Aging as a Coach

Plow Boy, 1950

"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations." -Isaac Disraeli

Coaching is art. Grandma Moses started painting at 76 years old. 

Mike Krzyzewski, 76

Gregg Popovich, 74 

Jim Larranaga, 73 (Final Four Coach, 2023)

Tara VanDerveer, 69

Geno Auriemma, 69

Tom Izzo, 68

John Calipari, 64

I hear the whispers. "Have you thought about hiring him?" "He's really old. Cripes, he knew God's dog when he was a puppy." 

Yes, coaches are not immune from aging. Remember, President Reagan's line about youth and inexperience. 

The twin torments of studying older coaches are 1) lengthy resume and experience and 2) the legacy of any failure to use against them. Warren Buffett's partner Charlie Munger (age 99) says, 

"We try more to profit from always remembering the obvious than from grasping the esoteric. It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent."

Part of the coaching game is studying to become better year after year. Older coaches have the advantage of "compounding," leveraging gains accrued over time. "Experience is the best teacher, but sometimes the tuition is high." 

There's something called the 'survivor effect'. You seldom see full-on hatchet jobs done on older coaches. If they were so incompetent and contentious, they'd already be out. 

Use analogies. Here's another Munger quote on Berkshire-Hathaway, their company in Munger's book, Poor Charlie's Almanack: 

"The key is having good businesses." There's a lot of momentum here. I don't think our successors will be as good as Warren at capital allocation. Berkshire is drowning in money-we have great businesses pounding out money.

Restate: "The key is having good players. I don't think our successors will be as good as Warren at player development. (We) are drowning in performance- we have great players pounding out performance." 

Another Munger quote, "We're trying to buy businesses with sustainable competitive advantages at a low, or even a fair, price." The question for us old coaches becomes, "what are the sustainable competitive advantages?" A legacy might help with recruiting but not necessarily player development. 

1) Recruiting. There are some programs that aggregate talent. I'll credit the coach for his recruiting. Great job finding those players. 

2) Player development. I've seen a number of highly competitive youth teams whose development didn't translate into high school. I doubt it was because the high school coach was incompetent. I suspect the players scattered to the winds. I can name some exceptional coaches who develop players and teams, but get overshadowed by the aggregators. 

The lessons? Study, study greatness, keep getting better, whatever our age.  

Lagniappe. Devise a workout you can follow a few days a week. Obviously, you're using lighter weight and you don't need "boxes" for things like reverse lunges. You can use a single stair. 

Get Pumped Up

Learn from great sharers like MasterClass professors. 

"You don't have to be perfect to be confident." - Malala, Nobel Peace Prize winner

"All it needs is you believing in yourself." - Malala

"The stage is yours." - Malala

"Align our North Star with our actions...say no to what doesn't matter." - Robin Arzon, influencer (Another saying for this is, "Don't major in the minors." Be good at what you do a lot.")

"Moments of self-doubt usually mean you're getting out of your comfort zone." - Robin Arzon

"Success is the by-product of hard work..." - Samuel L. Jackson

"Can't be a great basketball player if you can't dribble and can't shoot." - Sam Jackson (on career fundamentals)

"Do you want to be an artist or do you want to be famous?" - Sam Jackson

"The best antidote for fear is competence." - Chris Hadfield, Astronaut

"To hear male colleagues dismiss other women...is scary." - Issa Rae

"You don't have to be a mean person...to get your message across." - Issa Rae

"Men get to do it...they get called visionaries." - Issa Rae

"You can use your voice to make sure the job gets done right." - Issa Rae (Don't be afraid to lead when your message is pure.)

"You can't have any self-doubt about your conviction and commitment to do this." - Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO

"Are you willing to sacrifice so much for this endeavor?" - Howard Schultz

"Don't look back and have regrets...I tried something." - Howard Schultz

"I believe we are here to serve the world...render service." - LeVar Burton, actor

"It's important to learn to delay gratification...in favor of process." - LeVar Burton

Lagniappe (something extra). Odd volleyball rules. Will we see any of them? 

"Leave an Impression"

 

Grandmaster Garry Kasparov says that part of chess is knowing what not to do when there's nothing to do and what to do when there's something to do. 

Be able to create and press your advantage. Great process allows you to "leave an impression." 

Chess players see the board in 'chunks' to develop themes. 

If you wanted to memorize a speech, you might "chunk it" as in "four score and seven years ago." 

In basketball you might have a guard, post, wing triangle that generates numerous scoring options from the same spacing. 

How could you use "chunking" in volleyball? For example, how about a pass to the middle for a set?

• Set the outside hitter
• Set the opposite
• Set for a back row attack
• Backset short attack
• The rhythm of the outside attack footwork

Learning is complex process that demands that you "learn how to learn." Chunking adds value.

Practice the footwork visualizing it first, practicing, and repeating. UCLA basketball coach John Wooden preached EDIR5 - explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition x 5. 

Top performers in any domain use this process. "Repetition makes reputations." 

"The Politics of Coaching," Thoughts from Carl Pierson

Carl Pierson's "The Politics of Coaching" adds valuable contribution to the coaching literature.

Coach Pierson coached multiple seasons of multiple sports and shares the many difficulties associated with coaching and community politics. Everyone has their stories and I'll share a few. 

As high school players fifty years ago, we heard community 'noise' questioning the priority of winning versus participation. A local politician's child had been 'cut' during tryouts, triggering a veritable kangaroo court. I call this the "Prime Directive," the understandable reality that parents want what is best for their child over what is good for a team.

Pierson discusses ways that parents work to exclude young players from competing for spots against existing team members. That includes preventing incoming high schoolers from competing with high school teams in workouts or offseason teams. 

A minefield awaits new coaches. Does the new coach give 'preference' to existing players (seniority) or allow younger players an equal competitive footing? This robbing Peter to pay Paul upsets people who don't see younger players as having "paid their dues." Of course, it doesn't recognize what investment actually occurred. And when the younger players compete at an equal or higher level yet get disenfranchised, many quit. 

Here are some Pierson quotes:

"Recognizing who the key decision makers are in the hiring process and who exerts the most influence over those decision makers is the beginning of running a successful campaign."

"Know your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses before you begin your campaign for a head coaching position."

"When conducting individual meetings it has become critically important that the head coach not be alone in the room with the player when the conversation happens."***

"Any mention of playing time ends the discussion. Any mention of a player other than your child ends the discussion."

"A coach that refuses to communicate with the players and parents in their program is creating the breeding ground for a coup."

"Parents have one agenda and that is to do whatever is necessary to help their kid."

"A lot can change between now and the start of next season...be extremely careful about making promises..."

"Keep comments broad or generic and you will do a great deal to diminish public criticism." 

"Never provide parents or opposing teams with ammunition." 

"A coach's job as it pertains to the media is to promote their program and project a positive image..." 

"When a coach is visible at these (youth) events, the youth players and their parents take notice. They see the coach is genuinely interested in them and their progress." 

"As hard as it is to accept, sometimes playing to win is what costs a coach their career." (Have definitely seen this.)

"Stat rats are players that are concerned only about their individual performance and statistics."

Lagniappe. A valuable skill... 

"Rare and Valuable"

Please give me fifteen minutes of your valuable time...one minute to read the blog and fourteen minutes for the video. 

1. Add value to the world by producing "rare and valuable" content... writing, music, imagination, great volleyball. 

2. Maximize your intensity (focus, attention) to get more done in less time. Remember:

ACHIEVEMENT = PERFORMANCE x TIME 

We all need less multitasking and more 'deep work'. 

3. Diminish anxiety through shared personal experiences with your family and friends. 

Top Mental Models for Decision-Making Plus Amazing Video

Think about thinking. Think better. Think faster. Learn to think better while young and you enjoy 'sustainable competitive advantage' for your whole life. 

Let's start slowly with three key 'mental models'.

• Sample size
• Circle of Competence
• Inversion

Sample size is the easiest. To make better judgements about a person, player, or product, more observations are necessary. On our "best day" as a player, we might 'wow' a scout or a fan. On our worst day, they'd be less enthusiastic. 

English scholar Ed Smith says that taking a "weighted average" helps our opinion. How a player performs at home, away, against poor and quality competition aids our assessment. 

But remember that "scouts" or employers also look for disqualifying traits, because they have enough 'headaches' (problem children) already. If the 'scout' sees you throw the ball at the official, she's walking out that door and your chances leave with her. 

Melrose has never had "full on" knuckleheads on its volleyball roster. But the principle still applies.

Circle of Competence. Some say, "stay in your lane." 

There's the 'body of knowledge', 'what we think we know', and 'what we know'. While working to expand our "knowledge base," it's often helpful not to stray far from what we know. 

Imagine that you are the tenth best poker player in the world. Heady stuff. But you're in a game of Texas Hold 'Em with the top five players in the world. Your edge is gone. 

Take a player with a dynamic serve like Leah Fowke. If you had her serve, would you start over with a jump serve or work to refine your already excellent skill? 

Inversion. Mathematician Carl Jacobi said, "Invert, always invert." What would happen if we chose the opposite or another approach? 

We can apply this philosophy across domains. If you were a chess master, do you always play the same opening or vary it? Would a baseball pitcher be better off changing his pitch mix from sixty percent fastballs and forty percent offspeed? Would a volleyball setter enhance the attack efficiency with more sets to the outside, back row, to the opposite?

Former Celtics Assistant Kevin Eastman had a saying when things weren't working, "Do it harder, do it better, change players, or #$%& it ain't working" meaning do something else. 

Consider working through the series to improve our thinking. 

Getting more clarity using mental models will pay you many times over. 

Lagniappe. Amazing video.

 

The Ingredients that Comprise Great Teams: Observations, Research, AI

Great teams forge elite collaboration. Coach K likens it to a fist, generating more power than a finger.

What makes exceptional teams? Reflect on personal observations, research, and artificial intelligence.

Personal Observations:

1. Talent. There's a literature of "Talent Is Overrated" but good luck winning without talent. In the technique, tactics, physicality, and psychology hierarchy, talent leads. Great teams have 'possession enders' who score, force stops, and rebound.

2. Technique. If one offense - DDM, Triangle, Princeton were best, everyone would use it and advantage would disappear. The same goes for defense. How you play matters more than what you run. Coherence, playing as one separates teams. 

3. Consistency matters, the ability to play more good possessions. Play harder for longer. 

4. Make moments in the big moments. Exceptional teams find an extra gear when needed.

5. Unity. Great teams have clear identity, clear communication, and work off the same script. 

Study greatness. And share. Don Yaeger interviewed over a hundred coaches looking for insights. 

Yaeger's search wasn't unique. Leadership author Simon Sinek asks, "what's your 'why'?" Put a team under the microscope. What do we see? Long before the Red Sox won anything, there was a saying, "25 guys, 25 cabs." Great teams win collectively, greater than the sum of their parts. 

When Coach Mike Krzyzewski coached USA Basketball, he showed them great teams - on military bases and on a trip to Arlington National Cemetery. The trips informed superstars about the meaning of sacrifice for a common goal. 

Yaeger asks, "what kind of a leader does our team need?" Can we be the type of leader the team needs or who we are? 

Exceptional teams have both high IQ and EQ (emotional intelligence). That impacts communication and self-regulation. 

To reach the level of great teams, reevaluate everything:

- Player development (individual and team actions)

- Strategy 

- Strength and conditioning

- Resilience and sport psychology

Think about how we meet, how we talk, how we train, how we practice, and how we play. Is there a better way? 

Winning becomes the result of great process. 

Great teams have great competitors. Competition can create conflict and selfishness. 

This reduces to "this is who we are together" and "that is what we do." 

Artificial Intelligence answer:

Great teams typically possess the following characteristics:

1. Clear communication: Great teams communicate openly and honestly, with respect for one another's perspectives and opinions.

2. Shared goals and vision: Great teams share a common purpose and vision, and are committed to achieving shared goals.

3. Trust: Great teams trust one another and have confidence in each other's abilities, which allows for collaboration and innovation.

4. Diversity: Great teams are made up of individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, which allows for a wide range of ideas and approaches.

5. Accountability: Great teams hold each other accountable for their actions and responsibilities, which creates a culture of ownership and responsibility.

6. Flexibility: Great teams are adaptable and flexible, able to pivot and adjust as needed to meet changing circumstances.

7. Positive attitude: Great teams have a positive, can-do attitude, and are motivated to overcome obstacles and achieve success.

8. Continuous learning: Great teams are committed to continuous learning and improvement, seeking out new knowledge and skills to stay ahead of the curve.

9. Supportive culture: Great teams create a supportive and inclusive culture that fosters creativity, innovation, and growth.

Overall, great teams are characterized by a shared sense of purpose, mutual respect and trust, diverse perspectives and skills, and a commitment to ongoing learning and improvement.

Lagniappe. Unnatural ability. Work for it. 

"You're No Good." Says Who?

"Don't beat yourself up; there will always be someone there to do it for you."  

Rejection is part of life. Job rejection, school rejection, relationship rejection.

31 publishers rejected James Patterson's award-winning first novel.  Remember the scene in the Queen movie where Freddy Mercury laments the rejection of Bohemian Rhapsody. 

Stephen King hung publisher rejections on a nail. They became so numerous he needed a spike. 

Lincoln lost numerous elections before winning the presidency. Even then, his presidency was not universally acclaimed during the Civil War. 

Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team. Bill Russell got one scholarship offer, USF, in high school. 

Ulysses Grant sold firewood in St. Louis before being recruited to lead the Northern Army during the Civil War. 

Winston Churchill was considered a disaster because of the complex chaos of Gallipoli during World War I before emerging as a statesman whose principal achievement was saving Western Civilization in World War II. 

Thomas Edison said the three keys to invention are, "imagination, persistence, and analogies." Before inventing the lightbulb Edison said that he "learned 999 ways that lightbulbs didn't work." 

Kurt Warner played in Arena football before becoming a Super Bowl winner and a Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback. 

Bill Belichick's tenure in Cleveland is remembered as catastrophic. He is widely acclaimed as the greatest football mind in history. 

Great figures in society and sport often failed over and over before breaking through to success. 

Don't allow others to steal your dignity and self-respect. In The Four Agreements, Miguel de la Ruiz reminds us, "Never take anything personally." Others' criticisms say everything about them and nothing about us. 

Be concerned about qualities that we can award ourselves, "commitment, discipline, effort, empathy." Heraclitus said, "Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become." Do the work. Never give up. 

Lagniappe.

 

Training Leadership and Decision-Making

Is there a path to developing better leaders and better decision-makers? Look for both. What might interfere? Find areas of agreement and controversy. 

1. "Leaders make leaders." It's unlikely that we find consensus on leaders, but don't confuse loud voices with leadership. Examining character and how leaders make choices is a start. Doris Kearns Goodwin's Leadership in Turbulent Times shares her study of the Roosevelts, Lincoln, and Lyndon Johnson. 

Former Navy Seal Jocko Willink is another important leadership author in his Extreme Ownership. Leaders are accountable to the mission and to their teams. 

Leaders also relate to culture. In Legacy, James Kerr shares how the New Zealand All-Blacks rugby squad relate to both team culture and the Maori culture. "Sweep the sheds" has both literal and figurative self-management. Having a 'blue head' means to be cool under pressure. Players are taught to "leave the jersey in a better place." Teammates  understand the Greek proverb that "old men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit." 

2. Consider the role of probability in decision making. Weather forecasters learned their forecasts improved when they reported them in probabilities. "There's an 80% chance of rain on Thursday" gives us useful and nuanced opinion. 

If you want to read further, consider reading Thinking in Bets. 

3. When making judgements, apply "mental models" and cognitive biases to think better. Share examples. You see a player have an exceptionally good performance or struggle. Sample size limits our judgment as one day may not represent their 'weighted average'. 

Evaluating an issue or problem. Expand our "circle of competence." 

4. Leaders model excellence. They prioritize decision-making for the good of their team over what's good for them. They inform the value of truth - living the truth, telling the truth, and taking the truth. 

5. Study analogies and variety of disciplines. Consider keeping lists of stories and analogies as references. 

6. Leaders become better listeners. Nelson Mandela attended meetings where his father always spoke last. Having listened to the discussion, the senior Mandela made more insightful comments addressing others' concerns. 

Lagniappe. Arm swing breakdown. 

 

Deceleration

Remember our "core four."

• Skill
• Strategy
• Physicality
• Psychology 

Today's focus is physicality. Explosiveness. Acceleration. Vertical jump. All important, but so is deceleration to make directional changes as needed. 

Train to decelerate as well. Here's a constructive video from a basketball guy. 

And here's another from a trainer. These look like football guys, but the exercises will work across sports. 

Execution requires both the physical qualities to perform the skill and the skill to do so. Working out is a choice. 

Two Player Volleyball Workout

"10-80-10." Urban Meyer believed that players divided themselves among the top ten percent, the middle class of eighty percent, and the bottom ten percent.

He required top ten percenters to bring someone from the middle to workouts. "Drag a teammate into the top ten percent." Working out with teammates builds skill, athleticism, and team spirit. 

You don't need a full gym to build skills. 

"Two players, four corners." 

Develop your own drills after you've tried these. Building platform and setting skills makes everyone better. 

via GIPHY

Two monsters are better than one. 

 

No ‘Ifs, Ands, or Buts”

Some of you remember the Nick Saban video about character. He shared the player with good metrics AND good character versus BUT personal judgement issues. 

He addressed an issue with one of his players and contrasted it with Alabama basketball. 

"“Guys, everybody’s got an opportunity to make choices and decisions. There’s no such thing in being at the wrong place at the wrong time. You got to be responsible for who you’re with, who you’re around and what you do, who you associate yourself with and the situations that you put yourself in. … There is cause-and-effect when you make choices and decisions that put you in bad situations,” Saban said."

Control what you can control - attitude, choices, and effort. 

Leaders Lead

"Your actions speak so loudly I cannot hear a word you say."

"People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou

Know team leaders by their actions, what they do and what they don't. 

1. Team leaders outwork others. They model excellence. It is said that NBA great John Stockton won every sprint. 

2. Team leaders are coachable. They know that "mentoring is the only shortcut to success." 

3. Leaders set and follow the culture. 

4. Leaders bring positive energy and energize teammates. 

5. Leaders respect their coaches, officials, teammates, and the game. 

6. Leaders make leaders. Leaders earn followers. 

7. Leaders share credit. They are ambitious givers, not takers. 

8. Leaders perform in the classroom. They do the work. "How you do anything is how you do everything."

9. Leaders unite the team, knowing actions have consequences. 

10.Leaders never "bigfoot" teammates. Upperclassmen should practice inclusion throughout the team. Mistreatment or belittling any teammate is unacceptable. Everyone can lead through effort and by avoiding being a distraction. 

Lagniappe. Applying Bernoulli's Principle. 

Confidence Game

There's a saying, "looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane." Everyone has an image of identity. Coach Bill Parcells said, "If they don't bite when they're puppies, they won't bite when they're grown." Change is hard. 

Confidence matters. A player told me she walked into the gym, head up, chest out, figuratively saying, "the best player in the gym just walked in." 

Of course, you have to back it up. 

Players can only be as good as their belief in themselves. That's partially how Jason Selk's program works.

• Breathing relaxation
• Identity statement, "this is who I am"
• Mental highlight reel of at least five performance highlights
• Performance statement, "this is how I play" 
• Breathing relaxation

Match your visualization with your play. 

Cute, but not exactly what I'm seeking in a player. 

This is more what I have in mind. 

via GIPHY

Lagniappe. How good do you want to be? Some players are driven to excel to become elite. Others want to improve but aren't quite so driven. Match your goals to your training. 

Core Process: The Power of Now

Improvement largely falls into one of four categories:

• Skill
• Strategy
• Physicality
• Psychology - effort, focus, leadership, resilience

Study classic works. Examine highlights from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. 

1. Be in the moment. That's also known as "playing present" or "being here now." 

2. Why it makes sense. "The past is nothing more than all present moments that have gone by, and the future is just the collection of present moments waiting to arrive."

3. Apply stoic philosophy. Pain is how we experience what we can't change. Past wins can't solve our 'now' need. 

Learn from key passages:

• "The more you are focused on time — past and future — the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is."
• "Stress is caused by being “here” but wanting to be “there”, or being in the present but wanting to be in the future."
• "Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally."
• "The moment you realize you are not present, you are present."
• "The mind creates an obsession with the future as an escape from the unsatisfactory present."

To be present, give people your full attention. 

Mindfulness is a great tool to improve focus and attention. Studies of mindfulness training in early elementary school-aged children showed improvement in focus and behavior. 

Lagniappe (something extra). Coaches seek edges. Mindfulness creates an edge in most professional and Olympic athletes. Why not you? 

Truths Are Out There

'The truth needs three things: number one, you got to live it. Number two, you got to be able to tell it. And number three, you got to be able to take it.' - Kevin Eastman, former Celtics Assistant

Comedian Steve Martin asked another great comedic mind, Carl Reiner, what he was going to say. Reiner answered, "the truth." When he went on stage, Reiner said something like, "I know you're all thinking, 'I hope this isn't long and boring.'" 

Tell the truth with humanity. 

Explain to players:

• Strengths and need areas
• Specifically how they might improve
• Their current role and how they can increase it

Some coaches are brutally honest. Bobby Knight would say, "just because I want you on the floor, doesn't mean I want you to shoot."

 

"I would let you shoot it but your teammates don't think you should..." 

Video is "the truth machine." It confirms or disconfirms what you think you see. When the film came on, we'd think, "I hope I'm not getting roasted today." We all had our turn. 

What truths should players embrace? 

• Be on time. 
• Take care of business. "There is no ability without eligibility." School matters. 
• Be ready to go (stretched out, mentally focused) when practice starts.
• Know your responsibilities (e.g. assignments/coverages).
• Make teammates better.
• Find ways to impact winning.
• Commit to excel in your role...put the team first.
• Manage your body with proper diet, sleep and avoiding substance abuse.
• Be a great teammate. Don't be a distraction. Don't 'bigfoot' teammates.

A lot of these relate to discipline. "Discipline determines destiny." Elite players are disciplined. They're in their notebook, know their assignments, and are coachable. They make the team better, teammates better, and "impact winning."

Lagniappe. Coordinate the setting and spike timing.

  

What It Takes...Examples from Basketball as a Model

One theme here is "what price excellence?" You tell your family, your friends, and yourself that you're doing "whatever it takes to be successful." We don't know what we don't know. 

Don't know Chris Brickley? Brickley is an NBA trainer. I grew up with his uncle and know his father. That and three bucks buys a coffee. 

• Twice named Athlete of the Year at Trinity High School in Manchester, N.H.
• Led the state in scoring as a senior when he averaged 28.7 points
• Played his senior year for Louisville in 2009-2010

“Coach Pitino taught me a lot about work ethic.”

The Knicks hired Brickley as a player development coach in 2013.

The Knicks wanted his training methods kept in-house. 

New #Nets guard D'Angelo Russell talks to the media pic.twitter.com/UgxYL9NlQ7

— Rob Lopez (@r0bato) September 25, 2017

As a player, you decide your commitment, your sacrifice. Kevin Eastman says, "You own your paycheck." 

Study the process of how players become great. 

Brickley wanted to become his own brand. He has. 

Players "don't know what they don't know" about the level of work necessary to become successful in professional sport. Note the intensity and emphasis on change of direction, change of pace, and finishing. 

LeBron James spends a million dollars a year on all aspects of training. 

And it's not just guys. 

If we want to be great, match our work to our dreams. 

Lagniappe, courtesy of Brett Vroman. "Underdogs as heroes

"More recent research has tackled this memory and changing status aspect, and commented on how inspirational underdog stories capture our attention. If anything such stories should, as Nadav and his colleagues have stated, ‘influence probability estimates for future underdog success.’ "

Melrose has excellent strength training facilities, but not so many girls have participated. My daughters had trainers in high school and could both bench press 125 pounds.