Tuesday, February 04, 2025

Cross Posting - Things to Love About Coaching

Motivation surrounds us. Here's a quote from the Karin Slaughter Will Trent series, "She'd made lists: Ten things she loved about Will Trent." What do you love about coaching? 

1. Seeing players succeed. Many MVB grads achieved extraordinary success in school, in life, in volleyball, and in other sports. 

2. Community. Coaches have a 'different' interface with the community. One parent of a former player, who played sports at a high level, always calls me, "Coach." It's a privilege to develop friendships with players and families. 

It's not as altruistic as working in a soup kitchen, but it's "something something" to quote Ted Lasso. "Build a program not a statue." 

3. "I love practice." Practice is where players become players. Practice is the laboratory where coaches find out what works and what doesn't. 

4. Practice planning. Countless choices exist among conditioning, drills, small-sided games and scrimmages. Choosing well challenges coaches. 

5. Individual skill development. Dr. Fergus Connolly has a great organization for training - skill, strategy, physicality, psychology. Offseason skill building sessions separate excellent from good players. As Herb Welling says, "when you get the special player, take care of her." 

6. Studying the game. There is always more to learn, opportunities to teach with more simplicity and clarity. 

7. Teaching. Coaches teach life. Girls' coaches empower impressionable young people. Storytelling about women's leadership and success stories of local women matter. Arlene Blum led an all-women team that ascended Annapurna, one of 14 Himalayan peaks above 8,000 meters. Two summitted and two died. Women can be as bold as men with the same rewards and consequences. 

8. Networking. Coaches network to help players reach their dreams. Sending an email to an area coach about a player can trigger interest in the player, especially when accompanied by representative video. Let players know that you are there if they need letters of recommendation. 

9. Sharing the game. Coaching lives in the public domain - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Phil Jackson's epic quote, "Basketball is sharing," applies across sports. 

10."Making friends with the dead." Well over ninety percent of all people ever born are dead. That goes for great coaches, great teachers like Richard Feynman, great leaders, writers, and great players. Holistic coaching offers the chance to expand our horizons by self-education about well and lesser known coaches. Here's a partial list of basketball coaches profiled. 

Brad Stevens says that coaches, "get more than we give." How can we say that better? 

Lagniappe. Repost. Lighten up. Sometimes coaches "pull" young players for making the same mistakes that seniors make without issues. 

Lagniappe 2. "Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you." Luck plays a factor in life and in sport. 

Anything can happen in a season but decades of success is process. 

Lagniappe 3. Courage, energy, intelligence. 
It takes courage to defend, to face the reality that you won't be perfect. Defense demands mental and physical toughness.

Brad Stevens said that his best defenders were also excellent students. Perhaps the same "anterior cingulate cortex" brain activation belongs to both. 


 

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