Program Pen-Pals

I think that if you have a close relationship with a college coach and was within reasonable proximity, taking your players to the college for a mentor/mentee experience amongst players of both teams would be a benefit to both groups of young men.

Also, as a high school coach, turn that around and create mentoring opportunities for *your players* in the community. I was thinking about this a while back watching the Tennessee/Indy game during a speaking trip in Toronto, Canada. I'm not sure if the commercial broadcasts were the same in the States, but they featured a high school football team in Florida that instituted a "pen-pal" program between it's players and players in the local youth football league.

Every week they would exchange letters about a bunch of topics. That is not only a great mentoring opportunity, community service, a chance to play "big-brother", and a big thrill for the younger kids, but also a great chance to build some continuity in the area and develop young kids that look forward to being in your program like their pen-pal.

"Carrying" Sportsmanship to the Extreme

This is not about basketball but absolutely a story worth posting anywhere.It might be the greatest act of respecting your opponents and Honoring the Game - whatever your game is.

The video tells it all...

Free Throw Goals

The only Free Throw goal that we had was to "Make more Free Throws than they shoot". The first part addressed our offense (how many FT we got) and our effectiveness at the line (were we making enough of the ones we got) while the second part dealt with our defense (were we fouling and putting them on the line?)

As I think about it, does talking about achieving a certain percentage motivate a kids to get there? Or does it get kids worrying about their shot when they fall short of the goal? Ask the Memphis Tigers. Or Shaq!

I'm starting to think that, while it is harder to chart, an *effort goal* of getting enough arc, holding their follow thru, and using proper technique rather than a *result goal* might help kids get there quicker.

Just thinkin' out loud.

Coach/Official Relationships - a work in progress!

When I played, my coaches rarely said anything to officials and I always felt they didn't stick up for us. So I set out to be the opposite. Soon I figured that if the other coach got up to "work the official" that I had to match that and "work him" a bit harder. Punch - counterpunch.

Players definitely should not be the ones to EVER talk to an official. The coach needs to be the one doing the communicating, outside of the team captain, who can be a good buffer by building a good on court relationship wit the officials. However, when the coach does talk, he needs to pick his spots. If you chirp all the time (and I did) they stop listening. It could also backfire on the coach. A coaching friend of mine tells a story about a ref that asked him if he thought it was a good call. When the coach proceeded to tell him all of the reasons that it wasn't, the ref said, "then wait 'til you see the next one!"

Officials are human - as much as we wish they weren't. If the only time you talk to them is when you think they missed one - you're going to get a worse performance from the ref than had you said nothing at all. Studies show that people perform better when they experience more positives than negative interactions with others in that environment. Officials are no different. So it is beneficial to take a "kinder, gentler" approach. Help them by keeping your players under control. Ensure quality crowd control, to whatever extent possible. Laugh with them. Back them up when they make a good call by "re-instructing" your player to avoid what they just got called for. Admit when you think that they made the right call against your team. The official will at least *think* that you feel they made a good call.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that they like coaches to say, "good call!" when one goes your way. That implies that you think they made some bad ones. Maybe, tell them, "yes he did" when one of your guys reaches, charges or walks. They'll respect you more. And you *might* get the benefit of the doubt a couple of times.

I also tried to convince myself when we made a couple of nice plays after I had a little tirade that I "fired the team up". Then I realized, while they might have been a little excited for a while, it wore off pretty quickly - just like a fire & brimstone pre-game speech. Wouldn't it be better if we could just get them to play "inspired" all the time? If we have to coerce our team into playing hard by going ballistic, we're not going to be very good anyway. Convince them to play hard every possession - because it is the right thing to do!

"Pick-Up" Leagues

I've often thought that it would be a service to kids to provide a league that was NOT refereed - but merely "moderated". Allow the kids to call their own - and give them a minimum time to agree before the moderator steps in. Kinda like we used to do at the park. Players no longer have (or don't take advantage of) those opportunities.

And how much do you learn about *life* by settling your own disagreements, admitting that you made a mistake (foul), or having
the courage to call someone on one of their "transgressions", and coming to a consensus in a timely fashion ?

Why they call you "COACH"

The small, 14th-century, Hungarian village of Kocs is located on the main road along the Danube between Vienna and Budapest. These two great cities needed well-built, fast vehicles that would carry more than two people over the bumpy roads of the day in as much comfort as was then possible. So in Kocs they began to build superior wagons, carts and carriages.

One of the best of these multi-horse carts was called, in Hungarian, "kocsi szekér" or a "wagon from Kocs". Its design was so compact, elegant and sturdy that the design spread throughout Europe. The German-speaking Viennese started to call this vehicle a Kutsche, which is how they heard Hungarians saying the name of their little carriage-making town. From Vienna these lively vehicles traveled to Paris and the French, adapting the Austrian word, called it a coche. When it arrived in Rome in Italian, it was a cocchio. Eventually, the English called it a coach. When Anne of Bohemia married England’s Richard II in 1382, she brought carriages from Kocs, Hungary with her to England. Wealthy squires had their servants read to them as they drove in these coaches about the countryside or on long trips into a nearby city.

So the first coaches took very important people from where they were – to where they wanted to go. And many of them learned along the way.

Are we taking kids where THEY want to go? And are we teaching them other valuable life lessons in the process?

Team Communication - be seen AND heard!

Communicating on defense is crucial, but for some reason is very
difficult to get players to do. We can`t get them to be quiet in
class and can`t get them to talk on the court - go figure!:?)

To just get them to talk, and also help foster a better team
attitude, we would use a "Buddy System." Whoever your pre-practice
shooting partner was is your "Buddy" for the day. It was up to you
to recognize EVERY positive thing that your "Buddy" did and let them
know. In order for that to happen players had to watch, recognize,
and understand what they were praising. Soon players will be doing
it, on instinct, to players who are not their "Buddies" also. So it
also helped to keep players engaged and positive - leaving them more
receptive to coaching.

Simply encouraging players to talk at all times helps, but having an
organized method gives players specific verbal cues to go with
situations and fosters effective team defensive communication.
Here's our defensive communication system

"BALL"- The most important thing to guard is the basketball. The
player with the ball is the only man that can score. Every time a
pass is throw, someone should let everyone know, verbally, that they
have the "BALL". If you are playing defense and do not hear this,
theoretically, you should turn and look to go cover the player with
the ball.

"BASKET"- The next most important aspect of team defense is to
protect the basket. Once the ball is covered, a player needs to
reteat to the key and call "BASKET". The player responsible for the
basket is usually the furthest man away from the ball, on the side
opposite the ball(weakside).

"HELP(left or right)"- It is helpful if the player guarding the ball
knows if he has any defensive help to his left or his right. The
next defensive player in either direction of the ball should holler,
"HELP"(left or right)". If the offensive player sees(and hears) a
player in position to help, they might not even try to penetrate via
the dribble in that direction.This also allows the defender on the
ball to pressure with a little more confidence.

"CHECK"- When a defender is guarding a player on the weakside of the
floor, many times they are responsible for the basket. In some
offense their man may "flash" to the ball side. The defense should
"check" that cutter in a denial stance and verbally let the team
know, by saying "CHECK". This verbal cue reminds the player to
"check" his man and also reminds the rest of the team to "CHECK" and
see who should be responsible for the "BASKET" next

"CLEAR"- Sometimes an offense will "clear" out the weakside, and
take away the "basket" defender. IF a player has the basket and his
man clears, he should yell,"CLEAR" to let any player in the post
area know that the basket area is clear and there is limited help.
This also could cue teamates to see if , maybe, they can drop and
help protect the "BASKET".

Special Situations - Gut Feeling...or by "the Book"

To clarify our situation chart and the use of "the book", I have a
bench coach that has this chart on the bench and it's been his job
to be "in my ear" and remind me when one of those situations occur.
That doesn't mean that sometimes a "gut feeling" won't trump the
chart, but this serves as a guideline. Obviously, the chart has our
calls, so come up with the plays that you have in your arsenal that
best fit that situation.

Next to the situation have a play or two that you'd prefer to run in
that scenario - then maybe you can choose from a couple diferent
ones. However, some of the situations, for me, ARE pretty cut and
dry and this is what we will do in that situation *every time*. This
way the kids are prepared, through practice, and time outs are not
as necessary. KNOWING what they are going to do does wonders for
their confidence in the fact that they CAN get it done.

Lessons Learned

Having not had a great high school or collegiate experience with
coaches, When I first stopped playing and got into coaching
I thought that I knew better and had all of the answers.
After a few years I realized that I had mentors that were letting me
hang around (regardless of how stubborn I may have been) and I was
not letting them mentor me. So we began to get in open debates and I
took to becoming a real student of the game.

Allowing yourself to be exposed to a variety of ideas and styles of
play helps you solidify what you really believe and enables you
develop your own unique philosophy, instead of just being a clone of
those that you played for.

Later I realized that one of the the most important aspects of teaching was that a player recognized that they made a mistake - not to just let them know how much I know, that I'm in charge and then chastise them for making it. If a player knows that he made a mistake, what to do to correct it, and he also knows that you know - that is far more important than
the tirade that lets him know how upset you are over it.

Developing an economy of words allows you to be more productive in
practice. I remember in practice my first 3 or 4 sentences would be
useless to the kid.

Typical rant: "Dog-gone-it Johnny, how many times are you going to
make that mistake... we've been working on this for a month and you
are still doing the same stupid things that you were doing the first
week in practice... you're so much better than that ...I can't
believe...yada. ..yada... yada..."

At that point I hadn't done a thing to help him yet. He's now checked
out and entirely unable to hear whatever advice I was eventually
ready to give. Get to the point - the tirade is useless. (then when
you finally do have to let loose it will really mean something!:? )

I read a study in Psychology Today by Tharp and Gallimore that
followed John Wooden during his final year and categorized all of
his communication to his players. As a college project I audio-taped
my own practices to try and compare the amount of instruction,
information, praises, criticisms, hustles, etc. I've tried to, less
formally, go back throughout the years and analyze practices
accordingly to keep myself in check.

Possession by Possession

A great Dean Smith quote,
"Pay attention to execution, not the score"
answers another question, "How to get players to play - LOOSE"

During our best season we had a slogan on the back of our t-shirts
that said, "POSSESSION BY POSSESSION"
and our guys completely bought in. Leads or deficits never really
affected their play because it doesn't really matter. We spent a
year trying to take the focus off of the scoreboard because it
doesn't really matter in regards to your effort. What are the
players going to do during "crunch time" - try harder? If so
-shouldn't they have been trying that hard to start with.
Concentrate? Focus? That should start at tip-off.

The score, winning or losing really doesn't matter. The only thing
that matters is NOW. The task at hand. A game isn't just a game - it
is 100+ battles. 50+ on offense and another 50+ on defense. Within
each of those battles might be a dozen different decisions, skills,
techniques, strategies, and tactics that a player has to execute and
each and every second is an adjustment so that you are in the right
stance and spot to get it done.

This is a mentality that has to be fostered in practice. You can't
all of a sudden emphasize the importance of the ball when you
haven't respected the basketball all week during practice. it has
to be a habit - a mentality. You have to start wit hthe first
whistle on the first day of practice. The best thing about this
approach is it allows players to get over mistakes and not dwell on
them or compound them. It allows them to approach an important
possession with the same level of stress as a random possession in
the second quarter.

Early in the year, during a pre-practice soliloquy, I remember
ranting that you should approach every possession like it was a
"*4th quarter in March*." After a year full of never using the word
"WIN" once during a practice, pre-game, halftime talk or time-out we
had an opportunity to play in the finals in 17,000 seat arena that
wasn't anywhere near full - but felt like it. Especially when we got
a big blocked shot that led to a deep 3pter at the buzzer ending the
3rd quarter, giving us the momentum, and giving the crowd a reason
to get loud and crazy. Over the noise I asked the players if they
knew what time it was. They looked at each other trying to figure
out what answer I was looking for, and I reminded them,

"It's now a *4th quarter in March*!".

Why do we coach?

A coach should ask him/herself , "Do those players*play for me*?" or
"Do I coach those players?"

Our great profession got it's name from a vehicle (a coach) that
would take very important people from where they were - to where
they wanted to go.

Are we doing that?

The kids aren't under contract, aren't getting paid (generally!:?),
and have other things going on. If they aren't there - they are
missing out. If we haven't created that feeling then we just have to
keep working harder to get there. Sometimes that is a tough job in
certain places and those coaches have an uphill battle. That's why
those jobs open up more often and the ones where the climb is not so
steep aren't available.

For those that have "hard an fast rules" about summertime, consider
this story:

Facing a demanding schedule of games and travel and weeks of
answering recruiting calls from college coaches has left one of the
top girls basketball players in nation feeling overwhelmed.

So instead of burning out, Ursuline's Elena DelleDonne decided to
take a step back from it all and enjoy the rest of her summer.

DelleDonne took a two month break and played no summer league
games, no tryouts for the U.S. under-19 national team, and no
contact with college recruiters, lest they'd like to hurt their
chances of DelleDonne attending their school. Instead she spent
the rest of her summer volunteer teaching at a Wilmington school
for children with disabilities

And some coaches, according to their *hard and fast rule*, would cut
her ?

Developing Coaching Philosophy

Bobby Knights' retirement and the subsequent secession of his son, Pat Knight, to head coach reminds me that moving over a chair or two to the head coaches seat is so tough - now you HAVE to make those tough decisions.

I think that it's great to take any variety of situations, on and off the court, and play "what if.." to determine what you might do.

Trying to find where, we as coaches, draw the line goes a long way into forming our coaching philosophy.

Too many times young coaches sit down and say, "I want my teams to do A,B, & C and I want to stand for X,Y & Z". Then they are face with a decision and find out that what they believe doesn't always fit into that alphabet scheme that they initially felt was important.

It is MUCH better for a coach to role play through several scenarios, like this, and figure out what they would do. THEN develop your coaching philosophy based on those answers.