Basketball: Intention and Obstacle, Winning from Sorkin, Hoosiers, Pierson, Blakely, Meurs, and More

What's your story? What makes you different? Why should the audience care?

West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin explains that stories need intention and obstacle. You plan to lead a team from obscurity to a championship.

Consider Madeleine Blais, In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle. The Amherst Hurricanes have championship aspirations, but their star players couldn't coexist.

Take over a basketball program in a hockey town. You have no winning tradition, no feeder program, no allies. Or you're in 1950s Milan, Indiana (Hoosiers) and pilot a program among the smallest enrollments in the state. Live intention and obstacle. 

Successful coaches craft style and substance to overcome obstacles. 

Identify the obstacles. Recently I shared Sara Blakely's mantra of "Make it. Sell it. Build awareness." Some say, "everyone loves a winner" but at the outset, that's not you. 

PROGRAM BUILDING OBSTACLES

Peers (Competing for resources, status)

Parents ("The Prime Directive" is My Child Comes First)

Programs (Competing for athletes)

Preps (Poachers)

Carl Pierson's book, The Politics of Coaching, covers barriers from peers (coaches conspiring against your program), to parents (protecting their child's interests), and programs (basketball competes against other sports and is losing to soccer, volleyball, and lacrosse). Preps and privates seek to poach your top players. 

Shakespeare reminds coaches, "first above all, to thine own self be true." 

Coaches should cultivate allies and beware "enemies." Decades ago in my hometown, a disgruntled parent whose child was cut went to great lengths seeking to fire the coach. His final argument to the community was that sports wasn't all about winning. The same community celebrated a State Championship football team just three years earlier, sending them to Bermuda. The coach became a New England Basketball Hall of Famer. I know of a story in Texas where a parent contributed $25,000 to a private school to dump the coach.  

Sometimes it gets darker. "It only happens in soap operas." 

Develop durable strategies to defeat barriers, to build relationships with influencers - program leadership, parents, the booster club, and local media. Reach out, listen, and be humble while selling your plan. Acknowledge that we will make mistakes, but do so while doing what we feel is best for the team. 

Establish 'ground rules' for dialogue. Another excerpt from Carl Pierson: 

No panaceas exist. Expecting rules to solve problems that exist because of limited minutes and parents' limitless love for their children is unrealistic. When we're fortunate, we get traction from our work and build the community's confidence over time. Faith and patience flank Coach Wooden's apex of the Pyramid of Success. 

Summary: 

• Great stories share intention and obstacles.
• Craft style and substance. 
• Identify the obstacles.
• Cultivate allies and beware "enemies."
• Build relationships with influencers.
• No panaceas exist but have faith and patience.

Lagniappe. "Every day is player development day." Accelerate out of the catch. 

Lagniappe 2. PAC Men. Great basketball minds (not me!) advocate for paint touches and ball reversal. This includes Canadian Kirby Schepp and Belgian Pascal Meurs who argues the Suns can turn it around with the Paint-Assisted Corner 3. It's worth a two minute read. An excerpt: "The Phoenix Suns ranked #4 in the NBA for attempts from the corner during the regular season. Furthermore, they averaged 9.2 corner attempts in the series against the Lakers, 10.3 versus the Nuggets and 8.7 vs the Clippers.

Over the two home wins in the Finals, they shot 12/21 from the corner.

But in the last three losses they combined for … 3/12. Four corner ball attempts a game is less than half of their average of the season (!!!)."