Your Philosophy and Priorities

The most effective way to get the results you want is to emphasize the "right" things.

It's all about what you emphasize!

If you consistently emphasize and talk about rebounding, passing the ball, and playing the right way, then you're players will pick up on those things.

Example: When first meeting with the team you know who two of the starters will be. The first starter will be the best defensive player on the team. And the second starter will be the best rebounder on the team.

It's all about what you emphasize! If you're constantly talking about rebounding, you're players will pick up on that and become good rebounders.

You'll notice that players start talking about it. They might say something to another teammate like, "Hey, make sure you block out and get the rebound!" Or you might hear, "Hey coach, how many rebounds did I get today?"

If you constantly emphasize rebounding and defense, then you will probably have a team that is really good at defense and rebounding.

This concept is very simple, yet extremely important and very powerful.

Most coaches make the mistake of emphasizing the wrong things or emphasizing too many things. They end up getting poor results.

You may say to yourself everything seems important but you just can't emphasize everything.

It's much more effective if you pick a few important things and primarily focus on those things.

In the business world, they use a similar concept. "Focusing on the critical few, versus the trivial many." Whether it's business or basketball, it's an effective concept.

How Do You Decide What to Emphasize?

First, ask your self a few questions.

• What are your coaching goals?
• What are the most important things for you to teach?
• What do you really want your players to get out of this experience?
• What does your team need to be really good at to be successful?
• How will you define a successful season or team?

Write down whatever comes to mind.

It's important to get this on paper, ultimately these things are given to your players.

Here are a few things you might want to emphasize...

• Playing the right way.
• Defense
• Teamwork
• Rebounding

 

 

What is your coaching philosophy?

 

In other words, what are your priorities in life?

This goes in line with what you emphasize to your team but it's not about specific basketball skills, like rebounding. It's about much more important things.

As a basketball coach, you have a VERY important responsibility.

You have young players that look up to you. Believe it or not, they listen to you.

In addition, you have an opportunity to have an impact on their life!!

These kids actually come to you and want to play basketball. They enjoy it. They are passionate about it.

Here is just a few of the things that players might be expecting from you:

1. Fun.
2. Learn new or better skills.
3. Wins, yes, they want to win.
4. Camaraderie.
5. Fun 

Notice that fun is on the list twice. Unless you're a professional coach with scholarships, your players certainly didn't join the team to have a bad time. Honestly, they probably didn't join to learn life lessons either but they will learn life lessons from you whether you intend to teach them or not.

Your choice is, what life lessons do you want them to learn and how.

Everything that you do and say will make an impression on them.

You have an unbelievable opportunity to teach them so much about life and basketball.

You probably don't realize it, but the things you say without a second thought can stick with a kid for LIFE!

Don't overlook the power of your position.

Some of the things you say and do can have a positive effect on these kids for life!

Decide how you want to affect them. What message do you want to communicate?

Consider this interesting coaching tactic...

I knew a truly successful coach whose number one goal was to communicate and emphasize teamwork.

He communicated it in practice verbally. He reinforced it with drills. Every single time someone passed the ball, he offered praise. In fact, it was the only time he offered praise.

Even more impressive to me as a parent was how he handled the games. Regardless of whether the kids won the game or not, he reacted exactly the same way -- every time! He praised the teamwork efforts.

He didn't criticize the players for not passing the ball but he didn't praise them for single handedly scoring either. He only praised for teamwork. The players that showed more of an effort to work as a team played more during games.

When the kids lost a game, he wouldn't say, "I'm sorry that you lost." When they won a game, he wouldn't say "Congratulations" or "Good Job."

He only pointed out the teamwork efforts.

Now this team did manage to win a majority of their games. Do you know why? Because they worked together as a team. (And because he emphasized the fundamentals.)

How did the kids react? They strived to work together as a team. Even the showboats!

Document Your Priorities

Decide how you want to affect your team, what message you want to communicate to them and write it down. Document your coaching philosophy, goals, and what you want to emphasize.

You need to get your priorities in order first if you want to be able to communicate them well. Once you've accomplished this, then you can get your players priorities in order.

For example:

1. God
2. Family
3. School
4. Basketball

Make sure players understand these priorities. Reinforce and emphasized these priorities all year long.

Take things a little further. You may have similar priorities but I you write them down in "life lessons".
For example:

• Playing the right way: playing fairly, playing hard, doing your best.
• Telling the truth and being honest is more important than anything, including basketball.
• How to take responsibility for their actions
• Teamwork
• Helping others - Get them to realize that just one person saying to you, "You've made my day!" makes your day too.
• Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% attitude - it's what you make of it.

These are just a couple examples.
I know I can't teach everything, especially in one year, but if I can just teach a couple important "life lessons", then I know that I've had a positive impact on this young persons life.

These are all things that will teach the kids how to be successful in life.

Now make sure you write down your coaching philosophy and the important things you want to emphasize. Keep those things with you at all times. Look at them before every practice.

This will help you stay focused and emphasize the right things.
 
Sincerely
Coaches Corner