Here I am sitting in my office reflecting about the past season where we won less games than we have since the first season I coached at the University of Charleston, yet I don't feel depression, disappointment perhaps but not despair. We were young and inexperienced which led to a host of complications which all came from the same seed--insecurity. We did not have a single player on the floor who felt complete and utter confidence in herself. We lacked the thing which makes great players great--belief in self.
We found we could play with other teams who were young or struggling but when we faced seniors and players who knew their strengths, we reverted back to the mental state of questioning ourselves. With all the mental toughness teaching I emphasize, it holds no grip on the young mind who has not yet seen results. We are still thinking that we must see it in order to believe it rather than believing it first. The real secret here is to see it in the mind, to believe it before it actually occurs, but we are taught in so many different arenas that the opposite is true.
I know the players have more inside themselves. They do. The problem is most people have more inside themselves and most of them never reach it, because of the fear that exists. Fear prevents us from trying, from reaching, from going forward and it becomes our biggest enemy. Whatever we fear and we give our attention to, we then create it. The more time we spend thinking about losing or being a failure, the more it becomes foremost in our mind. We become what we think about most of the time.
So how do I get these players to see themselves differently when I can't reach into their minds and turn a switch? Since I cannot get into their minds and extract what needs to be extracted and they don't recognize the power of the mind, then we have to do it the old fashion way--work and work and work. They must get back on the court and spend hours shooting so they will believe in their abilities. I have told them they need to shoot each shot 10,000 times and if they do, they will become an expert at it.
This season is done and over and we have survived and grown. This is the true tale when it is all said and done--we have grown and learned and become somebody different.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Consistency and Confidence
With only one regular season game remaining, we are sitting at .500 with less wins than the Golden Eagles have had since 2002. We could end on a winning record or a losing one depending on the final away game. In the big scheme of things, I suppose the outcome of the final game is just not that important. What is important is how we finish the game. Do we come together and play hard, giving our best effort, or do we simply throw in the towel believing next year will be better?
My intention is for the players to fight, to battle, and to discover another piece of themselves they did not know they possessed. What I mean by this is I hope for them to use this last game, this last challenge as a means to improve themselves, to push through one more self-imposed barrier. It is, after all, what collegiate basketball at the Division II level is really about--growth. At our level, it is not about the money, the big time television contracts, the gate receipts, or even the opportunity to play pro ball. It is about using the modem of sports as a means of education.
I have several young players who have not shown their talent this season. I keep waiting for them to recognize what they possess. There is Nichole Perry, a player who is in the gym every day shooting 500-600 shots. She has made her release quicker and developed a better jumper and increased her range. Kali Cuttaia is an athlete who is quick, has great hands, a shot blocker, who can really sky on a rebound. Kayla Dozier is exceptionally quick, a player who blasts by defenders leaving a trail of smoke in her wake. LeAnne Ross can shoot the deep three pointer, stop and pop the jumper or finish a lay-up with a double pump. All of these freshmen have shown bits and pieces of their brilliance at times, but none of them have allowed their talents to be on display consistently.
This has been our problem all year--consistency. Without a go-to player, we seem to falter when we need a basket as not a single player on the team knows who wants the ball as nobody consistently asks for it. Every team needs that player who wants the ball and is willing to take the tough shots and who believes in her heart she can make them. We have players who will show talent and desire on a single night, but not one player has determined she has the talent to affect the outcome of the game.
Oh, I believe we have some players next year who will step up, who will think of themselves differently after they become a sophomore or a junior, but that thinking does not help us finish this season well and they need to finish this season well in order to start the next one with more confidence.
Confidence is a frail thing. It seems to only come after a player has seen results but she needs confidence to make the results. Ironic, isn't it?
I hope my freshmen will realize their talents and allow them to flow through them in our last game.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
My intention is for the players to fight, to battle, and to discover another piece of themselves they did not know they possessed. What I mean by this is I hope for them to use this last game, this last challenge as a means to improve themselves, to push through one more self-imposed barrier. It is, after all, what collegiate basketball at the Division II level is really about--growth. At our level, it is not about the money, the big time television contracts, the gate receipts, or even the opportunity to play pro ball. It is about using the modem of sports as a means of education.
I have several young players who have not shown their talent this season. I keep waiting for them to recognize what they possess. There is Nichole Perry, a player who is in the gym every day shooting 500-600 shots. She has made her release quicker and developed a better jumper and increased her range. Kali Cuttaia is an athlete who is quick, has great hands, a shot blocker, who can really sky on a rebound. Kayla Dozier is exceptionally quick, a player who blasts by defenders leaving a trail of smoke in her wake. LeAnne Ross can shoot the deep three pointer, stop and pop the jumper or finish a lay-up with a double pump. All of these freshmen have shown bits and pieces of their brilliance at times, but none of them have allowed their talents to be on display consistently.
This has been our problem all year--consistency. Without a go-to player, we seem to falter when we need a basket as not a single player on the team knows who wants the ball as nobody consistently asks for it. Every team needs that player who wants the ball and is willing to take the tough shots and who believes in her heart she can make them. We have players who will show talent and desire on a single night, but not one player has determined she has the talent to affect the outcome of the game.
Oh, I believe we have some players next year who will step up, who will think of themselves differently after they become a sophomore or a junior, but that thinking does not help us finish this season well and they need to finish this season well in order to start the next one with more confidence.
Confidence is a frail thing. It seems to only come after a player has seen results but she needs confidence to make the results. Ironic, isn't it?
I hope my freshmen will realize their talents and allow them to flow through them in our last game.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Recovering From A Blowout
So how does a team recover from a thirty point blowout? How does a team think it can play again after a game where nothing seemed to go right? How do players find their way back to self confidence when it was eroded and erased by a team who simply wiped the floor with our efforts?
I think the questions have to be answered with character. If our players are built more of the character of years rather than the outcome of a game or games, they can recover. If all their self-esteem is based on a performance rather than years of learning and growing, then we cannot find our way back to playing hard, to competing, or to making opponents fight against us. It is not a question of what the coaching staff says or does; it now becomes a question of who each individual is.
I no longer base my self-worth on a game or the outcome of a game. When I was a player, I certainly did this and I hate to admit this, but as a young coach I was also guilty of this judgment. Now I know through years of self-reflection, reading and meditating that I am not better or worse because we won or lost a game. I have enough confidence and faith in who I am I no longer need to reassure myself through a contest I am good enough. I hope I can pass this onto my players--that they know they are still worthy and loved if they lose.
I hope they way they judge themselves is on effort, persistence, dedication, and willingness to learn from adversity. I hope they can see their growth throughout the season and know they have traveled a great distance. I want them to understand they are getting better; they are growing; they are expanding in ways and means they cannot yet understand and even more that this experience is not a bad experience. It is neither good or bad. It becomes whatever they want it to become--that they attach the emotion to the experience. In other words, they can feel great about how they handled the adversity or they can be angry about the number of losses in the season. They can find the good about the games we've lost or they can beat themselves up feeling totally unworthy.
It is not the judgment of others which hurt us the most; it is our internal judgment for nobody else can hurt us without our consent. This season may not been deemed a year for championships but maybe, just maybe, it was meant to be more. It was meant as an opportunity for expansion and for players to learn to love themselves no matter what the numbers on the scoreboard read.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
I think the questions have to be answered with character. If our players are built more of the character of years rather than the outcome of a game or games, they can recover. If all their self-esteem is based on a performance rather than years of learning and growing, then we cannot find our way back to playing hard, to competing, or to making opponents fight against us. It is not a question of what the coaching staff says or does; it now becomes a question of who each individual is.
I no longer base my self-worth on a game or the outcome of a game. When I was a player, I certainly did this and I hate to admit this, but as a young coach I was also guilty of this judgment. Now I know through years of self-reflection, reading and meditating that I am not better or worse because we won or lost a game. I have enough confidence and faith in who I am I no longer need to reassure myself through a contest I am good enough. I hope I can pass this onto my players--that they know they are still worthy and loved if they lose.
I hope they way they judge themselves is on effort, persistence, dedication, and willingness to learn from adversity. I hope they can see their growth throughout the season and know they have traveled a great distance. I want them to understand they are getting better; they are growing; they are expanding in ways and means they cannot yet understand and even more that this experience is not a bad experience. It is neither good or bad. It becomes whatever they want it to become--that they attach the emotion to the experience. In other words, they can feel great about how they handled the adversity or they can be angry about the number of losses in the season. They can find the good about the games we've lost or they can beat themselves up feeling totally unworthy.
It is not the judgment of others which hurt us the most; it is our internal judgment for nobody else can hurt us without our consent. This season may not been deemed a year for championships but maybe, just maybe, it was meant to be more. It was meant as an opportunity for expansion and for players to learn to love themselves no matter what the numbers on the scoreboard read.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
When Your Attitude is Right, The Facts Don't Matter
I am not certain about how this team accomplishes some of the things it does. Sometimes we look so lost that we couldn't find the direction down a way one street and other times, when we have that spark, that look in our eyes which implies a don't-mess-with-me attitude, we can achieve remarkable things. After a two game losing streak where we fought with our hearts but not our heads, we came back to win two in a row. That, however, is not the remarkable thing I'm talking about.
What I am talking about is that we won those games with one and a half healthy post players. The one healthy post is freshman Kali Cuttaia and the half is 5'7'' guard turned post, Marilene LaPierre. Ericka Rousculp, the leading rebounder in the nation, was playing on an injured ankle and Shelby Stokes was out with another injury. In the game against Ohio Valley, we started with Tiffany Scott, but lost her to a head injury in the first two minutes of the game. So we played two games with one and half healthy posts. Now this is a daunting task for a good team to overcome, but for a young team, it should have been almost impossible.
I'm still not quite certain how we pulled it off, but this team has some never-say-die quality about them which makes them think they can do anything even if they have never done it before. In our last game, we set a school record for the highest second half shooting percentage in a game netting a blistering 74% from the field. This was after a rather disgusting first half where we looked as if the game was simply too fast for us and we couldn't find a way to put the ball in the basket even if it was a uncontested lay-up. How does a team who normally shoots below 40% pull that one off? And how does it pull it off when another starter goes down in the first half after plowing into the wall leaving a trail of blood in her wake? Oh, Nichole did come back and play in the second half. In fact, she played her best half of basketball in her young career scoring all 17 of her points in the last 20 minutes of play. (From this lesson, the coaching staff has deduced if she is not playing well, we should slam her head against the wall.)
Most teams would have quit in the circumstances above. They would have bought into the belief that all was going against them, but this team didn't. Nope. They just kept playing. Maybe it is their innocence, the freshmen naivete, which kept them from thinking the sky was falling, but maybe, just maybe, they have been listening to us tell them that when your attitude is right, the facts don't matter.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
What I am talking about is that we won those games with one and a half healthy post players. The one healthy post is freshman Kali Cuttaia and the half is 5'7'' guard turned post, Marilene LaPierre. Ericka Rousculp, the leading rebounder in the nation, was playing on an injured ankle and Shelby Stokes was out with another injury. In the game against Ohio Valley, we started with Tiffany Scott, but lost her to a head injury in the first two minutes of the game. So we played two games with one and half healthy posts. Now this is a daunting task for a good team to overcome, but for a young team, it should have been almost impossible.
I'm still not quite certain how we pulled it off, but this team has some never-say-die quality about them which makes them think they can do anything even if they have never done it before. In our last game, we set a school record for the highest second half shooting percentage in a game netting a blistering 74% from the field. This was after a rather disgusting first half where we looked as if the game was simply too fast for us and we couldn't find a way to put the ball in the basket even if it was a uncontested lay-up. How does a team who normally shoots below 40% pull that one off? And how does it pull it off when another starter goes down in the first half after plowing into the wall leaving a trail of blood in her wake? Oh, Nichole did come back and play in the second half. In fact, she played her best half of basketball in her young career scoring all 17 of her points in the last 20 minutes of play. (From this lesson, the coaching staff has deduced if she is not playing well, we should slam her head against the wall.)
Most teams would have quit in the circumstances above. They would have bought into the belief that all was going against them, but this team didn't. Nope. They just kept playing. Maybe it is their innocence, the freshmen naivete, which kept them from thinking the sky was falling, but maybe, just maybe, they have been listening to us tell them that when your attitude is right, the facts don't matter.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Surviving A Challenging Year
Two days ago as I was talking with my assistant coach and discussing the basketball season and what had transpired up to this point, we both agreed our team had two serious issues in front of them: 1) feeling as if they were failures, and 2) not having any confidence in their abilities. We know as coaches it is tough for a young team without a senior to feel confident. The truth is one individual who is a go-to player, who has complete and utter confidence in her skills makes those around her better, because she takes the pressure off everybody else. But when you don't have that player and all the players on the team feel enormous pressure to perform when they don't yet feel they can assume that role, their confidence wanes with each miss of the basket, each turnover and every defensive misstep.
In the world of athletics, having a losing season is never seen in a positive light. People don't talk about effort or growth when talking about a game; they talk about the score. I can't imagine what Thomas Edison would have been like as an athlete. When working on his inventions, he always believed he had not failed but through his efforts he had figured out 10,000 ways something did not work. He always believed he was one step closer to success. Would he have under the microscope of fans and the media kept his positive attitude? Or would he have succumbed to the feeling of not being good enough?
So here we are in the battle of wills, of fighting the internal dialogue of our players trying to get them to see something good in the midst of a challenging season. On Monday, we had each of them write a definition of failure and then read the definition out loud. Most of their definitions included something like failure means unwillingness to grow or giving up or not giving your best effort. Then I asked them to write down as many physical skills and intangible lessons they had learned through the past six months. When they had completed their lists, I asked if anybody had less than ten things. Not one of them raised their hand. I then told them they were not failures if they grown and learned so much--that they must feel good about how much they had evolved in a six month time frame.
On Tuesday, we tried to tackle the lack of confidence issue we had been having. I bought sandwich baggies and placed each players name on a baggie and told the team these were To-Go-Confidence Baggies. We had each player and coach write down on a piece of paper something amazing they saw in each teammate. When we were done with this task, each player had 17 confidence builders in their baggie. These were baggies to take with them and to pull out a slip of paper whenever they needed a confidence boost.
I am not angry or upset about this season; I understand this season is an opportunity for me as an individual to grow and to become someone better. My hope is I can provide that lesson to my players as well.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
In the world of athletics, having a losing season is never seen in a positive light. People don't talk about effort or growth when talking about a game; they talk about the score. I can't imagine what Thomas Edison would have been like as an athlete. When working on his inventions, he always believed he had not failed but through his efforts he had figured out 10,000 ways something did not work. He always believed he was one step closer to success. Would he have under the microscope of fans and the media kept his positive attitude? Or would he have succumbed to the feeling of not being good enough?
So here we are in the battle of wills, of fighting the internal dialogue of our players trying to get them to see something good in the midst of a challenging season. On Monday, we had each of them write a definition of failure and then read the definition out loud. Most of their definitions included something like failure means unwillingness to grow or giving up or not giving your best effort. Then I asked them to write down as many physical skills and intangible lessons they had learned through the past six months. When they had completed their lists, I asked if anybody had less than ten things. Not one of them raised their hand. I then told them they were not failures if they grown and learned so much--that they must feel good about how much they had evolved in a six month time frame.
On Tuesday, we tried to tackle the lack of confidence issue we had been having. I bought sandwich baggies and placed each players name on a baggie and told the team these were To-Go-Confidence Baggies. We had each player and coach write down on a piece of paper something amazing they saw in each teammate. When we were done with this task, each player had 17 confidence builders in their baggie. These were baggies to take with them and to pull out a slip of paper whenever they needed a confidence boost.
I am not angry or upset about this season; I understand this season is an opportunity for me as an individual to grow and to become someone better. My hope is I can provide that lesson to my players as well.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Remembering Nothing is Ever Good Or Bad
As we began our trip to Shepherd University things starting seemingly falling apart. Before we departed, we almost left our practice gear in the locker room and then once we arrived, we found we have left the Blueberry (our nickname for the DVD player). This created quite a ruckus among the athletes as I queried them about who was supposed to bring it as none of them wanted to face my wrath. Of course, I knew what they didn't. I wasn't going to go crazy. Nope. Instead I was going to find a way to make things work without it.
Once we got to the hotel, we discovered our gym time we had reserved with the hotel's gym had been usurped by the government. I didn't know the government had imminent domain over hotel gyms! Since we had been denied practice time at Shepherd University, my wonderful staff started working on finding us a place to have a morning practice. When it was discovered our men's team had a practice time at Shepherd while we were not afforded one, we begged for a time there. After calling local schools, churches and fitness centers, we finally resorted to asking if we could use the upstairs gymnasium at SU. When we got an affirmation, we hurriedly assembled the team and got on the bus before we somehow missed our golden opportunity to prepare for the game.
Once we got upstairs to their practice facility, a class had taken over the gym. Without even batting an eye or letting a curse world slide off my lips, I led the team across the facility to the other side which looked like it was used as purgatory for wayward athletic teams and decided it would have to suffice for us. So with our men's team on the real court and a class on the next best court, we were stuffed in a makeshift rectangular hellhole with a blue rubber floor and no basketball hoops. As the team started to make comments about how everything seemed to be going wrong, I stopped them with one of my infamous stares and told them, "This is not bad or good. It is what we make of it. We can decide to use this as an excuse and tell our sad story or we can find a way to make it work. It is our choice to decide what we want to do."
I know when I was younger I would have taken every misstep as a sign things were going badly and I would have plummeted to despair and hopelessness believing the game was already lost before we had even stepped on the court. Good thing I am no longer that youngster and know better than to attach an emotion to a series of events. I now know that events happen and they are neither good nor bad; they just are. We are responsible for the emotions. And in this situation, our choice was to find a way rather than to find an excuse.
I don't yet know the outcome of the game as I am writing this before the game has occurred, but I do know this--we will not allow the events which transpired before the game to affect our thoughts about our abilities to win the game.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
Once we got to the hotel, we discovered our gym time we had reserved with the hotel's gym had been usurped by the government. I didn't know the government had imminent domain over hotel gyms! Since we had been denied practice time at Shepherd University, my wonderful staff started working on finding us a place to have a morning practice. When it was discovered our men's team had a practice time at Shepherd while we were not afforded one, we begged for a time there. After calling local schools, churches and fitness centers, we finally resorted to asking if we could use the upstairs gymnasium at SU. When we got an affirmation, we hurriedly assembled the team and got on the bus before we somehow missed our golden opportunity to prepare for the game.
Once we got upstairs to their practice facility, a class had taken over the gym. Without even batting an eye or letting a curse world slide off my lips, I led the team across the facility to the other side which looked like it was used as purgatory for wayward athletic teams and decided it would have to suffice for us. So with our men's team on the real court and a class on the next best court, we were stuffed in a makeshift rectangular hellhole with a blue rubber floor and no basketball hoops. As the team started to make comments about how everything seemed to be going wrong, I stopped them with one of my infamous stares and told them, "This is not bad or good. It is what we make of it. We can decide to use this as an excuse and tell our sad story or we can find a way to make it work. It is our choice to decide what we want to do."
I know when I was younger I would have taken every misstep as a sign things were going badly and I would have plummeted to despair and hopelessness believing the game was already lost before we had even stepped on the court. Good thing I am no longer that youngster and know better than to attach an emotion to a series of events. I now know that events happen and they are neither good nor bad; they just are. We are responsible for the emotions. And in this situation, our choice was to find a way rather than to find an excuse.
I don't yet know the outcome of the game as I am writing this before the game has occurred, but I do know this--we will not allow the events which transpired before the game to affect our thoughts about our abilities to win the game.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Passion is The Only Way To Play
I'll be the first one to admit I haven't done a consistent job of posting blogs this year. I could use many reasons but in the end the reasons are just excuses and don't work. The truth is I've been reluctant to write about this team and the journey they have taken. It is not a journey of power and courage, not one of strength, but one of insecurity and a lack of confidence. I understand they are young, one of the youngest teams in the league. I get that in my system, there is a tremendous amount of learning which translates into a difficult freshmen year. Not very many freshmen in my system have done well.
I can only recall three freshmen who were outstanding in the eleven years I've coached at the University of Charleston: Sarah Batchelder, Lisa Lee and Courtney Thomas. All three of those players made significant contributions their freshmen years, but they also were emotionally immature and made many errors. There have been others who came through in their freshmen season and we wondered if they would ever make good players like Jihan Williams, Kika Carman, Rachel Pike, Lindsey Kentner, Tiana Beatty and Tarenna Dixon. None of those players were outstanding their freshmen season and most of them came off the bench for 10-15 minutes a game but by the time they were juniors, they were amazing.
So I sit here wondering who will grow up and become an All-Conference player and who will sink into a vat of nothingness, who can step up and become a leader and what players will never find their voices. I always want to have hope, to have this belief every player can develop into something special, but I also know after years of doing this that there are some players who have the heart, the passion and the work ethic to make it happen, and then there are others who simply fade away never allowing themselves the opportunity for greatness.
I think we have several who can be great but I haven't seen the passion, the consistent fire in them I want to see. I love passion, the thing inside players which makes them scream after a big shot or pump their fist after taking a charge. I'd rather have to tame an angry player than try to pull a small bit of fire from an apathetic one. Apathy drives me crazy, makes me want to spit and foam at the mouth. I've never understood giving less than 100% believing the giving is the part which makes the person and the player.
I want to believe in this group of players and I have tried everything in my bag of tricks to make them motivated. I have been positive, shown encouragement, yelled, screamed, thrown fits, talked circles around them, and even tried the silent treatment. At some point, it has to mean something to them; it has to come from them. I cannot carry them all with my passion and heart. So I have decided to put it back on them hoping they will see the light, hoping they will step up and want to be good, hoping they will want to put on the maroon and gold jersey of the Golden Eagles and feel what others felt inside it. I can only hope.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
I can only recall three freshmen who were outstanding in the eleven years I've coached at the University of Charleston: Sarah Batchelder, Lisa Lee and Courtney Thomas. All three of those players made significant contributions their freshmen years, but they also were emotionally immature and made many errors. There have been others who came through in their freshmen season and we wondered if they would ever make good players like Jihan Williams, Kika Carman, Rachel Pike, Lindsey Kentner, Tiana Beatty and Tarenna Dixon. None of those players were outstanding their freshmen season and most of them came off the bench for 10-15 minutes a game but by the time they were juniors, they were amazing.
So I sit here wondering who will grow up and become an All-Conference player and who will sink into a vat of nothingness, who can step up and become a leader and what players will never find their voices. I always want to have hope, to have this belief every player can develop into something special, but I also know after years of doing this that there are some players who have the heart, the passion and the work ethic to make it happen, and then there are others who simply fade away never allowing themselves the opportunity for greatness.
I think we have several who can be great but I haven't seen the passion, the consistent fire in them I want to see. I love passion, the thing inside players which makes them scream after a big shot or pump their fist after taking a charge. I'd rather have to tame an angry player than try to pull a small bit of fire from an apathetic one. Apathy drives me crazy, makes me want to spit and foam at the mouth. I've never understood giving less than 100% believing the giving is the part which makes the person and the player.
I want to believe in this group of players and I have tried everything in my bag of tricks to make them motivated. I have been positive, shown encouragement, yelled, screamed, thrown fits, talked circles around them, and even tried the silent treatment. At some point, it has to mean something to them; it has to come from them. I cannot carry them all with my passion and heart. So I have decided to put it back on them hoping they will see the light, hoping they will step up and want to be good, hoping they will want to put on the maroon and gold jersey of the Golden Eagles and feel what others felt inside it. I can only hope.
PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.
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