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.

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.

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.

An Oxymoron--Patient Aggressive Offense?

December was a weird and unusual month for us as we played only four games in a five week period. For the players, it meant never-ending practices where the coaches could push them with high intensity and force them to go hard day after day without worrying about tapering off for games. After enduring six weeks of conditioning in the fall, what player would want another month of perceived conditioning?

Personally, the opportunity to work long practice hours, to get in the gym twice a day over the winter break, is a slice of heaven. With such a young team, it is necessary to teach, to do high numbers of repetitions of the same skill, to demand the right execution of offense, and to get them to buy into team defense. This past week we've been spending hours and hours on the concept of side to side and back on offense. When we broke down the game tapes of our last two games and noted the number of times we took bad shots, we knew things had to drastically change.

Most coaches don't mess with teaching the motion offense because it requires so much time, patience and structure. I bought into it because it provides freedom within structure and it teaches the players how to actually play the game not just run from spot to spot. The problem with teaching players how to set a screen and use a screen is that most of them have never been taught how to do either. In fact when I watch basketball on television at the Division I level, I am often surprised at how many elite players do run-by screens or how they screen only air.

Some of the hardest concepts about motion offense are letting the ball take care of itself meaning each player has to trust the person with the ball taking her eyes off the ball while she sets a screen or uses a screen. The next most difficult concept is to learn what a good shot is within the offense and when to take that shot which is where the side to side and back concept arises. If we can teach the team to be patient enough while still being aggressive with the ball, we will make better shots but to most players the idea of being patient aggressive sounds like an oxymoron.

It is a lengthy process but one I believe in because I have witnessed the growth of players over the years. So many of our freshmen come in averaging four or five points but by their senior year are closing in on a thousand points. I know it works but the process of teaching and learning it is very challenging.

My hope is by the time the winter break is over, our players will have caught on and our shooting percentage will be on the rise.

PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.

Loving The Life Of A Coach

Most people have no clue what goes on behind the doors of the gymnasium. Some people have this concept the coaches spend their day hanging out, talking to peers, working out in the fitness center and waiting around until practice begins as if practice time is when our day really starts. The truth is the day sometimes begins at 10:00 a.m. and sometimes at 5:30 a.m. Sometimes it ends at 6:30 in the evening and sometimes earlier but on away trips, it usually lasts until 2:00 a.m. We don't get the holidays the other staff members at the university receive as our season rolls right through Thanksgiving, Christmas and spring break. Oh it is true, we now receive a seven day recovery time during the Christmas holidays because of the NCAA Division II Life in The Balance Initiative, but our peers get a four week vacation.

So what do coaches do in a normal day? Well, first of all there is no such thing as normal. Nope. Not in the world of coaching. Every day brings a hotbed of new challenges to the table. Sometimes we have to stop everything for a "crisis" of one of our players. I put the word in quotation marks because I rarely see things as a crisis. I mostly see events now as opportunities, as doorways, and as the marker for something better to come, but most of our players have not yet gotten to that philosophy of life. They still think there are good days and bad days and evil lurking around every corner waiting to grab them up and insert its nastiness. It is our job to help them see the good and the light at then end of their perceived tunnel.

When we are not dealing with academic or personal issues of our players, we are preparing for practices, doing the much dreaded NCAA compliance paper work, and recruiting which entails writing emails, making phone calls and watching tons of games. During the season, we are mostly breaking down game film pausing the film, rewinding it, taking notes and watching, watching, watching. The preparation for a single game takes hours. We have to discover through game film how to defeat our opponents and what are the keys to winning the game, and then we must sell that to our players in a way they understand it.

The life of a coach is hectic, stressful but oh-so-rewarding. It is not the wins which feel so good; it is witnessing the growth of the players, watching them as they transition to better people. It is getting an email from Ali Tobias saying thank you and telling me how I touched her life, and hearing from Mr. Carmen how Kika is now attending law school because she learned so much from playing at UC. It is watching Jihan who we literally had to babysit through classes to make certain she graduated now bring her books and computer to study for graduate school while she is visiting her boyfriend. It is knowing I have so many former players who are now extremely successful in their chosen careers.

Coaching is a crazy profession. It requires a dedication beyond the ordinary; it requires people who live with a passion for the teaching of the game. I know I am blessed to have been a coach for 22 years, and I am so grateful for each player who passed through the gyms where I coached for each one of them taught me something valuable and made me a better person.

PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.

Firing From The Hip With Chrissy Keir

There are probably not many coaches who would have recruited Chrissy Keir as she stands about 5'2" on a good day with extra padding in her high top shoes. In fact, I clearly remember the day we were recruiting her. It was in a gym on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. where teams were playing on ten courts. We happened to be sitting at her court because we were watching the point guard from the other team.

As we sat and observed, we became more and more enamored with her ability to squeeze a ball between two defenders, to see the floor, and to monitor the tempo of the game. There were many coaches sitting around us all lamenting her size commenting if she were only taller they would recruit her. I wasn't in on those discussions. What I kept coming back to was the height she played not the height she was.

So now after two years of playing experience where she has shown small bits of her game, letting passes fly from the hip on occasion, holding back just a little, letting the senior starting point guard have the glory, she has finally decided to step up and be a player. During our last two games, she was the floor general fully in command supporting her troops in the way only a general could.

In the game against West Liberty, she did all the little things that only a discerning eye could see--playing position defense, calling out screens, tracing the ball on the dribbler, recognizing the play and calling it out to teammates. None of these are in the stat column, none of these are noted by reporters or even fans, but her coaches and teammates know they all make a difference in the outcome of the game.

Not only has she been playing amazing defense, but she has begun feeling when to push the ball and when to slow down the tempo recognizing the pace of the game we want. She knows when to hold the ball and allow her teammates to get into place or when to push it for the transition basket.

But what I really adore are her passes--the ones she pulls out of her trick cap, the ones nobody sees coming except for her teammates who have learned to keep their hands up and ready. She has this ability to put a spin on the ball which makes the ball travel one way and then back to a teammate. I'm not certain how this works but I do love it when a defender tries to get to the ball and thinks she has a hand on it and then it slides away from her. There is the behind the back pass and the no look pass, the passes that graze defenders' ears as they whistle by their heads on way to the posts in the low block. When she makes one of her amazing passes, it dazzles the crowds and gets her teammates off the bench in excitement creating momentum for the team.

I am thrilled to see the floor general in complete confidence, playing in the zone, commanding her teammates to play harder and faster. If no other coach or opponent notes her importance to this team, I want her to recognize the coaches do. Thanks Chrissy for stepping up and being the player you were meant to be.

PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.

Living In Optimism

When I was younger, in my twenties, I considered myself a realist. Most people who knew me would have called me a pessimist but I thought I called things as they were and lived in reality. I had no idea reality is something which is made up in one's mind so I spent much of my time looking at things and seeing the worst possibility and believing in the "facts" other people gave me as truth. Lucky for me I dropped being a realist and signed up for optimism because now I believe in all possibilities and I seek in the best in things.

Take for instance this basketball season. Had I been coaching this team full of youngsters and inexperience in my twenties and early thirties, I'm certain I would have listened to the wisdom of all those who would have offered their belief that youth cannot win big games. I would have bought into this hook, line and sinker thinking like most people do that young players don't have the experience to play in tight situations. I would have coached the team with the mindset we would be a good team the next year and take our lumps for the season.

We started the season 0-3 losing to teams which we could have beaten, looking rather raw and incapable of doing anything remotely close to resembling solid basketball fundamentals. The coaches watched from the sideline as we boinked the ball off the backboard on easy put backs, fumbled passes, threw the ball directly to the players who were not on our team, shot a measly 60% from the free throw line and generally looked like a sandlot group of athletes who were playing basketball for the first time in our lives. It was dreadful and I could have believed we were going to drown in this ugliness, swallowing too much of the missed cues, but I chose to believe in what I knew to be this team's potential.

We have speed and more speed, players who are lightening quick and appear like shadows on the court, coming in and out of a play before the opponents can see them. We have rebounders who can jump up with with great hands grab the ball right out of the air and we have this thing called "passion" which flows through so many team members it is like electricity on the court. Because I now believe in miracles, in the creation of great events in our minds, I didn't panic early in the season; I kept the faith knowing these young women would eventually come to see in themselves what the coaching staff saw in them.

Oh, it is still a work in progress and they are still trying to see the best in themselves, but they have improved from November 12th, our first game, to last night in what only could be called an amazing miracle of sorts. In our first contest, we only scored 46 points. Last night we had 44 points at half time. We have won three straight games and totally changed the pace of the way we play. In my old mind, I would have determined this was a fluke, a one time thing, but in my new mindset, I know it is only the beginning of amazing things to come. These young women will get better and better rising to the occasion, learning to see with their dreams rather than with the "facts" other people might try to sell them.

PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.