Passion Is Stronger Than Fear

There are many coaching philosophies and many ways to win. There is the tough coach who demands, demands, demands, and uses punishment as a means to right the errors on the court. I had a former coach like this whose answer to every loss was to make us run suicides. When we lost, we knew the next practice was going to be horrible. We were going to run until we could barely stand up. The awful thing was that this approach worked because we hated running. The consequence of not winning was so devastating that we absolutely feared the next day. This fear drove us to win.

Of course, we all loved the winning. Winning was fun but the means to achieve winning was not. I hated the thought of going to practice--the thought of running until I felt my insides were going to all come up through my throat. I grieved all day, anxiety eating through my stomach, tasting the acid of that gut rot on my tongue as I envisioned my legs turning to rubber. There was no joy throughout the day until the running was done. Then there was that small moment of reprieve when I knew I didn't have to go through that again until the next day.

Since I didn't enjoy my experience, I am not the type of coach who uses punishment as a means to win. I don't want my players fearing practice, worrying all day about what I might do to them. I want them eager to arrive, to learn how to become better, to enjoy the experience even if sometimes the answer to a problem might be a tough practice. I remember as an athlete running and running and running all the while thinking that we would be better off working on the skills we needed to improve.

Am I soft? I don't think so. Should I at times be a little tougher? Probably. Should I at times be a little more understanding? Probably. I do know, though, the answer to my teams is not punishment but coming together to resolve problems or issues.

Two Saturdays ago after we lost to WVW, I wanted to work them hard--to push and push and push until they got everything right. It was what I wanted but not necessarily what they needed. They needed to recover from a loss, to work on the skills they needed to beat the opponent the next time, and to allow themselves a little time off from basketball.

In order to achieve these things, we spent a few minutes writing in our journals about why we lost. Then we went around the room asking each player why she thought we played poorly. After it was determined that it was a mental issue, a game preparation issue, I asked the players to complete a homework assignment on how to change their mentality the next time this occurred.

The next step was to work on the skills in practice which needed improvement. We changed our emphasis in practices and spent more time on those skills. When my assistant coaches brought to my attention that the players seemed tired and needed rest, I gave them Thursday off. No practice. No team meetings. Their instructions were to get away from basketball and enjoy the day.

Does this philosophy work for every coach? No. It works for us because we build the team around the positive and focus on creating our dreams from this belief system. Hopefully, the idea is that our players will love the game and use this passion to play. I believe passion is stronger than fear and I know without a doubt it is more fun.