Month: August 2017

Quote

‘Fish like worms. I don’t like worms, but if I want to catch fish, I need to use worms’ – Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People (paraphrased)

Cringe Moment

• ‘You’ll be dead right’ – Wisdom is choosing your battles, don’t always need to be right

Teaching skills

• Everything in practice needs to have a point. Scrimmages are often not effective.
• Practice special situations for 5 to 10 minutes in every practice.
• Fun activity: On your birthday – coach would put 2 $5 bills at midcourt – everyone would shoot half-court shots, if you made it – you got $5 and bday person got $5. If bday person made it, got all $10

Peak performance

• ‘Every missed shot is a pass’ – Teammates encouraging each other to shoot takes away the pressure of worrying about whether to shoot or note
• Practice being a terrible referee – Players need to practice tough situations. Bad calls are going to happen – practice them.

Building Culture

• Core value – developing the mind – on and off the court; Integrity; Responsibility
• 2 core values for his basketball teams: Toughness and rebounding
• Kids pick up on the coach’s consistency – you can talk all you want about what kind of culture you want, but the kids are watching and if you aren’t consistent then your words will not hold up

Captains

• Positional leadership – If you have 2 or 3 captains on your team, the rest of the players can use it as a crutch. Jamy did not have captains towards the end of his coaching career. They rotated game captains, but they taught that everyone was a leader. Then they engaged the upperclassmen to demonstrate leadership skills – carrying the water, etc.
• More is expected out of your experienced and older players – but they don’t have to technically have the title of captain. They are the role models and set the tone for your culture.

Training your leaders

• theleadershipplaybook.com – Stories about different ways leaders lead
• Leaders – don’t need to get the whole team to do something, they need to get their closest friends to do it – The First follower theory.

The one that got away

• Jamy’s last game he coached – they blew a 14 point lead and it cost them getting into the national tournament. They had easily beat that team earlier in the year, and they came in a little cocky and weren’t prepared.

Best stolen/borrowed idea

• John Wooden’s unflinching standards while connecting with his players

Favorite Book/Quote

• Book – How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie – ‘Fish like worms. I don’t like worms, but if I want to catch fish, I need to use worms’

Parting Advice

• Understand your why. And get to know your players.