Things I'm Thankful For...

Not to fall into being cliché, but I really wanted to post this because it gives me a chance to say thanks and give credit to those who have and are helping me along my journey.

To start, I want to say thanks to Coach D, who without ever having met in person, gave me the opportunity to join his AAU coaching staff.  For all he knew I had zero clue about the game, but he took a chance and that's not something you should take lightly.  Even with the struggles we had that first year and the horrendous record, he never once said a word to me about leaving the program.  I remember thinking to myself after every tough loss we took, "You are going to get fired.  Any minute you are gone."  He was just there to keep helping the team and I get stronger and better. 

I am also thankful for the support of my family in this endeavor.  Though they've never seen me coach a single game (they are in Texas so that would be tough) my mother, father, and sister have been there behind me all the way.  My parents have helped me get the tools I need to analyze games and critique my team and my own game time decisions, and my sister has been there to cheer me up during rough losing streaks and help diagnose injuries along the way.  Hey L, if you read this and I ever make it big time, you've got a job on my medical staff, hands down.  We always joked about working together growing up, so who knows.

I am also thankful for a couple of choice people who've come into my life and helped me make it through the rougher patches of my career.  People like K-Dub and Letty who no matter what the odds were found ways to come cheer for my boys, sometimes when no one else would.  My good friend Deenie, who will be the first to admit that she knows very little about basketball yet will listen to me vent, rant, rave, or whatever for as long as it takes.  And of course, I have to say thanks to KB who gave me the number of a guy who gave me a number of a guy who told me to call this one guy who put me in touch with Coach D.  It had to start somewhere, right?

I also am thankful to the fellow Travel and AAU coaches who have always been willing to share laughs, lessons, tough losses, and their time with me to help make me a better coach.  I've always been one to admit that I am still learning a lot about what it takes to be a good coach and these guys have been more than willing to help me out.

Lastly, I'm thankful for the teams who have been coached by me, and told their friends great things to encourage them to come through our program to work with me. I'm thankful for the understanding, patience, and willingness to grow with me, and many times it with little to no resistance.

I love the opportunity that I've been afforded with the program, which is why I put in the time to try to make sure it pays those responsible back for their support, belief and encouragement.  If I left you out, charge it to my head and not my heart, and know that I absolutely do appreciate you and your support.

I'll try not to be so cliché for the next post...

Goal Update & Lessons Learned

A while back I had mentioned some goals and all that I was going to look to accomplish and whatnot.  So here's an update on where we stand:

1. Put together practice plans prior to each practice
   
   I started out pretty well, with written plans ready to go.  But the last few weeks I've been just putting them together in my head.  So I can't completely say I've absolutely failed, but since I'm not writing them down I have no proof of success either.  I am looking to get back to doing it though, with this season winding down and another beginning, I want it to be more consistent.
    
2. Establish open lines of communication between the parents, the players, and me
   
   While parents have been pretty good about coming to me with concerns and we've been able to come up with plans and an understanding that works for everyone.  The players though, and perhaps it's just their age, will always be quick to tell you that everything is fine, when it clear to everyone that it's not.  I usually know what the issue is. but I don't want to always be the bad guy.  I want them to be okay with talking to me about what's going on.  Can't really tell how we're doing on this one - it may be a little inappropriate to expect 12 year old kids to understand the concept of "open lines of communication." 
   
3. Make time to analyze games in a timely manner
   
   Been a little tough since I've been running from game to game and site to site to get the games filmed and stats recorded for most games.  The few I did get, I've looked over and made adjustments accordingly.  Not enough to really judge one way or another on this one.

Well, on the individual goals - it looks kind of like I'm 0 for 3. This is starting out well...  Let's see how the team goals went.

1. Maintain a positive turnover differential
   
   Absolutely didn't hold this up.  The 13U team has done fairly well limiting turnovers, but they also have a lot more experience playing than the other teams.  I see the 12U team starting to shift in the right direction, but I didn't do a good job preparing the teams to meet this goal.  Going to have to put more effort into this as the season ends.
    
2. Advance out of pool play each tournament
   
   The competition has been tough, and we just seem to be missing one key element but the 12U and 13U teams have both been to championship games.  The brackets weren't quite set up the way I'd envisioned when I made this goal, and has made it really tough to do this.  I was expecting to lose the occasional game and work our way out of pool play by way of point differential, but the tournaments have generally been lose and you're out so far all season.  Nonetheless, I'd have to say we've fallen short here too.
   
3. Play the 32nd minute just as hard as the 1st
   
   This is something we've done very well.  We've played every game to the end and I'm proud of the boys for it.  No matter what the score, there has only been one game where I felt like the team just quit.  We've played almost 30 games, so that sounds like a resounding win here.  No matter what the final records end up being, by playing hard for the whole game they'll only get better.  They'll look back and remember these days and appreciate each victory they get.  Hopefully some humility comes with these losses as well.
   
4. Limit the opposition to no more than 5 offensive rebounds a game
   
   While I don't have any proof, I feel like we've lost this on several fronts, mostly because the competition has had quite a height advantage over all our teams.  The 13U team's bigs are constantly battling injuries and the other teams give up at least 7 inches and athleticism.  Again, I've failed to prepare the team to meet this goal.  I didn't spend enough time working on rebounding - made a false assumption during planning and it cost us this goal.

So, it looks like I'm 1 for 7 on the goals.  One thing that I didn't do was share these goals with the teams.  They are team goals after all, and the team can't work towards something  it doesn't know about.  Lesson learned - the goals need to be set by the team and the team needs to buy into what will be required to achieve them.  There's still time left to make head way on some of these goals, but this is what the blog and my journey is about.  The things I see, the mistakes I made and learned from - they will make me a better coach.  But it only happens if I can admit where I've fallen short, even when it looks as dismal as 1 for 7.  Let's just hope that the next season we do a better job.