Coaching - Process, Consistency, Standards

Coaching isn't a monolith. It's team selection, player development, lineup selection, game strategy, strength and conditioning, practice, in-game adjustments, and the essentials - motivation, encouragement, support and more.

The truth about coaching:
You’ll spend hours drawing up plays and planning practices.
But the hardest, most important work?
Teaching kids how to handle adversity, how to trust their teammates, and how to grow into confident young men and women.

— Steve Collins (@TeachHoopsBBall) January 23, 2026

Every player and team faces adversity, each different. It reminds me of the beginning of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." 

Coaches are economists. Economics is the allocation of scarce resources. There's only so much practice, individual attention, playing time, recognition, health, and luck. Coaches don't control as much as people think they do. 

Relationships, mentoring, and modeling excellence separate programs and coaches. And no matter what you do, it's never as good as you want. 

Lagniappe. From ChatGPT Plus:

Here are three core principles from Alistair McCaw's Habits That Make a Champion, distilled to what actually matters in sport and life:

1. Champions obsess over process, not results

McCaw is relentless on this point: outcomes are lagging indicators.
Elite performers anchor their identity in daily behaviors they can control — preparation, recovery, focus, and effort.

“You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your habits.”

Coaching translation:
Scoreboards don’t build confidence. Reps do. Film study does. Sleep does. Warm-ups done with intent do.

2. Consistency beats intensity

Champions don’t rely on motivation spikes. They rely on repeatable systems. What matters isn’t the heroic workout or inspired practice - it’s the quiet, boring, done-again-today habits.

Small advantages, practiced relentlessly, compound.

Key insight:
Missing occasionally isn’t fatal. Being inconsistent by design is.

Sport lens:
Show up on time. Same pre-practice routine. Same recovery habits. Same attention to detail — whether it’s a Tuesday in January or a playoff game.

3. Standards > goals

Goals are temporary. Standards are permanent. McCaw argues that champions don’t ask, “Did I hit my goal?” They ask, “Did I live up to my standard?”

Standards remove negotiation.

Examples of standards:

• I finish every rep with intent

• I respond to mistakes with composure

• I prepare as if I’m playing tomorrow

This aligns perfectly with culture building: standards travel with you when conditions change.

The through-line

McCaw’s central claim is simple but ruthless:

Excellence is not an event. It’s a habit stack.