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Monday, April 6, 2026

Basketball - "Shower Well"

Good leaders don't add weight. They subtract.

Disappointment is inevitable

Consider a few quotes:


"If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." - Will Rogers

Clint Hurdle reminds us not to take the "bad day at the office" home. Don't allow misery to recruit teammates at home or work. 

Develop Your System
  • Reality (where I am)
  • Reset (plan)
  • Rebuilding (action)
Reality - Overcoming disappointment

Write a narrative of persistence and recovery after loss. Expressions like "love your losses" and "lessons not losses" are a small part of redirection after setbacks. Arm yourself with a portfolio of recovery stories:
  • Michael Jordan famously got cut from his high school team. 
  • "Overnight success" is a myth. Coach John Wooden won his first national championship at UCLA in his 16th season. 
  • Dean Smith at Carolina, found himself hung in effigy upon returning from a bad road loss. "I never felt like a loser." 
Reset our mindset

Coaches and players need "ego strength" to recover from disappointment. Create a narrative of belief and patience within your life. Mindset matters to allow persistence to continue doing the work. That doesn't mean "false belief" of invincibility. 
If our plan isn't working, ask what would it take to shape the skills, knowledge, physicality and psychology to become our best. 


I call that the "Asymptote of Excellence" (chart created by ChatGPT plus). The asymptote of excellence is our ceiling of achievement. 

Rebuild 

1. Devise our plan (THINK). 
2. Write it our (writing makes it real).
3. Do the work (develop the habit).
4. Monitor its effects (reassess). 
5. Adjust the plan. 

Give ourselves a chance to reach our ceiling or break through it. 

Lagniappe. Where are our weaknesses? Brief self-test. 




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Sunday, April 5, 2026

Basketball - The Magic Genie Grants You Three Coaching Process Wishes

When the magic genie comes, he's not giving you an infinite number of wishes. If you get three, be grateful. Choose wisely. Think ahead. 

1. Win this Possession

The coach says, "Sprint the length of the floor, up and back, as hard as you can for time. You do. Then he says, do it again and if you beat your time I'll give you a hundred bucks." Did you beat your time? 

There's the scene in Draft Day about the playbook and the $100 bill inside (a Belichick trick). Did you read the whole playbook and find the hundo? 

The coach adds, "Get a stop this time on defense and everyone gets a new pair of Jordans." Does the team give its usual focus or more? 

Dave Smart explains how the "best teams play harder for longer." Ask the genie to help you get "harder for longer" for as many possessions as possible. 

2. Master Player Development

Don Meyer asks, "Do you want two better players or two better plays?" And Dave Smart says, "Every day is player development day." 

Player development gets better players, better possessions, and better "possession ending." 

Ask the magic genie for the tools to become a better teacher, a better motivator, a better integrator. Or we could ask to have Drew Hanlen, Chris Brickley, Colin Castellaw, Don Kelbick, and others at our disposal. 

3. Perfect Ability to See the Game

Pete Newell says the coach's obligation is to help players "see the game." To teach the game we have to know the game. So, I guess we're asking the genie to give us the game knowledge of Newell, Knight, Hubie Brown, or some amalgam of Wooden, Dean Smith, Auerbach, Jackson, and Popovich. You don't win games with a high basketball SAT score. 

How do we ask the genie for the impossible? There's no "perfect knowledge" because the game evolves. Maybe we ask for the will to learn, the curiosity to explore, and the openness to absorb the best and discard the lesser information. 

Or use the third wish to get more wishes. 

There is no magic genie. 

There is no perfect motivator. 

There is no perfect player developer (although a lot of exceptional ones).

There is no ability to see the future (who knows what the next Wembanyama will look like?)

We can't know everything, but we can know more, do more, and become more by studying great players, coaches, and developers. 

Lagniappe. Every good team breaks pressure. There's no perfect press break. Find something you can teach with hard cutting, on-time, on-target passes, and competitive players. 


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Saturday, April 4, 2026

Basketball - Chasing the Rainbow, The Youth Sports Paradigm

Many of us have drunk the Kool-Aid, ridden the rollercoaster, and shared the thrill of victory and agony of defeat. We bought into the "high stakes," dog-eat-dog world of travel sports, the Arms Race to nowhere - scholarship, recruiting, NIL money.

The Value Is Real

Value is real - physical fitness, less cancer, lower mental health problems, fewer teen pregnancies, better grades, more college attendance. 

Youth sports at their best build more than athletes:

  • Competitors (handle adversity)
  • Thinkers (make decisions)
  • Teammates (serve more than themselves)

Tom Farrey's Highlights 

Highlights:

3:23... three hours and twenty-three minutes every day spent on a child's sports...in the "up or out" model.

It's a forty billion dollar business, more than twice the size of the NFL. 

Elite athletes' sperm is the most coveted in the Sperm Bank ecosystem.

$300 million annually from the NCAA rose to over $4 billion (not including NIL).

Fifty percent of parents experience anger - officiating, play, self-recrimination.

20% of parents think their child can play in college.

10% of parents think their child can play in the pros or Olympics. 

The experience matters. Joy is foundational. 

Answers are Possible

We need more local sports, and more local teams, like freshman and JV teams. It's possible. 

Participation in middle school sports went from 17% to 62% in Oakland - because on investment by the Curry Family Foundation.

In other countries, like Norway, there's less cost, high participation and great outcomes. "The Joy of Sport for All..." and Norway won the most medals at the Winter Olympics. 

It can happen. 


Screenshot from Tom Farrey's TED talk

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Friday, April 3, 2026

Basketball - Compile Elements for Your "Competitive Cauldron"

Life education throws a firehose of information at us. Filter and distill that abundance into sharable buckets.

Where can the mastery-driven newcomer or intermediate-level practitioner turn for a starter set? Recognize that these concepts apply broadly across domains whether you're a coach, manager, or business owner. 

Wooden's Pyramid of Success

Three to Contemplate:

1) Flanking the top: Faith and Patience

Success takes time. Wooden won a National Championship in his 16th year at UCLA. Overnight success is a myth. Solid ideas may not flourish in one environment and succeed in another. 

2) Center: SKILL

The four pillars of excellence are skill, strategy, physicality, and psychology. The best players, coaches, and leaders follow their journey upward. We're always a work in progress and the brain has a capacity - neuroplasticity, to change even into advanced age. 

3) Cornerstones: Industriousness and Enthusiasm

Work hard and love what you do. Confucius said, "Love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life." Here are 24 seconds of wisdom: 

Bilas's Toughness

Jay Bilas wrote an ESPN article on "Toughness" and a follow-on book. Three ideas that translate:

1) "Play so hard that your coach has to take you out." 

Find work-life balance. Cultivate our relationships at home so that family doesn't become short-changed. Balance is a constant struggle amidst the demands of family and career. Multitasking is a myth. Mastery demands focus.

2) "Set up your cut." 

Chefs use "mise en place," laying out their ingredients and tools before cooking. Writers have an outline and as Anne Lamott says, "$#itty first drafts." Preparation, planning, and practice precede execution. Be intentional whether coaching in development or at the highest levels. 

3) "It's not your shot, it's our shot." 

Team first. Make teamwork one of our superpowers. Beware the "Killer S's" - selfishness, softness, sloth (laziness). "Shot selection" applies across the board in life via attitude, choices, and effort. Selfishness reflect character and always lessen competence. 

James Kerr's Legacy 

Kerr studied the All-Blacks rugby team and their top-tier success. Key points:

1) "Sweep the sheds."

Take care of your environment. Leave the gym better than you found it. There's no excuse for the bench area to be a swamp of spilled drinks, debris, and disorder. Take professional pride in your facility, regardless of its age. 

2) "Leave the jersey in a better place." 

Some say, "Tradition never graduates." That requires maintenance. Exceptional programs fall into disrepair. Players that once sacrificed to be part of your program go elsewhere because tradition can fail. Staying on top is tough. "The wind blows hardest at the top of the mountain." 

Remember the Greek proverb, "Old men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit." 

3) "Keep a blue head."

Stay calm under pressure and maintain grace while others explode. We often cannot control what happens to us but we control our response. Blaming everyone else for our struggles solves nothing. Don Meyer's third phase of coaching, mature simplicity, includes self-control. 

Reflections That Resonate

1) Seek sustainable competitive advantage.

Newell's admonition to teach players to "see the game" stays primary. Have a learning culture and look for better ways to operate. When someone says, "fill in the blank...basketball is a game of __________" have clear answers. 

2) Learn every day. 

Read, study, watch video. Masterclasses from Coach Auriemma, Coach K, and Steph Curry share unique insight. Read widely. Colin Powell's biography, "It Worked for Me" informed many leadership principles. 

3) "It takes a village to raise a child"...but one child can destroy a village."

Leaders continually take the temperature of their teams. Rivalries, dissent, and ego can fester under the surface. The team experience matters and culture demands constant gardening. 

Lagniappe. Find useful resources. 

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Thursday, April 2, 2026

Basketball NIH Syndrome (Not Invented Here)

"We are drunk on our own ideas." - Rolf Dobelli in The Art of Thinking Clearly

Dobelli informs the NIH principle - not invented here. Most of us value our own ideas, simply because they are ours.

Coach Ellis Lane told me about a coach who came to him with a "new" offense. The coach said, "I understand it perfectly." Coach Lane said, "There's a problem. Your players won't." Even good ideas need broad understanding and eventual adoption to matter. 

Best-selling author Adam Grant tells a story about being offered an idea to invest in. The Penn students didn't have a website or what he considered a viable business plan. He didn't invest. Their names? Warby and Parker. 

Basketball lives in the public domain...everything is out there. As a writer, I wear a different hat, seeking ideas to steal, to understand, and to expand upon. 

Find "timeless" ideas and share them widely. Coaching is communication and relationships. Here are ten: 

Develop a "learning" culture. 

"Every day is player development day." Good players make smart coaches."

"Be easy to play with and hard to play against." 

"Do well what you do a lot." 

Develop teams that play 'harder for longer'. 

Intangibles like toughness and resilience travel. 

Whatever your offense, have "hard-to-defend" elements - e.g. spacing and separation, pick-and-roll, hard cutting with on-time, on-target passing, simple and complex screening (e.g. screen-the-screener, Iverson action, Spain PnR). 

Have a simple philosophy. I used TIA - "Teamwork, Improvement, Accountability." 

Don't become beholden to or ignore analytics. 

Stubbornness is sticking with a bad plan or no plan. 

Thanks for visiting my blog, one of Feedspot's 100 to follow and #12 on Feedspot's Top 100 basketball rss feeds. 

Lagniappe. "Get out of the bucket." 


 

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Wednesday, April 1, 2026

More Basketball Video Teaching Lessons

Study video every day and learn.

Great players find ways to get open. Miami draws two and Adebayo who is a threat from the perimeter, sets up a drive and gets an "easy" stepback for him.  


Jaylen Brown has a long memory of a Game 7 loss to the Heat. He gets downhill and has a variety of finishes. 


Another variation on the "draw 2" theme. Brown draws help, kicks out and gets rotation, opening Hauser in the filled corner. 


How one action morphs into another. A possible high ball screen turns into a downscreen, DHO (Zoom) action. But there's more as Scheierman gets a flare screen for a three.
 

Variation on the "live-ball turnover" theme as the Celtics score an infrequent transition hoop en route to 53 in the first frame. 


The Heat exploit drop coverage. White has to choose and leaves the corner to help high and Larsson exploits that with a corner cut. 


The Heat go zone and Celtics like to get the ball to a playmaker in the middle. The Heat extend "north" and Tatum finds Queta for a dunk. 


Brown (43 points) is not a "one-trick pony." The Heat double him, Queta makes a '45 cut' and Brown finds him for a dunk. 


It wasn't all "sunshine and roses" for the Celtics. Joe Mazzulla talks about finding 10-15 possessions that could be managed better. Garza isn't really stopping penetration or contesting the corner three. This was not a good defensive possession. 


Lagniappe. "You recruit for who they are, not just what they can do." 
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Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Five Examples of Analytics Worth Considering

The "godfather" of analytics, Dean Oliver (Basketball on Paper), triggered an explosion of mathematical "explanations" for winning.

There's a mindset of "you know it when you see it" and another of "you know it when you measure it." Every game sums a mass of individual possessions. 

"Everybody knows that" became quantitative (measurable). For the less analytically-inclined, a brief review. 

1. Four Factors (SPCA - shoot, protect the ball, crash, attack the basket)

More recent analysts have emphasized "differential" shooting, turnovers, rebounding, and free throws. 

1. "Efficiency Dominance" (Shooting + Turnovers)

This is statistically powerful. Shoot a higher Effective Field Goal percentage than your opponent and turn the ball over less, you win the "points per possession" battle on both fronts.

  • Why it works: Make and take more shots (because you aren't throwing them away). This combo covers 65% of Oliver's weighted scale.

2. The "Possession Powerhouse" (Turnovers + Offensive Rebounding)

Ideal for teams without elite shooters. This formula focuses on volume. If you win both of these, you will almost certainly take significantly more field goal attempts than your opponent.

  • Why it works: Even if you shoot a lower percentage, having 10–15 more shot attempts than your opponent can negate their shooting accuracy.

3. "Physical Dominance" (Rebounding + Free Throw Rate)

For teams with a dominant "inside-out" game.

  • Why it works: By winning the glass and getting to the line, you put the opponent’s best players in foul trouble and create "easy" points. This slows the game down and is often a winning formula in the playoffs when shooting percentages naturally dip.

4. "Pure Scoring" (Shooting + Free Throw Rate)

This combination focuses entirely on Points Per Shot.

  • Why it works: If you are highly efficient from the field and frequently get to the charity stripe, you can overcome a lack of rebounding or a high turnover rate. This is the 55% weight combo.

2. Effective field goal percentage (EFG%)

Efficient teams take and make better shots. If all your shots were made twos then your EFG% would be 1.00. If the same applied for threes, then 1.50. But that doesn't happen. 

Let's use a real-world example. A team shoots 1 for 9 on threes and 2 for 4 on twos in a quarter with six turnovers on other possessions. 

eFG% = 2 + (0.5 x 1) x 100  = 2.5/13 = 19.23% 

                            13

Coach Auriemma recently argued that the low shooting percentages on three in the tournament creates problems for many teams. 

3. Net Rating (point differential per 100 possessions)

This creates multiple inferences. Coach Wooden's adage, "Basketball is a game meant to be played fast" holds true when you have great talent. More talent, higher net rating, bigger value for more possessions. 

It also means that playing at a slower pace makes more sense for less dominant teams. 

4. Assist to turnover ratio (possession ending)

Assists are part of positive possession enders (baskets). Turnovers are negative possession enders (zero percent possessions). Pete Carril said, "The quality of the shot relates to the quality of the pass." Doc Rivers calls bad shots "shot turnovers." Assists build dreams and turnovers destroy them. 


Top NBA teams in assist-to-turnover ratio. Maybe what we should also know is which teams have the lowest assist-to-turnover ratios allowed. Who doesn't allow assists while forcing turnovers? 

I'm sure the data is there, but proprietary. 

Look at 'stopping threes, forcing turnovers, and defensive rebounding percentage. 




What I can't find are 'clean data' on "team possession ending" via a sum of turnovers forced, defensive rebounding, charges taken, and so forth. 

5. Net Points (differential offensive and defensive rating) may be supplanted by net points. 

Net Points, evaluates individual performance by assigning credit and blame for every play (rebounds, shots, turnovers) based on difficulty and impact. 

For the 2024-2025 NBA season, the top ten leaders in Net Points are:

  1. Nikola Jokic: +427 (Offense: +365, Defense: +61)

  2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: +345 (Offense: +304, Defense: +40)

  3. Karl-Anthony Towns: +203 (Offense: +164, Defense: +39)

  4. Jayson Tatum: +183 (Offense: +134, Defense: +49)

  5. Alperen Sengun: +181 (Offense: +71, Defense: +111)

  6. Jarrett Allen: +169 (Offense: +105, Defense: +65)

  7. Domantas Sabonis: +167 (Offense: +127, Defense: +40)

  8. Giannis Antetokounmpo: +164 (Offense: +107, Defense: +57)

  9. Jaren Jackson Jr.: +162 (Offense: +118, Defense: +44)

  10. Donovan Mitchell: +153 (Offense: +151, Defense: +2)


Based on the latest data from ESPN Analytics for the 2025-2026 season, the top leaders in Net Points are:

  1. Nikola Jokic: +442 (Offense: +380, Defense: +62)

  2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: +360 (Offense: +318, Defense: +42)

  3. Alperen Sengun: +195 (Offense: +80, Defense: +115)

  4. Karl-Anthony Towns: +190 (Offense: +150, Defense: +40)

  5. Jayson Tatum: +188 (Offense: +138, Defense: +50)

  6. Giannis Antetokounmpo: +185 (Offense: +125, Defense: +60)

  7. Domantas Sabonis: +178 (Offense: +135, Defense: +43)

  8. Jaren Jackson Jr.: +175 (Offense: +125, Defense: +50)

  9. Donovan Mitchell: +168 (Offense: +165, Defense: +3)

  10. Jamal Murray: +160 (Offense: +140, Defense: +20)


We don't need "exotic" statistics to improve. Apply "actionable" stats (don't let bad shooters take threes and emphasize valuing the ball). More shots via fewer turnovers and a higher percentage of quality shots translate to more success. We found that merely tracking (shot charts and turnovers) raised accountability.

Lagniappe. Excellent article on making practice more competitive. Worth printing and sharing with players. 


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Monday, March 30, 2026

Basketball - Ambiguity and Uncertainty

Ambiguity refers to a lack of clarity where a situation can be interpreted in multiple ways (unknown unknowns), causing confusion, while uncertainty describes a lack of knowledge about future outcomes or probabilities when the situation is already understood (known unknowns), triggering doubt. Ambiguity focuses on what to do; uncertainty focuses on what will happen." - AI 

Make better sense of ambiguity. How do we improve decision-making? That requires training, practice, and applying tools to guide decisions. Let's consider a few:

Experience (pattern recognition/recognition primed decisions)

  • Chess (chunking arrangements of pieces)
  • Firefighting (accumulated vs variety of fires/expected results) - excellent local firefighters will not manage the same types of fires as the "Red Adair" teams would. All expertise is not equal. 
Basketball - Basketball IQ takes time and training. The elite point guards have or acquire superior vision, decisions, and execution than the mediocre ones. 

Reference/reading: Sources of Power (Gary Klein)

Algorithms - combinations of "if this, then that"

  • Historical voting patterns impact campaign strategies
  • Selecting Army officers (Israeli military)
Basketball - The "leading by three, under ten seconds left" fouling decision is shown to have about 85 percent success. Choose to rediscover the wheel at our peril. 

Reference: Knowledge at Wharton (Michael Lewis guest Podcast)
"The Undoing Project" (Michael Lewis) - "People don't decide between things. They decide between descriptions of things." 

Checklists 

  • Preoperative checklists 
  • Building construction
Basketball - Research on draftees' performance shows the three biggest factors for NBA success are: age at drafting (younger is better), college attended (strength of program), and performance in college. There are exceptions. Payton Pritchard was at Oregon for four years. Hugo Gonzalez didn't attend US college but grew up in the Real Madrid system. 

Reference: The Checklist Manifesto (Atul Gawande)

More source input/crowdsourcing

  • Personal board of directors (John Calipari)
  • Mentoring 
Basketball - The "Nick U'Ren/Steve Kerr" decision to replace Bogut with Iguodala that led to the Warriors rallying from a series deficit to beat the Cavs in the NBA Finals. Another is the Brad Stevens collaborative decision-making culture.

Reference: The Wisdom of Crowds (James Surowiecki) examines how large groups often inform better decisions than individuals or experts.

Simulations/situational practice 

  • Flight simulators
  • Stock market simulators
Basketball - Situational practice (close and late game situations) multiplies experience beyond what players experience in games. The game is chaos, so random practice creates learning advantage. 

Reference: Fake Fundamentals (Brian McCormick)

Probability

  • Lottery ticket purchases
  • Casino gambling
Basketball - "Hack-a-Shaq" or "Fouling when ahead by 3 late"

Reference: Thinking in Bets (Annie Betts)

Develop more tools to enhance our decision-making. Long-term decision-making needs different tools than immediate thinking. Specialists treat cancer different than they adjust to CPR/resuscitation choices.

Lagniappe. (from ChatGPT Plus, Basketball applications from The Undoing Project)

1. We See Patterns That Aren’t There (The “Hot Hand” Trap)

Kahneman and Tversky showed that humans over-detect patterns in randomness.

Basketball translation:

  • “He’s hot—keep feeding him” is often narrative, not data
  • A contested jumper is still a bad shot—even after two makes

Coaching application:

  • Teach players: Judge the shot, not the result
  • Your “ROB” concept (range, open, balance) fits perfectly here

2. Outcome Bias: We Judge Decisions by Results

People assume a good outcome = good decision.

Basketball translation:

  • A bad possession that ends in a lucky make gets praised
  • A great possession that misses gets criticized

Coaching application:

  • Grade possessions, not outcomes
  • “Winning the possession” matters more than whether the ball goes in

👉 This aligns directly with your possession enders / Four Factors thinking

3. The Inside View vs. Outside View

From Daniel Kahneman:

  • Inside view = “our team, our story”
  • Outside view = “what usually happens in situations like this?”

Basketball translation:

  • Inside view: “We can press because we’re tough”
  • Outside view: pressing increases fouls and fatigue for most teams

Coaching application:

  • Use film + data as the “outside view”
  • Avoid falling in love with your own system

👉 This connects cleanly to your interest in Making Decisions

4. Loss Aversion Changes Behavior Late in Games

People fear losses more (about twice as much) than they value gains.

Basketball translation:

  • Teams play not to lose late (stalling, passive offense)
  • Players pass up good shots to avoid blame

Coaching application:

  • Script “Got to Have It” situations
  • Normalize aggression late (“we attack to win, not avoid losing”)

5. Noise > Bias (The Hidden Opponent)

Lewis highlights that random variability (“noise”) often matters more than bias.

Basketball translation:

  • Same defensive effort → different outcomes (opponent hits tough shots)
  • Ref variance, shooting variance, matchup randomness

Coaching application:

  • Don’t overreact to one game
  • Build systems that win over time (“repetition makes reputations” idea)

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Sunday, March 29, 2026

Basketball - Character Actors - Balancing "Adams"

"Adding value" inhabits the intersection of character and competence. Psychologists recognize conflicting personalities within each of us - "Adam 1" - about dominance and winning and "Adam 2" aligned with moral values and virtue seeking. 

  • Competence (Adam I) → effectiveness, achievement, results

  • Character (Adam II) → integrity, humility, moral grounding

    • All of us have features of both and each of us lives along the spectrum of character and competence. 

    It's easy to identify historical figures belonging in each box. 

    High Character, High Competence
    • Abraham Lincoln, 16th President
    • George Washington, power restrained by principle
    • Mother Teresa
    Low Character, Low Competence
    • Adolf Hitler, mass murderer, flawed prosecution of war
    • Nero, Roman Emperor, indulgence and misrule
    High Character, Low Competence
    • Jimmy Carter, Purposeful sacrifice, flawed manager
    • Neville Chamberlain, good intent, bad judgment
    Low Character, High Competence
    • Lance Armstrong, elite performance, ethical collapse
    • Bernie Madoff, brilliant con man, defrauded investors



    Coaching Translation

    Every player—and coach—sits somewhere on this grid.

    • Talent (Competence) gets you on the floor
    • Character keeps you there—and lifts others

    Be a great teammate > be a great player

    Adam II guiding Adam I. Etorre Messina said it another way, "Character is job one." 

    Framework for Coaches and Players

    Many coaches have shared their framework. 

    John Wooden - "Make every day your masterpiece."

    George Raveling - "You don't get what you want, you get what you are" and "When you're through learning, you're through." Also, “The most important thing you can teach is who someone becomes.”

    Dick Bennett - had a philosophy that I call "PUSH T or PUSH-through"

    P - passion, drive for excellence

    U - unity, put the team first

    S - servant leadership, top players serve the team

    H - humility, "It's not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less"

    T - thankfulness, live a live of gratitude not grievance

    Final Thoughts

    Coaches have a unique opportunity to model character and competence, however imperfectly. Ethical coaching, compassion, and sportsmanship all reflect character. Our ability to relate, teach, and share with players to add value by helping them "see the game" demonstrates competence. 

    The best blend both character and competence. The worst abuse or wear out players without adding value. We get a vote about whom we become. 

    Lagniappe. Good coaching can reflect reality and relationships. 







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