The Balancing Act

Everyone loves to say youth basketball isn't about winning - it's about having fun and learning. I'd like to see those people coach competitive basketball. Basketball where there are playoffs, championships, and the like. Yes you want to have fun and learn, but when the standings always show you in last place kids start to check out because it's not fun anymore and learning isn't being rewarded with anything. Then you as a coach start to doubt yourself and feel that pressure from parents and colleagues to get wins, which kills your fun.  Sorry, but the game of basketball is about winning and that won't change no matter how the "pro-participation" party may try to spin it.

This last season though, I think I was able to figure something out. I sat the team down and we just talked about our reality and what winning meant to us. I didn't set the standard - they did. I just held them to it, and as I promised in my last post, tried to be as positive as I could all the while. Sure from a record standpoint we weren't very good, but we met our goals just about every game and that kept everyone involved.

Each game our goals were to give 100% effort, limit turnovers, and have fun. Lofty goals, right? When you think about setting good goals especially as a competitor it's really easy to make a bunch of goals that will set you up for failure because they are not entirely under your control. Goals like "win x games" are great if you can guarantee that you are not going to run into competition, but that also likely means you aren't being challenged to grow. But our goal of limiting turnovers was one where everyone had to work together to achieve and would put us in good position to win. By keeping the goals simple and focused on the team we were able to be competitive in a lot more games than most would have thought at the start of the season. By holding everyone to always giving their best effort, the feedback for everyone was based on what their best was and they understood that they were only getting measured against themselves. By doing that at practices as well as games they were able to see very quickly that if they gave that effort every time, not only would we look and play better, but it was a lot more fun regardless of the score.

And those goals stuck no matter what. Oh we are up by 10 - great. But we can't start to relax, you still have to give your best and not be sloppy with the ball. Down 20 - great. We aren't giving up because we said it would be 100% effort at all times and anything less would mean we failed ourselves. Whether I was talking to a parent or a player, that was the attitude. "Man, they were a tough team." "Yes, but no one in the gym can say we gave up or backed down. That is all that matters to us." After a while the parents would join in and it was just talk about how we played. Even when we lost by 20 to a team from DC parents were praising the boys for playing so hard. No one mentioned the score - just how we never quit and made them work for everything.

The winter season is about to start, so it will be another opportunity to strike that balance and get that total team buy in. Granted, the winter season is a different animal, but if I'm going to grow as a coach I need to pull it off. I feel like this will allow me to get to another level in terms of player respect and engagement, and those are "must-haves" for any decent coach. And I don't want to settle for being decent...

New Focus

So there is a post sitting in my drafts list about my Spring season to end my year long hiatus but it still brings up a lot of thoughts and feelings I'm not sure how I want to convey. So we'll table that post and move on...for now.

This season I have 8th graders and along with a new group of kids confess new expectations, new challenges, and, most importantly for me, new opportunities to react to situations. That in itself, I can honestly admit, is a major flaw of mine.

I was brought up in a household where anything less than 100% effort was a failure and failure was not tolerated. Did you occasionally fall short? Sure but it wasn't failure because you tried hard. Unfortunately, until this last year I never really had to understand that as more than words. I tried hard as a kid and always managed find myself where I wanted to be and accepted that those times I fell short were the result of me not giving my all. There was, and in many cases still is, no middle ground. I struggle with accepting short falls for just that and in my head chalk up failure to a lack of effort and tend to be up front with my disappointment.

This season I'm making more of an effort to understand that for some people and teams 100% effort may not cut it. At least not right now. There have been many stories where guys just kept going all out and were rewarded, ironically one close to home for me is the Baylor Athletic program. Using their success as a pseudo-guide (I'm definitely no Art Briles or Scott Drew by any stretch) I hope to make that change in my perspective and do what I started coaching to do: help kids get to their potential and enjoy the game.

We have our first tournament this weekend and our goals are simple:
Have fun, play five as one on the court, and walk away feeling like you've given your all. Win or lose, if we do those things we can go home and sleep day knowing we didn't fail. Myself included.

Ice Bucket Challenge

So I was challenged to do the Ice Bucket Challenge earlier in the week but couldn't do it due to tryouts and poor lighting conditions. So I did it today after work.

I encourage everyone to look into what the ALS Association is doing to help improve the quality of life for people who are diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. I've heard some people try to take the moment away from the effort because of how little is known about the disease, it's non mainstream-ness, or whatever reason they can think of, but if you look into what this does to people, families, and communities, then you'll understand why this is so important to those people and the ALSA. Get Yo' Learn On!


I issued a general challenge to look into the disease, but I nominated a few friends and my sister to take the challenge complete with ice bucket. Their rules are as follows:

 - Donate some money regardless of whether you actually soak yourself. These people really do need some kind of hope and I feel it's entirely long overdue. I know we may not have the finances for a big donation, but any bit helps.
 - I'm not going to limit you to 24 hours. I know you all have lives and schedules, just try to do it soon and spread the hope.

Without further ado - my #IceBucketChallenge!!!

Where I Was (Part 2)

The Fall AAU season wasn't my proudest moment of my coaching career. There are different kinds of ways things "challenge" you, and that was a struggle for me to handle. But working with the high school team was nice.

Once the high school team got into it's Fall league, that was a bright spot, as I got to work with guys who understood how to make adjustments to their opponents, and were committed to being at all the games. I wasn't really comfortable with the situation since I didn't really know the players and they were practicing right after school (which is prime working hours), but they responded well, and helped me to settle in a bit as we collectively prepared to turn the program around in December. The very first game was against the cross-town rival high school, which we won fairly definitively (especially since we didn't have any of our post guys) so it just felt good to be a part of that. Overall we did pretty well for a coach with minimal knowledge of the team and minimal high school experience. Best part was that there was no real pressure to win every game. I'm sure we lost a few games we "should have won" but the head coach just kind of went with it, helping to find signs of growth and where we would improve by December. Perhaps that's one of those things you learn over time, because I still don't fully understand how that's okay, but I do appreciate that it never felt like I was on the hot seat or inadequate. The fall was a growing period for the entire Hills program, and I think we did a good job on all levels, from top to bottom, of  doing just that.

The winter was interesting to put it mildly. Actually, that's just a flat out understatement. Winter was CRAZY. I coached a 5th grade travel team and had coaching responsibilities at Hills, so every day of the week was basketball just about. Most of the time it was fun - the Hills guys played with a chip on their shoulder and played with such blue-collar energy, while my 5th graders were dominant through most of their season with their chemistry. Sure, both teams had rough days where a lack of energy or focus made the day tough to swallow, and there were off court issues that made me want to destroy the Internet and cell phones, but that's something all coaches go through. I've learned that it's easy for fans and parents to forget that coaches aren't robots, but people. People with jobs, personal lives, emotions. Sometimes they just put on the glasses that block out everything but their interest (their con, their personal goals) and just look for every opportunity to attack. Comes with the territory, and you learn to deal. But for most of the season, it was fun to be around, as the 5th graders won 2 tournaments, took runner up in 2 tournaments, won 1 league, and took runner-up in another league while Hills won their League and had an over .500 record for the first time in years. Like I said, I was busy and worn down at times, but the experience was well worth it (so much so that I'll be in a very similar boat this winter) as I was able to learn things from the high school staff that I could turn around and implement with the younger kids. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel like I'm on the right track to catching up.

As busy as it was, I really did enjoy the winter overall. I could have done without some of the parental attitudes, and probably had to pass on a lot of great social experiences, but this is what I want. I want to be able to lead a program to victory from year to year, and that takes sacrifice. People talk about sacrifice in sports all the time, but they almost always think of what the players have to sacrifice. I know from experience, that coaches, if they want to be the best, sacrifice too if they want to maintain that success and respect.

Where I Was (Part 1)

In the interest being more open about my journey as a coach, I decided to make this post about what happened over the last year. Maybe not all at once because that might be a REALLY long post and no one has time for that.

So we last left off with a good run in the Zero Gravity National Tournament and I was pretty happy with how we'd done considering the drama off the court and the competition we drew. Later that summer, I was asked to come on staff as an assistant coach for Wayne Hills High School. I had every intent to post that gem of great news once it became official with the school board. But then the Fall AAU season started and I began to get frustrated by what I perceived as a lack of commitment by a lot of players on the team. At that point I began to get frustrated by the lack of progress we were making as a team and I decided it was better to keep that to myself rather than turn this into a soap box.

Maybe I was wrong about what was going on. The numbers at tryouts were low and I had several multi-sport athletes on my team with no backups to cover the inevitable conflicts. Practices were draining as it felt like we just kept rehashing the same concepts over again since consistent attendance on a team level was nonexistent. I was trying to lead that team to some kind of tangible success to keep up with the rest of the program, while working a full time job and helping with the high school and adjusting to those guys. I was spread thin (admittedly, by my own choice) and it felt like the parents and players didn't care. I put so much energy and effort into trying to be a great coach for their kids and I practically had to beg people to show up. We showed up to one game with 5 players just in time for tip off, and of course one guy gets hurt and we have no subs. What do I do there? He's devastated because he feels like by getting injured he let his team down. The rest of the team battled hard but when you are a man down in basketball for an entire half it's not going to end well most times and is upset at the people who didn't show. I did my best to keep the focus on the positives of that game and let our injured teammate know that no one hates him for getting hurt playing his heart out. But on the inside I'm livid. I was ready to be done with that season and I rarely ever want that.

In hindsight perhaps it would have worked out better not to have a team with so many people fighting conflicts. We recruit out of an athletic area of Jersey and our only makes sense that the younger kids take their turns art every sport to see where they can and want to excel. I get it. I do, but I'm a basketball coach and I can't say I don't want people that are just going to play basketball. As we approach another Fall season, this does with on my mind a bit. So much so I almost told our director I didn't want a team just because I was dreading having that scenario unfold two years in a row (that is for another post).

I think that's enough for one post. We'll get back to this soon...

It's Been A While...

So it's been a really long long time since I posted. It wasn't that I stopped coaching, or that I'd have moments where I wanted to post, but I made a decision to take care of some other situations in my life. A while back, I'd taken a break because my mindset wasn't in the right place.I'd started back up, thinking I had righted the ship. Seems all I'd done was put a band-aid on it. I had a terrible attitude about a lot of things, my outlook on practically everything was filled with way more cynicism than any one person should have. Don't get me wrong, that was a big part of the lull and Houdini act, but another piece of the puzzle is that I got really busy.

One of my fellow coaches from the Wayne PAL program was offered the head coaching position at Wayne Hills and he brought me on board as a volunteer assistant. A challenge with the work schedule for sure, but one worth taking considering where I want to be in a few years. During the season, I was able to attend practices, go on scouting trips, and kept game stats, but most importantly, I was able to see how to build a program. How to gain the loyalty of the fans, administrators, parents, and players. While they weren't the tallest or strongest team in our league, by building that respect and trust, we were able to take a team that went 10-17 to a team that won the league title, won a county game (hadn't been done in years), and managed to play well enough to get a decent seed in the state tournament. Being a part of this also helped me see another idea behind scouting that I'd never tried and I was able to use some of that to lead my fifth grade team to a tournament championship title in Clark. I'm hoping to see more of that come into play next winter.

I had an interesting Spring season as we struggled to find an identity and purpose, myself included. Towards the end of the season we were able to find those elements and things started to turn around. Over the summer, I've done some more work on my mental state to hopefully stay in the right frame of mind to be successful and a positive leader. Another thing I've decided is to remember why I started this blog. "The successes and struggles of a young coach trying to make it..." Everything isn't always going to be sunshine and rainbows, and coaches are people outside of basketball. They get affected by things outside the lines, and it may affect what goes on within the lines. One thing I get frustrated with is how sometimes it feels like parents forget that we coaches are people too, but then when you don't let them see the human side of you, what do you expect?

I am not going to promise to hold to some kind of schedule. I don't even know what my schedule is going to be like. But I hope to still get back to my purpose for starting this. Talking about this thing that I love, the joy it brings me even when we lose, the thrill of winning as an underdog. The journey of being a nobody who just showed up one day asking to coach to one day being a respected, sought out leader. I'm not sure what that will look like, but writing has been my outlet for years, and I can't not do it. As time permits there will be posts. Some will be funny, some will be sad, but that's what this is for.