Time For a Change

Well, I still have some stuff from my winter travel team to write about, but that will have to wait.

With my players, I'm the coach that will always find something for them to improve even if we blow the other team out of the water. Similar to Coach "Pop" of the San Antonio Spurs and Coach Mulkey of my Lady Bears, I believe there's always room for improving because it's the day you get complacent that you get blind sided. In reality though, when talking to other coaches and friends I tend to be a bit more positive. I like to look at the opportunities that a particular situation has presented us with. That mentality is why I'm very happy that I don't have my own team this Spring.

The turnout for my 12U team was fairly depressing, given how many kids play basketball in the area during the winter. Rather than trying to struggle for an entire season with a short roster full of kids who were either not quite ready for the level of competition the season would have put on front of them or had already committed to another spring sport, I decided against putting a team together.  Considering the kids first, this was the right move. The season would have killed their fun and we'd probably lose kids halfway through, etc.  For me, it gave me the opportunity to be a "floater" coach helping with any of the older teams when needed. Perfect! With 5th and 6th grade kids, the focus is primarily skill development and they typically can only scratch the surface when it comes to executing plays and defensive schemes. Now that I'll be working with older, more seasoned players, I'll get a chance to expand my playbook, drills, and see some other strategic approaches to game situations. While this will have a good impact on my future 5th and 6th grade teams, it gives me exposure to higher level basketball as I continue working toward making that breakthrough into the high school basketball scene.

I couldn't imagine myself being this happy to not have a team, but I am excited knowing that this is the best thing that could happen for my coaching career.

Pep Talk

I'm still working on the photos from Boston, so this one is going to be out of order. But, just like my last entry, I don't care.

With Spring fast approaching and interest shifting from basketball to soccer, lacrosse, and baseball I knew that I was going to be competing with those coaches for practice time.  Turns out I scheduled a practice and it conflicted with half the team. No big deal - that actually works out better for me. I like to talk with my team about what's going through their heads, basketball or otherwise, just because that's what I feel good coaches should do. You aren't just a mentor on the court, but off the court as well.  So we ran some skill drills and went over defensive rotations, then I just talked with them. They didn't really have much to say, but I did.

In my last post I mentioned that I felt as though I created a demon we couldn't vanquish by using them as our "measuring stick" so I decided to try to correct that. I just came right out with it: (names have been altered)

"Guys, I'm going to level with you.  Wyckoff is not that good. Sure they win a lot, but so do we. When we win, we get over half the team in the scorebook. They don't. They need 2 people to have monster games when they play good teams like us. But you all know that. What you don't know is that you can beat them. We've done it before. You guys were hungry, you wanted to play them that day, and you showed no fear. You guys need to just dig deep, find that passion, that hunger, that courage and then the next time we play them you'll be fine.  They won't expect it, it will shake their confidence and you'll remind them who they are messing with. If you need to be like Jeff and cry a little and get mad, then do it. As much as I hate that Jeff cries all the time, I think you all need a little Jeff to come out and get mad. It's okay to get mad, but it's not okay to be scared. Scared slows you down, makes you a lesser athlete. Mad makes you better. Just don't punch anyone...that's a technical.  Find your inner Jeff and bring him to our next game. Leave that scared kid at home, I don't have room for him on my bench."

We have a couple of games before we get the opportunity to play Wyckoff again and I can't wait. I know my guys can beat them, and I want them to come out on top, even if it is just a mental victory. Honestly, I'd be perfectly okay with losing if my boys came out and played with no fear.  We had a game this morning that went well and I saw some extra spark and emotion, so maybe I got through a little. Wyckoff, we're coming for you.

Head Games

Wow.  Over a month since a true post.  This isn't even in order - I still have to post about Boston.  Well, since the pics aren't on my laptop and I'm too lazy to go post from my desktop, this will have to do.  Besides, this is my blog, and it's one of the few places that I truly can control what does and does not happen.  Ah, but I digress...

My boys seem to have fallen prey to a demon this season, a demon I inadvertently helped nurture.  Such is coaching as I'm learning.  Some things work well with one group that will be the demise of another.  You win some and you lose some, and we're not just talking about the contests themselves, but the philosophical and strategic battles as well.  You just have to win more than you lose, and not lose badly - usually. 

As a kid, I personally wanted to be better than the kid people said was better than me.  Each summer, my school and two neighboring elementary schools participated in a program that brought the three schools into one for summer classes.  My class, and those of the other schools, constantly battled for who was better in basketball and football (baseball wasn't big there and it require too much stuff).  I would get myself pumped up by telling myself that there was no way kid A was going to beat me.  The last months of the regular school year, my classmates and I told ourselves that the other schools could do this better and we weren't going to let them win with that.  We knew who the guy ahead of us was, and we reminded ourselves of it until we beat them.  That was the way it was.  Unfortunately, as I'm learning this season, it's not necessarily the way it is.

We have a team in our division that beat my kids a few times last year, most notably in the league championship.   I didn't see how it happened since I had my own championship game to get ready for, but I knew of it and figured that they would and should be the measuring stick.  We beat them this year, we'll be fine.  So I came right out and said it - just as we would have done when I was their age (not that I'm that much older) - "If you don't work  hard now, they are just going to beat you again."  We had an easy game at the start of the season that we won, purely because we had better athletes, not necessarily on basketball skill. "If we play like that against the good teams like Team X, you're going to get beat by 50."  Like I said, for me, that would have been enough to say to myself that I need to get it together and get serious because I owe them a good, solid proverbial punch in the mouth.  Turns out that my team as a whole didn't respond that way.

We've played that team now five or six times now this season, and lost all but one (coach pulled his starters with 5 minutes left in the game because they were playing bad).  Do we have the skills to beat them?  Sure.  They have one kid that will beat us and we know who it is and what we need to do to stop him.  But we don't.  Our energy on the defensive end is lackluster.  Offensively we're stagnant.  There is no heart, hustle, or pride.  We pretty much lost all of those games before they had even started.  Perhaps my little mind game backfired, and I turned this team into an "Untouchable" by using them as our measuring stick early in the season.  The body language during these games is very 'blah' and we look like we're just sleepwalking.  Yet while we were in Boston, even on limited sleep these boys were nothing but energy - so I know it's not a fatigue issue.  We have two more potential meetings with this team, and they'll both be for championship titles and/or trophies.  I have to find a way to vanquish this demon.  Find some way to get these kids to face and destroy their fear.  I have to find a way to get them so hungry to beat this team that we make sure nothing gets in our way and keeps us from them.  Sounds like I better get started....

Been a while...but soon

I know I haven't posted since I left for Boston, but soon. You can expect several posts real soon. I'd put up a real post now, but I'm tired. February was brutal and my body and soul are still playing catch up. Soon though, with pics!