Former Congressman Barney Frank referenced an old Henny Youngman joke, "How's your wife?" "Compared to what?" Which reminds all of us of our teams.
As coaches, we face a constantly changing landscape. One weekend, our team executes and looks promising if not world beaters. The following weekend, we're asking whether we belong in another field. That recalls Emerson's quote, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
After a frustrating and poor performance today, I reminded the team, "we don't have to make a simple game complicated. When we play poorly, we don't deserve to win." When considering development of young people or young players, we cannot let disappointment become discouragement.
We seek principled achievement. Restating that, "we must know how to get things done" but do that appropriately. I thought of the Spanish word, "TONTO", meaning "foolish" or "an idiot". In basketballese, "TONTO" means, "turnovers (TO), no toughness (NTO)." We shouldn't confuse poor play with poor intent or poor players. That's attribution bias not accountability.
That returns us to the question, "what does my team need now?" As John Wooden said, we need to be "quick but don't hurry." But at the same time, school is out for vacation. Maybe some time off the court makes more sense.
So, if you ask me about my team today, I have to answer, "compared to what?"
