GOLD STANDARD COACHING @CoachLok

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, techni...

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 0365/1035/SPORTS14">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 b...

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.