Letter to Wayne Hills Basketball

I had wanted to do this in person, but time conflicts just continue to get in the way. Perhaps a few of them read this, but at least my side of a recent decision will come straight from me should any one seek it....

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Dear Patriot family,

As we approach the horizon of yet another school year, another basketball season, another set of memories, you may notice that things are a little different. Different in a good way though - I wholeheartedly believe that Coach Grimes is doing a great job transforming the program into something you can be proud of - one that you want to wear that big W with pride as it was in years past. Unfortunately, my time as a direct part of that has come to an end. 

To those players that I pushed and challenged, I wish to say that those challenges still stand - just because I may not be on the bench to remind you, I intend to be in the stands and should our paths cross I'll continue to challenge you to be better each day. To the parents who encouraged me in various ways to be the best that I could, even in my limited capacity, thank you. Your support and kindness have only increased my desire to coach the game, embrace your community, and put nothing short of my best self out there each and every day.  I guess at this point the big question is - why did I choose to leave?

Yes, I chose to leave. Coach Grimes never mentioned not coming back to me. In fact, when I told him I was struggling with the decision on what to do next season, he reminded me that I was still very much welcome. I took some time to really look at what we were trying to build in the program and realized that I was the definition of irony in the situation. Every practice, every game was about being committed to more than yourself; putting the team's needs above those of your own, and being "all in". Was I willing to make sacrifices and tough decisions to make the Wayne Hills Patriots a better program - sure. The problem was I couldn't fully commit to a level that I could be proud of. I tried - man did I try - but it's not easy working in a full time eight to five job and being a part of a high school basketball program. On top of that, I was coaching at the Wayne PAL. Some would say I should have known that would be extremely tough to juggle and do successfully. They are right - I came aboard hoping to better myself, but it was a little selfish. This summer I realized that and felt I owed the team better than that. I felt like the literal definition of a hypocrite. How can I honestly ask for guys to buy into being "all in" or putting the team above self when I wasn't necessarily doing that myself? 

I spent a good part of the spring and summer after the season ended asking myself if I could make this work. Coach Grimes is doing great things and it would be great to be a part of, but I had to pull my weight. He never complained or was upset - he understood my situation and knew that my heart was in it when I was available. For that I am truly grateful - it's not every day that people are willing to look at the whole situation and take outside factors into consideration. For those that know me from my time at the PAL, you know I hold myself to a crazy standard. After weeks of going back and forth with myself, reaching out to Coach Grimes and close friends, I came to the decision that I wouldn't be happy unless I could commit full time to the program, just as we'd ask the players to do. That wasn't something I could do, and the you all deserved someone who could. I have gotten to know most of you pretty well, and will miss being around to share in your lives as a coach. But you better believe when I can I will be there as a fan, cheering each and every one of you on. I already took opening day off from work so that I could be there! 

I really do wish that I could have done this in person, and if our paths cross, I will gladly talk to you about it. This was not an easy decision to make, and at times already, even here in August I wonder if it was the right decision to make because of how much I loved being a part of the program and your lives. I guess I can still do that as a fan, and allow someone who can really be "all in" to come aboard. I wish you all the best, and look forward to a great season. I can't wait for December!

Sincerely,

Robert Bohannon, Jr. 

Coach RoBo

Creating a Brand

As another winter basketball season wraps up I decided a post was long overdue. Both Hills and my 5th grade team fell short of expectations this season for various reasons, I think a major one for both came down to not being mentally tough enough to compete for long stretches as a team. As I recapped the games to friends it always seemed like I always keyed on the same three things. Then one day, just as yet another rant was about to begin, a wise young woman stopped me and asked what my philosophy was. I always wanted to make a mark on the game and in the program, but how was I looking to achieve that? I didn't have an answer. I knew I wanted to be good and had the tools to be successful but never really figured out the "how" piece of the puzzle. That day, a young lady who only spoke of basketball because I brought her to games and spent way too much time talking about it, set me straight and helped me find a new way to grow as a coach.

I brought her with me on our annual trip to Boston and she was closer than normally allowed as the gyms were smaller. She felt that a phrase I used time and time again symbolized what my "brand" could be. How I could simplify the game for my young players without limiting them or preventing them from growing. Having watched those games in Boston where those words were stressed and then some of our others after where they weren't, she felt those three simplifying words made it easy for the boys to perform. To her, the team played with more understanding of the expectations and the result was better performance. All because of three very simple, fundamental words. That simplicity - the less is more approach - would give every team I was involved with a really easy way to understand what was expected and comprehend the pillars of what my team would stand for. 

Those three simple words, as she laid them out to me, looked like the very thing I was looking for. You can't build a great thing without a strong base and I truly feels that this gives me that. Those three words - rebound, defend, and communicate - are all things that every player can control. Officials can't stop you from giving everything you've got to do those three things. Even if you have an "off" night because the ball wouldn't go in the net, you can still be a solid contributor to the team. Basketball, especially at younger levels, is primarily a game of effort. Sure talent helps, but I've seen many a talented team fail and many a "scrappy" team succeed. Even more importantly to me though is that teams who play with great effort are respected. Those teams, regardless of record, are teams that everyone takes seriously. Even as we struggled through one of our leagues, finishing with only 3 wins, when we played with effort we put even the top teams on the ropes. As I took this new approach to building my brand the last few weeks of the season, I saw them latch on. We finished our final week with a very close back and forth battle in the playoffs that we lost in the closing seconds, put together a great tournament run to advance to the championship game. We played with purpose, effort, and we did those three simple things.

Sometimes you have to go outside to get the best idea for you. This makes sense. This gives me a map - maybe not the whole map, but at least a map to the next fork. The way feels clear, and I'm glad the  next level has occurred so soon. Positive energy with a simple set of expectations. The road ahead looks good.

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...