Coaches are educators. Be agents for change. What can we change?
Attitude. Choose positivity. Choose our words wisely.
Children will remember our words and our demeanor forever. Has a coach changed your life with words or actions? I had a great conversation with my high school coach last night.
Maximally offensive language, from Spike Lee's classic, "Do the Right Thing." Art imitates life. "This extended ending is no simple denouement. Its content and rejection of traditional closure argue that there are no simple answers for improving the conditions under which too many African Americans live, and neither turning the other cheek nor striking back has solved the continuing crime and tragedy of American racism."
Effort. "Always do your best." Our best demands neither apologies nor regrets. Our best might simply require silence instead of criticism, calm instead of emotion.
Empowerment. Coaching young players, we have information asymmetry. They can't "Google" the answer on the court (yet). Help them see through coaches' eyes. Learn to chunk information in basketball (below) like a chess grandmaster. Dawn Staley shared how she improved her college experience, "I started competing in the classroom."
Everyone needs heroes. Society tends to dismiss and devalue women. Only 49 percent of Americans acknowledged being "comfortable" with the possibility of having a woman President. At least they were honest. I've seen a myriad of women disrespected in medicine, administrators, physicians, nurses, and others. Our girls need heroes to become actualized. Find heroes for them or at least share ideas on where to look...like Sara Blakely, CEO of Spanx.
Sacrifice. Children have egocentric morality. They view the world through a prism of how it impacts them. As a young boy, my son would see the last cookie and say, "don't waste it." Be the adult. Corinthians reminds us, "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways."
Teaching. Translate know that into know how. That usually involves pain. "Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment." My favorite teaching book is Made to Stick. Click and absorb the summary.
Repetition is a concrete idea. Mr. Benoit, our French teacher said again and again, "Ecoutez et repetez (listen and repeat)." Shooting is repetition. Learning anatomy is repetition. Cooking is repetition. You don't tire of eating your favorite recipe, perfectly cooked.
Virtue. Ben Franklin aspired to thirteen virtues, a tall order. Seek excellence without other agendas. Peer pressure encourages teen drug and alcohol use. Educate players about temperance, the damage from vaping, drugs, and alcohol.
He recognized that humility would be difficult. "Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”
David Brooks distinguishes resume virtues and eulogy virtues. Do we care more about what our won-loss record says about us or what the people who know us say?
Truth. Kevin Eastman explains, "The truth needs three things: number one, you got to live it. Number two, you got to be able to tell it. And number three, you got to be able to take it." Excellent players want coaching not coddling. They want to know what they need to know.
Lagniappe: Flex has been around since 1967.
