 second count going - Low stance and square to his body - force baseline, but don't open up and give free driving lanes to the baske...

The game is supposed to be played a certain way, and its impossible to play that way, at the highest level, every second of everyday of every practice and game.  But, the pursuit of finding out how long you can sustain playing at the highest level is the difference maker. Just when it starts to fall, I tell the girls that this is about the time that a normal team starts to fall, and we aren't a normal team ... so let's go. - Geno Auriemma When your team experiences playing at a higher level, you have raised the bar for your team and the challenge is to consistently sustain that level of play and to never drop below that new bar that you have set for yourself.  The challenge, the purpose, the pursuit of excellence is about identifying what excellence looks like, experiencing it by performing on a level of excellence, and challenging yourself to sustain it as often and for as long as you can. 

The picture above is called the 'Game Within the Game Chart' used by Bob Starkey at Texas A&M.  He was asked on a Facebook group to explain to young coaches the chart.  Below is his response: “Game Within The Game” stat sheet was something we come up in the 80’s while I was a men’s assistant at WV State College. We wanted to develop a stat (because kids are driven by stats) that would help give attention to a few areas of the gam e. We made each situation simply a win or loss situation. SCORE FIRST EACH HALF: If we scored first we got the W…if we didn’t, our team did.  FIRST TEAM TO SCORE OUT OF A TIMEOUT: Again, whoever scored first got the win. INBOUNDS: If we scored or got the stop it was our W. For followup, we shared the stat sheet with our players the next day and at times would show video if these areas. This would total around 20 possession each game. So while one in-bounds may not seem important to a team, we felt by making it a win-loss situation would ...

My end of season thought is that I am better understanding what a program needs from basketball players to have success.  Each player that will be a varsity basketball player will need these 2 characteristics: Heart - Heart is loving and caring about the game enough to sacrifice for it and to give it everything that you have. Commitment - Commitment means being willing to do whatever it takes to achieve success.

March 1 – 29 – Contact Period - During a contact period a college coach may have face-to-face contact with college-bound student-athletes or their parents, watch student-athletes compete and visit their high schools, and write or telephone student-athletes or their parents. March 30 – April 12 – Dead Period - During a dead period a college coach may not have face-to-face contact with college-bound student-athletes or their parents, and may not watch student-athletes compete or visit their high schools. Coaches may write and telephone student-athletes or their parents during a dead period. April 6 – 8 – Quiet Period - During a quiet period, a college coach may only have face-to-face contact with college-bound student-athletes or their parents on the college’s campus.  A coach may not watch student-athletes compete (unless a competition occurs on the college’s campus) or visit their high schools. Coaches may write or telephone college-bound student-athletes or their pa...