Thoughts on Good Coaching

My opinions on coaching didn't arrive on stone tablets. Six full decades of playing and coaching color them.  

Coaching may never have been harder. With access to information across many platforms, everyone has opinions on coaching. You've heard it. "Any idiot with a whistle can coach." Try it someday.

I recommend Carl Pierson's The Politics of Coaching to every coach and every sports parent. Carl coached three sports for over forty coaching seasons and has pretty much seen it all. He shares practical wisdom and unbelievable stories of coaches undermining peers, parents out to remove coaches, and more. 

We may view coaches through lenses of playing time and role for our children. I've been on both sides of the line. 

1. Cultivate relationships. Fortunate players maintain relationships with coaches over their lives, because coaches change lives. Ellen and I celebrated our fortieth anniversary with Coach Sonny Lane and his wife Paula. As Melrose AD, Lane hired Coach Scott Celli.  

2. Add value. Players usually know when coaches add value. Coaching is teaching, but players must incorporate the teaching. Players who listen and work have a chance to improve faster and further. One hot Sunday night, I showed Cecilia Kay how to do reverse layups. She struggled. The next Sunday, she could do them better than I can. In the State Championship game last March, she scored twice on reverse layups. 

3. Develop 'possession enders'. Possession enders get scores (e.g. kills, hoops, assists) and stops (blocks, rebounds, steals). Nobody wins without good players. Recruit and retain them or develop them. 

4. Develop leaders. "Leaders make leaders." Leaders help navigate tough times and sticky situations. 

CAPTAINS: The most important person you should lead is YOU. You have to lead yourself positively before you can ever expect to lead anyone else. Don't expect others to follow your lead if you're not doing what you're supposed to do. Be an example to your teammates.

— Jamy Bechler (@CoachBechler) September 30, 2023

5. Model excellence. Coaches model excellence through communication, "speaking greatness." Successful coaches excel at player development. "Every day is player development day." 

6. Learn constantly. Coach Scott Celli is a constant learner. Each year the team has shared book reading, this year Coach Krzyzewski's Beyond Basketball. He recently shared that he is reading Dr. Myron Rolle's new book. Few NFL players are literally brain surgeons, Dr. Rolle in the middle of Neurosurgery training. 

7. Make hard choices. Lineups are not set in stone. Teams are always a work in progress. Coaches work to make teams "antifragile" and not vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life. Players get injured, sick, or in a rut. Sometimes one player's rise displaces another. Strong coaches have the capacity to "think again" and adapt. Understand that "it's not who starts, it's who finishes."

8. "Do the right thing." It's impossible to make everyone happy because within the triad of minutes, role, and recognition, there is always an imbalance between supply and demand.

9. Develop a philosophy. Not saying mine was right, but I believe in teamwork, improvement, and accountability - holding yourself to a high standard. I don't believe in a lot of rules because the more rules, the harder to follow them. "Do what is in the best interest of the team" and "don't embarrass yourself or the team" make sense to me. Every player's behavior may impact every other player. 

10. Be a mentor and find mentors. Mr. Rogers had it right, "Look for the helpers." A well-known basketball coach, Herb Welling, told me, "when you get the 'generational player' you have to take care of her." You don't ignore the 'twelfth player' because you have the true superstar, but you can't treat everyone exactly the same. 

Melrose is fortunate to have Coach Celli steering the ship. 

Lagniappe. Serving ideas.