Recovering From Recovery Week

When I was an athlete training with the national team handball team, we trained twice a day year around. It was our life. We got up in the morning, ate, went to the sports medicine center, practiced, went back to the trainers to pack ourselves in ice, ate, slept, then completed the entire morning scenario a second time. It was what I did for over five years.

So when I try to sneak a recovery week into our training schedule for the purpose of our athletes getting a little rest, I may not achieve all the recovery the players wanted. I think I am going easy on them when they think I have swapped one kind of running for another.

This past week instead of running timed sprints on Monday, we played ultimate frisbee and keep away. I believed these were rather innocuous games involving a little running, a little movement here and there, so I couldn't understand why they were out of breath and sweating when we were done. I mean 35 minutes of running should be relaxing. Right?

When Wednesday came around, I had another set of fun games for them to play. One was called Hungarian Dodge Ball and the other was titled Czechoslovakian Dodge Ball. Both of them involve sprinting full court while dodging balls. Again they were putting their hands on top of their heads, leaning over in taking huge gulps of air and perspiring. These were simple, fun games. Why were they acting as if they had just worked out?

By Thursday they were as fatigued as if we had completed a week of our usual conditioning. When I asked Lindsey Kentner, our extreme cardio woman who never gets tired, if she was feeling recovered, I was surprised when she told me that she wasn't. Using my astute deductive reasoning, I deduced if Lindsey was not fully recovered at the end of the week, then the other players would not have found fresh legs either.

Since the purpose of recovery week was for the athletes to refresh both minds and bodies, I had to convince myself on Friday to allow them to simply have fun without any running. I had to talk myself into the belief that we don't want to work harder than every other team in the nation, we want to work smarter. We desire to work smart hard, an endearing term which means we use the muscles of our brain as well as those of our bodies.

I would say when I was an athlete, we didn't use our brains which resulted in many overuse injuries and several losses along the way. Now I know the power of using our brains and hopefully, I am sharing that power with my players which meant that on Friday they were able to laugh and have fun fully recovering mind, body and spirit.

Using Discipline To Improve Team Concepts

When I played volleyball in high school, I was fortunate enough to have a great coach, Shirley Langdon, who taught me the value of discipline. I often got mad at her seemingly dispassionate nature when it came to matters of discipline. I thought she should have held more understanding in her heart especially when it came to me. (I'm certain some of my current and past players feel the same way about how I've handled them.)

One day during the preseason when my mother was taking me to practice, we had a flat tire. I immediately began crying because I knew I would be in trouble for being late. During those days without cell phones (yes I existed before the invention of cell phones), I walked to the nearest pay phone and called the school secretary asking her to inform Coach Langdon of my predicament. When I came through the gym door late, I thought Coach Langdon would offer me some sort of shortcut through the sprints since I had made the effort to contact her and I had a legitimate reason for being late. No such luck. I cursed at her (underneath my breath of course) for the entire thirty minutes I sprinted. I never forgave her for that one until I became a coach.

I now appreciate and understand the value of discipline. I comprehend that when I teach discipline I am teaching self respect, integrity, mental toughness, and the molding of a group of individuals into a team. I don't believe a team can become great without discipline. It is the means to which all ends are achieved.

I didn't understand then why Coach Langdon didn't relieve me of the sprints, but now I know she cared so much about me she wouldn't let me have any excuse for not being good. She took my excuses and threw them out the door. Nothing mattered to her except we did what we were supposed to do when we were supposed to do it. Because she took that approach which seemed harsh to most of us, we did perform exactly as she believed we could. There were no excuses which we could use to tell her why we didn't block a hit or why we didn't get the ball across the net. We did it because she made us believe we could. No excuses were accepted. We battled and we fought for her. We gave until we didn't think we could and then she demanded more of us. It was her way of giving to us a power we didn't know we had.

When I discipline, it is always for the good of the team. My intent is to make them better as players and as people. It is to get them to understand they are responsible for their success and excuses only serve to take them further away from what they desire.

Last Friday, the Eagles forfeited their right to game day which is implemented as a reward for their hard work throughout the week. During game day, we substitute a game for our usual timed sprints. The amazing thing was when I told them why we were running sprints instead of playing ultimate frisbee or one of our other fun games, they didn't quibble, get angry at one another or shoot me nasty looks. No, instead they worked as hard as they possibly could and made the most of the day. This impressed me--this no nonsense approach to finding the best within the situation. I liked that. I believe this team understands the necessity for discipline which means they have matured. Mature players are always wonderful to coach.

Listening To Our Internal Voices

We ask our players to keep a journal and write an entry one time a week. The purpose of players writing in their journals is to become more aware of who they are--to discover things about themselves they did not know. It sounds a little silly to say that our players do not know who they are. It would appear after 18 years years of living they would have intimate awareness of their inner thoughts, but the truth is that at age 48 I am still learning who I am.

Often we don't stop to listen to our internal voices and the messages we are sending to ourselves. It is these internal messages which drive us to succeed or to fail, yet we have lived with the same voices so long we haven't taken time to digest exactly what we are saying.

Since our mind thinks in pictures, we may not be aware of the negative messages we continue to perpetuate day after day. Imagine for a moment a player going to the free throw line in a pressure situation. As she steps to the line, she tells herself that she cannot miss this shot. She repeats to herself, "Don't miss. Don't miss." When she tells herself not to miss, she cannot help but visualize the miss. Her mind pictures the miss.

What she should be saying to herself is more in the lines of "I see this shot going in. I feel it coming off my fingers exactly as I have done a thousand times before. I can make free throws anytime in any situation." Now she has visualized the shot going through the net, the thousand times she has practiced free throws and convinced herself she can make this shot now. What a different story!

Players who don't take the time to evaluate what they tell themselves will have difficulty finding the success they want. Thoughts perpetuate action. There is no other way to start an action except by thought. The thought always comes first whether we know it or not. If our players recognize what they are saying to themselves can be damaging or preventing their success, they can work on creating better thoughts.

How many players began with the thought "I can't" because they heard somebody in their past tell them they couldn't dribble with their left hand or shoot a three pointer or defend a faster player? Once they start a thought with those negative words, it is almost certain it will come true. If, however, they can think past the person who told them they couldn't, erase that vocabulary and begin with a different and more affirmative outlook, they will be able to find greater success.

By having our players write in their journals, they have the opportunity to grow in awareness. By expanding their awareness, they can impact their success by simply changing the way they speak to themselves on a daily basis.

Winning is Everything

Several years ago when I was a young, ambitious coach I was on a job interview at a small college in Montana where basketball was THE EVENT. When a member of the search committee asked me about my views on winning, I replied, "Winning is everything . . . it is the only thing." I could tell she was a little taken aback by my intensity on the subject. Then I defined winning.

Winning to me is not about the scoreboard. The scoreboard never tells the entire story. It may be true the final score is what is celebrated by fans, written about in newspapers and discussed on television stations, but it is not always the entire story. The scoreboard is simply a piece of the journey involving the growth of the players and coaches.

For the Golden Eagles, a win is about three things:
1. Giving 100%.
2. Playing through every second no matter what the circumstance.
3. Learning from the experience.

Giving 100% means exhausting yourself totally. It means when a player departs the court, she could not have gone for another second. She has given her heart, her mind and her body to the game. She has left it all on the court not saving anything for the next day.

Playing through every second means there is no quitting, no letting up, no getting down at a missed shot, turnover or a great play by an opponent. It means that if we are down 20 points, we are still playing as if the game were on the line. It means that if we are up 30 points, we are still intense and focused, working on getting the most from our time on the court.

Learning from the experience means that we are looking for growth, recognizing the good as it comes and feeling great about it, but also always searching for a way to become better. If we learn to take something from each practice and each game, we are continually in the process of growing. Growing means we are getting better. Ultimately, it is what we should desire from our life experience--the opportunity to get better each day.

If we can do these three things, we will win on the scoreboard more often than we will lose. We will discover success. We will feel good about ourselves. We will find wins in some of our losses and discover that a win is not always as it appears on a scoreboard. We will strive to be our best and in being our best, we will truly have done something remarkable. And that is by far one of the most important aspects of winning--learning to feel good about who we are and what we have achieved.

Laughter Creates Unity

I like this team. I realize I say that every year but this team makes me laugh and laughter is good for the soul. Of course, there are times when laughter is not appropriate such as after a loss, during a frozen push-up, running a sprint, doing a competitive drill and when my eyes are five times their size and veins are popping out of my forehead.

This team has a good sense of timing their laughs, knowing when to tease, when to let something go and when I will laugh along with them. Friday night during our initial team meeting, a meeting which is usually full of tension due to the string of rules and regulations I impose, the team had me laughing--a deep bellie laugh with tears at the edge of my eyelids.

If I were to relate the stories to somebody else, they probably wouldn't find them funny. It was one of those deals where you had to be there to think it was funny, yet as a group we can reivist those moments and find the laughter again. This ability to laugh together has already sealed our unity--provided us with a togetherness that other teams can only pray they can achieve. It has given us an intimacy, a feeling of oneness that we will be able to utilize during the challenging times.

Friday night wasn't all laughter; it was team business and motivation for the future. It was a time for sharing when the players read a page from their workout journal which I had requested them to keep over the summer. The journal will be a concrete reminder of the daily grind they put themselves through to find their dreams. When they shared their toughest workout day of the summer, I found I was amazed at their willingness to spend hours and hours getting better. There was Canada (Lisanne) who "ran through grass as high as my waist in the hottest of days . . . uphill both ways." There was Katy who played basketball for two hours against the Chinese, then spent another hour weight lifting, then another hour doing shooting, then did an ab workout. There were others whose workouts were just as impressive.

After we had laughed at Canada's rendition of her workout which became tougher with each telling, we each wrote our biggest strengths on a piece of paper. Then I had them add to that paper their vision of a perfect game. We then took those papers and hid them in the gym in a place where they wouldn't be discovered. So our strengths and our perfect game will be in the gym waiting for us all year long.

I am not certain where this year will take us, but I am convinced we will find laughter along the way.

Fear or Faith

Every year brings with it new challenges and opportunities. The unknown can be disastrous if it is feared or it can be joyous if it is looked upon as an adventure. What is important at this stage of the year is the attitude of the players involved. It is their belief system which will determine whether this year is one to be remembered and cherished or one to be forgotten and stashed deep within themselves.

In searching for the answer to this question, I look at the upper class players to see how they have grown internally. I am always more concerned with the strength of their minds versus the strength of their bodies.

I can see the strength of Katy Arick who finally after three years of failing the 12 minute run succeeded. She has always known this battle for her was not one of her lungs or legs but one of her mind. It was the little child within her telling her she couldn't that would not allow her to make the run. Finally she has learned to quieten that little child and allow the bigger woman to step forth--the one who believes in opportunity and success, in achieving the seemingly impossible.

I see the determination of Tarenna Dixon who has had to learn some very difficult lessons but who with a tenacity she has never shown in the classroom achieved a "B" in a difficult course over the summer. When she speaks to me now, she looks me in the eyes as if she knows she deserves the praise I will give her.

I see the willingness of Lindsey Kentner to take the next step--the one which could make her a failure or a star. Her obstacle has been the need to be
perfect--to make every shot she shoots. Now, with the understanding that she can miss without being less than who she is, she is free to be the incredible player she has always been.

I see Ali Tobias whose favorite past time was believing she wasn't fast enough to compete against athletic players now offering up the knowledge that intelligence can surpass athleticism. She is more comfortable in her abilities to be deceptive.

I see Moneka Slaughter taking on the constructive criticism I give her with the understanding she is capable of pushing through my demands. She is growing into the awareness she is strong, fast and a good low block player.

I see Julianne Smith gaining confidence in her shooting skills, the same skills she worked on endlessly last year but never used. It was never that she couldn't physically shoot the ball; it was that she thought she couldn't.

I see Tiana Beatty as a player who will not be denied. Even with pain, she has continued to find ways to train over the summer. She did not let what she could not do effect what she could do.

There is a difference between fears they owned and fears they have dissolved. There is a quiet confidence, an inner calmness which they now carry. This is their torch . . .their team . . . and their destiny.

A Coaching Change

With the start of a new school year comes the beginning of a new season. This one is especially different for me as it will be the first time in 18 years I will be operating without my assistant coach, Lynne Fitzgerald. After 20 years of coaching, she made the determination that she was prepared to search a different direction for what life had to offer. Instead of spending days on end in the gymnasium, she has opted for blue skies, glacier lakes, and the wide expanse of the outdoors. Her focus in on the wilderness and outdoor leadership opportunites.

She has been a phoenomenal recruiter, getting us some of the top players in the WVIAC. Her strength as a recruiter was her ability to talk to anybody and make them feel special. She was also a tremendous teacher on the court. She knew how to break down a skill and develop it piece by piece to enable all players to be successful. One of the most important aspects of her job was to keep me level-headed, positive and coaching the game rather than reacting to the officials. She did this with humor and great insight.

She will be missed as part of the Golden Eagle coaching staff.

I welcome with enthusiasm the new member of my coaching staff, Rachel Pike. Rachel was a Golden Eagle from 2003-2007 and part of a team that acquired 106 wins versus only 24 losses. During her tenure, the team won back-to-back East Regional Championships and advanced to the Elite Eight in both 2005 and 2006.

During the past two years, Rachel was graduate assistant at Tiffin University where she received her Masters in Business Administration with a focus on leadership. While she is young, I have complete confidence in her ability to lead, to teach, to organize and to recruit.

When Rachel was a player, I often told her that she had the wisdom of an eighty year old mind in a twenty year old body. She was mature then in her decision-making and how she responded to conflicts which is exactly why she is a member of the coaching staff.

I often tell my players that you can't stay in the past. You have to perform in the moment. My challenge is to allow the wonderful 18 years spent working beside Coach Fitzgerald to remain part of the past and to be thankful for all she gave to me and the program and to allow Coach Pike to be part of the present.