Make friends with the dead. Timeless wisdom belongs in your personal toolbox.
These were shared by "Stoic Rise."
Hold on to our humanity.
15. pic.twitter.com/qb3yEdbs4F
— StoicRise (@StoicRise) July 30, 2025
To live better, think better.
12. pic.twitter.com/b3XJsPF22V
— StoicRise (@StoicRise) July 30, 2025
Often we progress in study or training alone.
— StoicRise (@StoicRise) July 30, 2025
Our middle school basketball team had just taken a pounding, which happens. Head Coach Ralph Labella was upset at our girls lack of response to the aggressiveness and physicality of the opponents. He said, "Ron, say something to them."
"You cannot fail to respond to your opponent, allowing them to walk all over you. How you play basketball is how you live your life." Over six months later, Kiki Kiernan (also MVB) came up to me and said, "That how you play is how you live really got to me."
Play sports and sometimes you lose. But there's losing with attention to detail, effort, and energy as a worthy opponent. And there's "not showing up" or "mailing it in." Unacceptable.
Coaches want teams to reflect their personality - prepared, dynamic, selfless, tough, relentless. When teams give their best and it's not good enough, tip your hat to your opponent and prepare for the next game.
Players don't always get to control the situation they're in; they always have a choice on how they respond.
Lagniappe. Resilience is a skill. Manage it with mental skills training and physical actions like muscle contraction (e.g. holding a fist) and controlled breathing.
Be a lifelong learner. Read every day. Reading eye-catching summaries can help us retain key points from highly-regarded "how to" books.
The more learning and thinking tools that you acquire as a young person, the better your long-term "knowledge work."
Here's a link to ten visual summaries...books like James Clear's "Atomic Habits" and Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements."
An example of Clear's Atomic Habits visual summary.
Winning little battles is what wins the games… this is well said by Steve Kerr
— Hoop Herald (@TheHoopHerald) July 24, 2025
“How many battles, little battles can you win? Box out, loose ball. He won a million battles tonight. That’s what wins games.”
(Via @anthonyVslater 🎥)
pic.twitter.com/qCZ02VClyS
A big difference between volleyball and basketball is that every "possession" scores. If you take a play off physically or mentally, you lose the point.
Every play has a 'serve-receive battle'.
Many plays have an attack/block or attack/dig battle.
The exceptional teams win points. The Newton Norths and Westboroughs don't give away many points. Once the Middlesex League wasn't so strong, so there might be five or six highly competitive matches. Now the regular season brings more than half the matches as highly competitive. You can't rely on the "generosity of strangers" to give you points.
Succeed with aggression, consistency, and mental toughness.
Lagniappe. Q&A video.
John Wooden was more than a coach.
— Greg Berge (@gb1121) July 29, 2025
He was a master teacher.
His book, Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections on and off the Court, is a second Bible for me.
Here are 20 of the most powerful concepts from Coach Wooden:
🔖 Bookmark this. Share it with your team.… pic.twitter.com/KplnlR5wIG
Coach John Wooden is in the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach. Only four people are enshrined as both players and coaches - Wooden, Bill Sharman, Lenny Wilkens, and Tom Heinsohn. Heinsohn used to be in Melrose a lot to golf at Bellevue.
Warren Buffett uses the 25-5 principle. Make a list of 25 possibilities and edit to a manageable "best" list. Here are three worth considering:
1) "Make each day your masterpiece." (from Wooden's dad, Joshua)..this is similar to the Fourth Agreement, "Always do your best."
2) "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail." My favorite parts of coaching were developing relationships with players and families and practice. (uses the rhetorical principle of chiasmus, such as "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." - John F. Kennedy inauguration 1961
3) "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." (Be a lifelong learner)
After 30+ years of coaching and leadership… here are 9 lessons I keep coming back to.
— Greg Berge (@gb1121) July 28, 2025
Some are simple.
Some took years to learn.
All of them still matter, every season, every team.
📸 9 Coaching Lessons That Matter Most pic.twitter.com/Oh8WI1XVOM
What principles matter most? Argue that the ones that stick with us through life, work in many settings, and make those around us better.
1. Relationships. Sports are about relationships, trust in your coaches, your teammates, and everyone around you. Trust is earned. Trust gets you on the court and keeps you there.
2. Simplicity. Baseball Hall of Famer Ken Griffey, Jr. said, "see ball, hit ball." Pass, set, hit done well is hard to beat. As Ben Franklin said, "well done is better than well said."
3. Culture matters. Culture is the ecosystem of your program. Great culture is inclusivity, unity, positivity. Fight for your culture every day.
Lagniappe. Win with fundamental excellence.
"“And it’s good to see man because, obviously, we come from two different types of football. I’m not saying I’m old or anything, but just to be able to see that attitude and aggression to get better every day, that makes me want to come in every day and be better.
“When you got somebody like that who’s pushing you at the opposite end, that’s when you become bookends.”" - Morgan Moses about Will Campbell, via Mike Giardi in "Boston Sports Journal" (subscription)
You improve or you get worse; you don't stay the same.
When a slacker quits a job, nobody cares. The saying goes, "don't let the door hit you on the backside on your way out."
Organizational success depends on the individual and collective work of everyone. Positivity breeds positivity. Energy energizes. Hard work makes others work hard.
If you're the "lead dog" on the sled, your daily enthusiasm and example set the tone for the group. Coaches and top players aren't allowed to have "off days."
I probably shared this before. Years ago a Red Sox player got an enormous contract. He was overheard saying, "Nothing else matters. I got paid." What happened to his career? It spiraled downward and he got traded. He got paid, but he got worse, lacking professionalism.
Investigative journalist Bob Woodward kept a sign on his desk, FAA. It didn't mean Federal Aviation Administration. "Focus and Act Aggressively." Stay in the fight.
Lagniappe. Another FAA? Footwork, arms load, attack. Her first step is tiny, so it's just as much a three-step approach.
“Stop undercutting yourself. As you just experienced, there will always be people out there to do it for you. You just have to block them out."
- Michael Connelly in “The Burning Man”
Everything matters. Your attitude, how you treat others, your self-talk.
Don’t say, “this is just my first year on varsity” or “I’m only a freshman.”
Know your job. Pay attention to details. Do your job. Block out the noise and get the job done.
Lagniappe. You're doing some of these already.
The game is for the players. Coaches matter, families matter, everything matters. Coaches worry about everything, especially what happens away from school and away from the court.
"Your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear a word you say." Your actions define you. How you treat others defines you.
"Character is job one." - Etorre Messina You cannot separate who you are from how you play. Exceptional players set the tone.
"Sport doesn't build character, it reveals it." The top award for UNC women's soccer wasn't the MVP, it's the "Kelly Muldoon Award" for character.
Culture and values are unique to each team. The 2008 (from ChatGPT) used these principles:
Here's the core values list the Celtics embraced under the 2007–08 Ubuntu initiative, popularized by Doc Rivers:
Trust
Accountability
Freedom
Teamwork
Brotherhood/Family mentality (i.e., one team, one goal)
You live your values and reveal your character. What are your MVB 25 core values?
Lagniappe. If you have the time someday, watch this Anson Dorrance talk.
21 days until tryouts!
Playday is set for Saturday, August 30.
Melrose
Marblehead
Methuen
Central Catholic
North Andover
Lynn Classical
Sabine will get a lot of attention in her senior season.
How to start building discipline pic.twitter.com/ogCRQyOogj
— Book Therapy (@Book_therapy223) July 23, 2025
Nothing is possible without discipline. Every advance requires discipline to start, discipline to continue against obstacles, discipline to finish.
“Discipline is more important than conviction.”
Discipline means more than 'showing up'. To paraphrase market wisdom, "In the short term, discipline is a voting machine. In the long-term, discipline is a weighing machine." Your results follow your efforts. "Discipline defines destiny."
How you do anything is how you do everything. What becomes of MVB graduates? Look on LinkedIn and find success continuing.
Imagine being unhappy with our personal and team positivity. What concrete actions can we adopt?
"All the time and energy you spend fixing your unforced errors comes at the expense of moving toward the outcomes you want. There is a huge advantage in having more of your energy instead go toward achieving your goals instead of fixing your problems." - Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results by Shane Parrish
Two common traps hold players back. The first is failing to play to your strengths—losing sight of what makes you you. The second is settling for “good enough,” ignoring mistakes instead of confronting them head-on.
Know your calling card. Know your best pitch.
Especially with young athletes, focus first on what they do best. Build from strengths before picking apart flaws. Confidence grows when identity is clear.
Michael Jordan shot just 32.7% from three over his career. He’s still widely regarded as the greatest ever—not because of what he lacked, but because of what he mastered.
Be great at what you do a lot.
A prized skill portfolio is the ability to make teammates better, which makes the team better.
In studying or coaching, consider specific ways to achieve results.
1. Leadership. It's essential for top players to model excellence - punctuality, positivity, effort.
2. Mentoring. "Mentoring is the only shortcut to excellence." Teach the culture. "This is who we are." Upperclassmen unselfishly show younger players "this is how we do it." They "know the way, show the way, and go the way."
3. No distractions. Always "represent" yourself, your family, and the team at home, in the classroom, in the community, and on the court. When you're studying, study. No texting and driving. Follow the chemical substance policy. "The adolescent brain suffers numerous toxicities from alcohol."
4. How excellence looks. Are you setting or raising the standard:
Larry Bossidy wrote a book The Discipline of Execution, emphasizing that execution comes from people, strategy, and operations.
People - who's on the bus?
Strategy - what plan or blueprint you want people to follow?
Operations - the day-to-day nuts and bolts of how you play.
Here's an excerpt from Brad Stevens' recent post-season reset interview about acquiring a couple of new guys. I expect that Coach Scott Celli would echo these sentiments. Source, John Karalis, Boston Sports Journal
ON SIGNING LUKA GARZA AND JOSH MINOTT
“I think one of the things that we’ve, obviously, we’ve been limited in what tools we can use with where we are right around the second apron. So we’re looking for guys on those contracts that have upside, that are competitors, that are workers, that want to be good, that haven’t hit their peak yet but we’ve seen something in them that we think gives them a chance to be very impactful.
Limited tools - we're not getting free agents for MVB.
Character - guys with upside, competitors, workers, that want to be good
Impactful - impact the culture positively, impact winning
Lagniappe. Quote from "Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon
"The solution is really simple: Figure out what time you can carve out, what time you can steal, and stick to your routine. Do the work every day, no matter what. No holidays, no sick days. Don’t stop. What you’ll probably find is that the corollary to Parkinson’s Law is usually true: Work gets done in the time available."
All opinions expressed in the blog are solely my own.
“You can’t always be the most talented person in the room. But you can be the most competitive.”
— Jamy Bechler (@CoachBechler) June 29, 2025
~ Pat Summitt pic.twitter.com/c9S7McBWsl
"You know it when you see it." Brad Stevens calls it "competitive character." Lots of euphemisms exist for competitiveness:
In the animal kingdom, pound for pound, the honey badger is one of the toughest animals. They have thick hides, resist snake venom, and do not back down. Because of their toughness, they have few enemies.
One of the highest compliments you can give a player is calling her "the honey badger."
Model your competitive character after the honey badger. They meet what Anson Dorrance called "competitive fury."
Lagniappe. An excerpt from an old basketball blog post:
"A player's most important quality isn't skill."
"How you play is how you live."
"The summit is not the only place on the mountain."
"Our choices define us." (Decisions determine destiny.)
"Everyone can be a great teammate."
"The best players make others better."
"The magic is in the work."
"Don't cheat the drill."
"Become your better version."
"We can always give more."
"Will and skill."
"Basketball is sharing." - Phil Jackson
"Remember the guys who quit? Nobody else does either."
"Say yes to opportunity."
"Invest your time don't spend it."
"Chop wood; carry water." - Zen proverb
"Do more of what is working and less of what isn't."
"Is what you're doing now getting you closer to where you want to be?"
"Learning doesn't stop."
Be excited not nervous. Tryouts start August 18th, little more than three weeks hence. Have a clear vision of your mission. Earn the trust of Coach Scott Celli and his staff.
962 English words end in *bility. Ability, accountability, durability, flexibility, and responsibility all matter. Trust is their sum.
Trust shows up at home, in class, in the community, at practice, and during games. Trust means doing the right things, the right way, all the time.
Trust means the coaches aren't worried about your behavior on Friday night at midnight. Trust means taking care of yourself, representing MVB, not acting out on social media.
Trust speaks attention to detail, reading the plays, making good decisions, and staying focused for the whole match.
Trust is a two-way street. It begins with trusting yourself, wanting the ball in the big moments.
Earn coach's trust and you're out there in the fifth set with the score even at 13 and beyond. You're on the floor at set point, match point, championship point.
Set 5, Sectional Final on the road, Melrose leading 15-14, Autumn Whelan serving championship point.
*Adapted from my basketball blog
Coach Ralph Labella would tell the girls, "I want to see good basketball. Show your parents good basketball." Fans want to see good volleyball.
My nurse practitioner's husband was a carpenter and craftsman. When workers were in a tight space that he couldn't inspect, he told them that the work should reach the quality such that they could "put their signature" on the work.
Robert Pirsig addressed quality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. “Care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristic of quality.”
Quality is elusive and like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
In The Mamba Mentality, Kobe Bryant writes, "If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness."
Quality play starts with quality attitude. Cecilia Kay will enter her sophomore year at St. Joseph's soon. She said that her closest teammate at American University last year went to practice to give her best every day seeking a chance to succeed, knowing she might never play. That's quality.
Quality volleyball includes preparation, effort, good decision-making, toughness and avoiding critical mental and physical mistakes such as violations, poor shot selection, and careless errors.
Lagniappe. AI commentary on Quality from the DeepSeek application...
Robert Pirsig’s exploration of Quality in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (ZAMM) offers profound insights that can be applied to basketball coaching. Pirsig argues that Quality is the fundamental reality that precedes intellectual distinctions—it is the immediate, pre-rational experience of excellence that unifies subject and object. For a basketball coach, cultivating Quality means fostering an environment where players and the game itself merge into a seamless, dynamic flow. Here’s how Pirsig’s concepts apply:
1. Quality as the Foundation of Coaching
- Pirsig suggests that Quality cannot be strictly defined but is felt—like the difference between a well-executed play and a forced one. A great coach recognizes and nurtures this intuitive sense of "rightness" in players.
- Application: Instead of overloading players with rigid systems, prioritize cultivating their innate feel for the game—spacing, timing, and unselfishness. Drills should emphasize flow (e.g., read-and-react offenses) over robotic repetition.
2. Classical vs. Romantic Understanding of the Game
- Pirsig distinguishes between classical (analytical, technical) and romantic (aesthetic, experiential) approaches. Basketball coaching often leans too far into classical—playbooks, stats, set plays—while neglecting the romantic beauty of improvisation and joy.
- Application: Balance structured strategies with opportunities for creative play. Encourage "streetball" elements in practice (e.g., unstructured scrimmages) to develop instinctive decision-making alongside set plays.
3. Overcoming the "Gumption Trap"
- Pirsig describes how frustration (e.g., a player’s slump, a team’s losing streak) drains gumption (motivation + confidence). Coaching must address psychological blocks as much as skill gaps.
- Application: Use mindfulness techniques (e.g., brief meditation, reflective journaling) to help players reset. Focus on process over results—Pirsig’s "care" as attentiveness to the present moment.
4. The Metaphysics of "Stuckness"
- When systems fail (e.g., a play breaks down), Pirsig advises leaning into the problem rather than forcing old solutions. "Stuckness" is a chance to reevaluate assumptions.
- Application: If a strategy isn’t working (e.g., a press defense getting beaten), involve players in diagnosing why. This collaborative problem-solving mirrors Pirsig’s mechanic who listens to the motorcycle.
5. Quality in Team Dynamics
- Pirsig’s Quality arises when there’s no separation between the doer and the deed. A team operating at Quality moves as one—think the 2014 Spurs’ "beautiful game."
- Application: Build chemistry through shared experiences (film study, team dinners) and emphasize *empathy* in play (e.g., passing up a good shot for a teammate’s great shot).
6. The Coach as a Zen Mechanic
- Pirsig’s ideal mechanic doesn’t fight the machine but works with it. Similarly, a coach must adapt to their players’ strengths rather than impose a foreign system.
- Application: Like tailoring a motorcycle’s carburetor to its engine, design offenses around your personnel (e.g., Princeton sets for high-IQ players, dribble-drive for athletic guards).
Final Thought:
Pirsig’s Quality in coaching is about removing barriers—between mind and body, planning and instinct, individual and team. The best coaches don’t just teach basketball; they create conditions where the game "teaches itself" through the players. As Pirsig writes, "The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands." For a coach, that improvement starts by recognizing Quality—and getting out of its way.
Lagniappe. Do you love the game? If you don't, then how can it love you back?
The kind of players college coaches are looking for.
— Coach Tony Miller (@tonywmiller) June 6, 2025
Can you impact the game without the basketball?
Do your actions show you truly love the game? pic.twitter.com/hRL0ytHc54
See with "coaches' eyes." Coaches see skill, strategy, size and athleticism, resilience. There's performance and projection. She's the "it girl."
Outside observers see a pony. The trainer sees an emerging thoroughbred. Michelangelo said that his job was to free a statue from a block of marble.
Every exceptional player at one time was a little girl.
The Crovo sisters (Stephanie - left and Victoria with Liz Sheerin) left MVB legacies. Stephanie played on the 2012 State Title team and Victoria, "V-Rex" was a four-year star who earned All-State and All-Scholastic honors.
"Everyone is necessarily the hero of their own story."
Each season informs a distinct entity with a new cast of characters, new story lines, and a plot whose ending is a work in progress.
What plot lines belong?
1) Player development. Which players surprise with skill and physical development? Athletic explosion plays.
2) Youth movement. MVB has always blended a mixture of youth and experience. The 2003 sectional championship (first of a three-peat) had a pair of sophomores as key rotational players. 2010 had a host of future stars who forged the "four-peat" of sectional championships from 2009-2012, culminating with a State Title.
3) Defensive realignment. Losing nine seniors, MVB has burgeoning opportunity, especially in the back row.
4) Reloading not rebuilding. Young players set an agenda of excellence not contribution.
5) What's my line? There are always "mystery guests" whose performance adds extra shine. The Middle School volleyball program is about to bear fruit.
6) Top of the roster. "The sun is always going to shine, but you never know how hot it's going to get."
7) "Iron sharpens iron." The schedule is different but still challenging, especially with improvement in the ML12.
Tryouts begin on the 18th and the preseason schedule soon after, before the PlayDay.
"John Gardner said the basic plot of nearly all stories is this: “A character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.”" - "Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered" by Austin Kleon
This quote defines the volleyball season:
Summer vacation means a time without school, not without reading. Always have an answer to "what are you learning?" It might be auto mechanics, plumbing, or cooking.
Did you know the chef's toque with 100 pleats symbolizes different ways to prepare eggs?
I'm reading Michael Connelly's "The Late Show," Dick DeVenzio's "Runnin' the Show" and Nassim Taleb's "Skin in the Game." Books introduce new people, new places, and new ideas. When a SpaceX rocket fails, I know that Elon Musk will want another launch ASAP...it's in his biography.
Creating great habits young gives you more years of applying those habits.
Per ChatGPT: What benefits accrue to readers?
Reading yields a range of tangible benefits that show up in academic performance, cognitive development, and even long-term income. Here’s a breakdown of measurable outcomes supported by research:
Grades: Students who read for pleasure tend to earn higher grades across subjects, especially in English and humanities. They develop better comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills, all of which are crucial in school.
Standardized Test Scores:
Reading frequently is associated with higher scores on standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT, and NAEP.
A study by the OECD found that reading enjoyment is more strongly associated with academic success than socioeconomic status.
Vocabulary Growth: Reading is the strongest predictor of vocabulary acquisition, which correlates with academic and career success.
Working Memory & Attention: Regular readers—especially fiction readers—show improved concentration, memory retention, and mental flexibility.
General Knowledge: Reading builds a broad knowledge base, aiding performance in school and decision-making in life.
Higher Earnings:
A 2004 British study (Green & Riddell) linked literacy scores with increased earnings and employability.
In the U.S., individuals with higher literacy levels earn 30–42% more than those with basic or below-basic reading levels.
Career Mobility: High literacy supports success in education, which opens access to higher-paying careers.
College Readiness and Graduation: Students who read independently are more likely to:
Attend and graduate from college.
Persist through college due to stronger comprehension and study skills.
Students who read frequently and proficiently are less likely to drop out of school, a strong predictor of both income and health outcomes.
"1. The emotion default: we tend to respond to feelings rather than reasons and facts. 2. The ego default: we tend to react to anything that threatens our sense of self-worth or our position in a group hierarchy. 3. The social default: we tend to conform to the norms of our larger social group. 4. The inertia default: we’re habit forming and comfort seeking. We tend to resist change, and to prefer ideas, processes, and environments that are familiar." - "Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results" by Shane Parrish
"You need self-confidence to think independently and to stand firm in the face of social pressure, ego, inertia, or emotion." - Shane Parrish in "Clear Thinking"
"You can only be as successful as your belief in yourself." I've told this story before about an MVB player walking onto the court, standing tall, head up, thinking "the best player in the gym just walked in." That was her superpower.
Believe that the next serve is landing, the next attack is a winner, the next block scores. There is a 'caveat'. Bill Parcells says, "Confidence comes from proven success."
More athletes fail from lack of confidence than from lacking the talent to be successful.
Here are Karch Kiraly's thoughts on confidence, via ChatGPT:
“There’s nothing worse than the feeling of wishing you had another chance at a play because you weren’t ready. Every athlete has those feelings to mull over, and over and over ... Don’t even expose yourself to the possibility to being caught off-guard.” volleyballadvisors.com+9flovolleyball.tv+9adamjohnsonvolleyballacademy.com+9
Kiraly emphasizes that confidence starts with thorough preparation—being mentally and physically ready so you're never wishing you had prepared more.
“Over the years, I realized that if I'd done everything possible to prepare myself for matches and tournaments, it took a weight off my shoulders and allowed me to play without fear of losing. When you've done everything you can to train yourself for competition, you'll sleep well when the tournament is over, win or lose.” flovolleyball.tv
By putting in the work and preparation, you're freeing yourself to play confidently—regardless of the outcome.
Kiraly’s core message? Confidence isn’t just a feeling—it’s built through preparation, self-talk, and embracing challenges. When you train hard, prepare diligently, and commit mentally, confidence becomes a byproduct—not a goal.
Prep every scenario — drills, position rotations, even tough serves.
Own your routine — establish pre-serve or pre-rotation habits to stay grounded.
Positive self-talk — replace doubt with cue words like “ready” or “go”.
Prepare to be ready for every opponent's best - their best defense, best serves, and best attacks.
Lagniappe. "Self-confidence is the strength to focus on what’s right instead of who’s right. It’s the strength to face reality. It’s the strength to admit mistakes, and the strength to change your mind. Self-confidence is what it takes to be on the right side of right." - Shane Parrish in "Clear Thinking"
