Parma Redmen highlights

Success

After another national championship by UCLA coach John Wooden, a reporter asked him if this was his most successful year coaching.  He responded by telling the reporter that he wouldn't know the answer     to that for another twenty years.  He continued by saying he would let the reporter know how good of job he did when his players became successful members of society.  John Wooden knew that you can't underestimate the impact you have on your player's lives.  You are with these kids at their emotional highs and emotional lows and these are the times that kids are the most impressionable.  Very few teachers have access to these kids at such teachable moments.  As a coach i feel very fortunate to be in the situation i am in.

recruiting

Recruiting is a big problem in the Cleveland area.  AAU basketball has led to coaches convincing players that they will college opportunities if they come and play at their school.  Our sister school got in trouble two years ago for recruiting players.  They convinced two area players to transfer to their school to play basketball.  One of the two players also had a younger brother who transferred to the school.  In order to do this they lied about their addresses on their transfer application.  When they got caught they were ruled ineligible for that season.  The parents became upset so they brought in voicemail messages from the assistant coach at that school.  The coach said if you come to our school you will get a d1 scholarship.  He was telling this to kids who were fringe d3 players.  It was a disgrace.  The team that were recruiting these players were 1 and 21 in the previous year.  If they would of attained these kids they probably would have won 4 or 5 games.  In their efforts they cost two players their senior years and one his freshman and sophomore year.  The head coach was not fired for actions of his assistants yet everyone knows that this head coach is constantly recruiting high school kids.  This problem needs to addressed across the board in high school athletics.

conditioning

        I have often debated weather or not you should use conditioning as a punishment.  It's a widely accepted practice in coaching basketball.  If you do something incorrectly, you run.  Obviously you want to keep this to effort or mental mistakes more so than physical ones.  However, my physical education professors at Toledo were adamantly against this.  Their view was that if you punish with conditioning, the punished will always have a negative perception of running and less inclined to lifelong activity.

       The thing about basketball is that you are trying to create habits in your players.  Coach Bob Huggins of West Virginia has a widely criticized and widely accepted view that you should train your players like you would train your dogs.  He talks about it often in clinics to get a laugh but i do believe that many coaches use this philosophy.  Coach says the first two things I taught my dog is to play fetch (run) and to sit.  I do the same things with my players.  If they do not give the proper response to a situation in practice they run, and if they do not give the proper response to a situation in a game they sit.  He says that it works wonders in conforming players and breaking bad habits.

      I wonder if their could be a positive reinforcement that would work just as well?  It can't be as simple as a positive comment when someone does the right thing, could it?  That does work to encourage behavior but i don't know that it would break a players bad habit.   It's something to think about!

Playing Time

      Tuesday night we played a home game against Western Reserve Academy.  We were lucky enough to get a win and the team was in high spirits in the locker room after the game.  One of my junior varsity players walked in after the game and handed me his jersey.  He said that he quit and ran out of there before i could say a word.  I went out of locker room and found an upset father waiting for me.  I took the father to my office and had a discussion with him.  He was mad about what every dad gets mad about, playing time.  

       Now this particular player is not very talented and really doesn't belong on a high school team but he is a great kid and spent the prior year as our team manager.  I knew how much it would mean to him so in his sophomore season, I gave him a jersey.  I explained to him he needed to work hard to develop his skills and that playing time would be difficult for him to attain.

       My preseason message obviously didn't resonate with Tommy and his father because they were irate about his lack of playing time.  I again explained our philosophy to Tommy's father and assured him that in any game that we were winning or losing by a large margin we would make sure his son was in the game.  He did not like that at all so I continued to explain that we play competitive basketball and our goal is to win.  Tommy's dad snapped back, "but this is JV basketball, there is no championship, it's a learning experience and everyone should have the opportunity to play".

      My JV coach who was sitting in on the meeting called me that night and said he felt really bad.  He asked me if all kids should play an even amount of time.  I certainly know some coaches who give equal playing time to the kids on the freshman and JV teams.  My philosophy is a little different.  While I will always put my players before the game, I will not put the individual basketball needs of my players before the good of the team.  This is a controversial view but it's one I believe in.  That doesn't mean I don't feel awful about the whole situation.  I am very disappointed that Tommy is not on the team anymore.  Any thoughts?

    

Communication or Humiliation?

Six years ago I was offered a varsity job after just one year of experience.  I knew that if we were going to be successful, I would have to make up for that lack of experience by outworking other coaches and hiring an experienced assistant coach.  After interviewing several candidates I opted for a 25 year coaching veteran who people described in one word, "intense".  He was definitely a type "A" personality.  He barked orders from day one and was very confident in what he was doing.  I quickly learned that he was a disciplinarian and the boys seemed to listen.  When he yelled, in his booming voice, all eyes were on him.  He demanded their attention.  He was in their face and guys were playing hard.  If they made a mistake he was all over it and was quick to take them out of the game.  Some parents voiced their concerns to me but i respected his knowledge and I loved that kids were playing hard so I supported him.  He was even rubbing off on me and the way I interacted with the players changed.  We definitely had the attention of our boys!

One night I was out to dinner with a legendary high school coach in our area.  He was ten years retired, now a college assistant coach and attended our game that evening.  He said, "Mike you don't have to scream at players for them to listen to you.  If you are screaming during a game its because you did not do a good enough job preparing your players at practice."  This struck a nerve with me.  I have always been calm and focused on the bench.  I was implicitly being told, by someone that I respect greatly, that I was not doing a good job of keeping my composure during the game.   His message was loud and clear.

I started to watch my assistant coach and my boys more closely.  It became clear to me that they did not respect us but rather feared us.  Our intensity forced them to pay attention but it did not yield positive results.  The boy's were tentative and scared to death to make a mistake.  Every time they messed up in a game they would look to bench rather then continue on to the next play.  I was not getting the most out of my team.

In order for me to change their behavior I had to change mine.  It was time for me develop my own coaching philosophy.  It was out of character for me to be harsh and negative with the players.  If you are not yourself, kids will see right through it.  I am a motivator and a teacher, not a dictator or a tyrant.  I spent the remainder of that year and the summer showing my boys the leader I could be for them.  After finishing 4-17 that first year we won our next 40 of our next 50 games.  Those boys weren't scared of me but they would run through a wall for me!

Humiliating players by screaming does not have a place in coaching.   Not just because it's wrong, but also because it doesn't get the desired result from the players.  Players hang on to every word we say (or don't say).  We need to treat them with the respect and dignity they deserve.  One of my favorite quotes is from a German playwright named Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.  He said, "If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if i treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that."  This philosophy has guided me for the last six years and is the source behind any success that we have had.

        Hi everyone.  My name is coach D and over the next couple of weeks i would like to provide you with a sneak peak into high school basketball.  I have been coaching for the last six years and although that might not seem long to some, I feel like I have seen it all!  UCLA's legendary coach John Wooden use to say "basketball is not about X's and O's, it's about Tommys and Joes".  For most of my career I thought that quote meant that it doesn't matter what type of offense or defense your team uses, it only matters how good your players are.  The talent, industriousness, and mental makeup of your guys will dictate your ultimate success.  Is this really what Coach Wooden was trying to convey?  Maybe I was way off.  Maybe he had a whole different meaning all together.

       I have learned over the years that there is much more to coaching than the actual game of basketball.  The time i spend on the court teaching the game of basketball pales in comparison to the time i spend dealing with non-basketball related issues.  I have come to learn that while these things aren't nearly as fun as being on the court, and usually pretty stressful, it is by far the most important aspect of the job.  That's what this blog will be about.  The daily opportunities a coach has to impact the lives around them.  I hope you and enjoy and I look forward to any insights you may have!