Tryout Stories

Tryouts are coming. Present your best version. Leave an impression. 

To start tryouts, I often line the seated girls up on the baseline and say, "I need a volunteer..." Some hands go up. I tell them that's not enough. "When you hear the coach say, "volun-" pop up like you were shot out of a cannon. Leave an impression." Maybe this job's not for you...but the next one...

Stand out. Years ago at tryouts a tall girl (Randi with an i) showed up wearing bright rainbow socks. She stood out. She also made the team. 

Samuel L. Jackson tried out for a part in My Cousin Vinny. He was asked to read seven words, "Mud, you got mud on your tires." How many ways can you say that? Jackson reminds the ambitious, "Be off book." Know your lines cold...know the plays, your responsibility, and your teammates'. When you get the part, you'll have a chance to improvise. 

As an assistant, I got to pick the 12th player. I saw a stunningly athletic girl, Sydney, who wasn't skilled. But I saw something. As an eighth grader she was one of our top two players, a great finisher around the rim with either hand. She also played on our high school state championship volleyball team. Now she has a master's degree in education. Fly around at tryouts. 

I think some girls get the script before tryouts. Just before tryouts started, a little girl approached me. "Hi, Coach. My name is Naomi and I am really excited to be here." She made the team (I ran the tryouts and have a small voice in selections.) First time a player had ever done that. Be memorable. She left an impression. 

Summary: 

• Present your best version.
• Pop up as though you were shot out of a cannon. 
• Be off book (know your lines). 
• Fly around at tryouts
• Be memorable. 
• Leave an impression. 

Lagniappe. The secrets coaches reveal. 

5 Is a Magic Number in Basketball

Nothing magical about the number 5 in basketball or is there? 

Find 'easy' ways to score like those below.

"Easy scores." The Attention to Detail series shares scoring 'easy threes' - inside out, off screens ("the screener is the second cutter"), transition threes. The short roll pitch to corner is another NBA favorite. 

Get all five involved. Five players on the court., yet recognizing each brings different skills. "It's not the five best players but the five who play best together." 

Finishing five. Coach always told us that "it's not the five who start but the five who finish." Become trusted at the end. Want minutes in crunch time. 

"Do five more." Dan Pink shares a tip about doing five more - do five more reps, five more sprints, make five more sets of a shooting drill. Unrequired work separates ordinary and extraordinary. 

Buffettology. Start with a list of twenty-five useful items. Whittle it down to Warren Buffett's essential five. "Do well what we do a lot." 

• Transition defense
• Defensive rebounding
• Half-court defense (ball containment, coverage, and protection)
• Half-court offense ("where do the points come from")
• Special situations (apply pressure on BOBs, SLOBs, ATOs) Be special. 

Summary: 

• Get easy scores
• Involve all five
• Be part of the finishing five
• Do five more
• Whittle your MUST list down to five

Lagniappe. Theme on. Have a fistful of favorite 5 out options in addition to give-and-go, pass and screen away high, and pass and ball screen. 

Lagniappe 2. Develop your own version of '30 buckets' 

"Curate Information. That's Where Expertise Comes From." - Dan Pink Plus Triple Lagniappe

To gain expertise, study how it's acquired. Dan Pink rocks, advising focus on curating amidst information overload. 

"Focus on the 1%." Clarity comes from the 1% the core concept. "Less is more." The more data we present, the weaker the argument. "Stop at three." 

An explosion of information challenges coaches to capture, filter, and repackage knowledge in forms that raise a player's "bag" and team competence. 

If coaching and player distribution were random, we'd see performance scatter something like that of the Galton Board (above). 

But the ability of coaches to acquire (e.g. recruit) and train is not equal, so we see non-random achievement. 

Coaches find players, develop skill, and employ tactics that produce edges. A great development coach may not be a great tactician...and vice versa. Find complementary help. That makes acquiring and optimizing assistants an underrated skill. In his MasterClass, Coach Geno Auriemma credits his first hire, Chris Dailey as integral to UCONN's (and his) success. 

How do we curate content? 

• Define critical content (e.g. defining offense and defense) - "get more and better shots than our opponent" - Pete Newell
• Specify goals (shared vision, intent, and language) - "we are going to limit transition baskets to "x" and opponent field goal percentage to "y"
• Growth (knowledge, skill, teamwork) - add more when ready

Compile lists of questions. 

Explain the why (specifics).

Test and give feedback.

For example:

- How do we defend pick-and-roll (who, what, where, how)?

- Analyze and trend results by type (show, blitz, drop, switch)

- Adjust according to results

How do we source content? There's no easy or unitary answer. Sources like YouTube, blogs, and search engines are plentiful. "One-stop shopping" coaching sites are alternatives, as well as proprietary courses. 

Develop your network of trusted resources. Reciprocity matters. To get value, add value. 

If we accept that about a third of games are decided by two possessions or less, find solutions. 

1. Reduce transition hoops allowed... 

2. Limit pick-and-roll teams with technique and/or tactics (zone).

3. Foul less to reduce high points-per-possession scoring (free throws).

4. Analyze shot quality and practice shooting.

5. Raise free throw shooting percentage. 

Tip 1. Pressure free throw shooting. We practiced with "teammate harassment." You could say or do anything but not touch the shooter or interfere with the shot. 

Tip 2. Bill Bradley in A Sense of Where You Are. Bradley aimed for the middle of the bolts connecting the rim to the backboard. You can aim for the writing (try it). 

Lagniappe. Rivalries promote sport.

Lagniappe 2. "Basketball is a game of separation." Train separation. 

Think about some of the many ways to get separation (violating less is more)

• Quickness. Have and elevate athletic explosion. 
• Footwork. Pivoting and the ability to change direction and pace. 
• Fakes. Setup defenders who expect 'A' and get 'B'.
• Teamwork. E.g. screens
• Reacting to opponent errors (e.g. ball watching, head turning)
• Reading defenders (e.g. attacking the front hand/foot) and attack overplay with screens and back cuts
• General deception...   

Power Laws for Young Professionals Plus Triple Lagniappe

I've read parts of Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power...summary within. Keep out of trouble and in favor. This video summarizes ten top laws. 

Here are my top 5 from the video's top 10. 

"Power is a social game." As coaches, we interact with many parts of community and learn how to play the game. 

1. Be invaluable. Add quality that nobody else can add. Sometimes that means finding hidden problems or novel solutions. It could mean having the capacity to summarize data or information in ways that another cannot. 

As a player, have an irreplaceable skill. Maybe you're a unicorn like Marcus Smart. 

2. Always make the boss look good. I learned this early in the Navy. Favorable assignments often follow the ability to make the boss shine. Spending ten years at Bethesda Naval Hospital followed making others look good. Conversely, avoid activity that reflects poorly on the boss. 

3. Protect your reputation. Avoid embarrassing ourselves or the organization. Do the work. Always be prepared. 

"Greene emphasizes that reputation is absolutely fundamental to your power. If your reputation is strong, you will have influential power and the ability to intimidate. However, if your reputation is compromised, you become vulnerable and open yourself up to attack."

4. Be professional in all ways. In the Navy, they call it military bearing. People draw inferences from how we look, how we speak, and how we treat others. Work to be our best version every day in how we communicate and our presence. 

5. Remember "What's in it for me?" from counterparties. 

People often respond best to "self-interest." Asking for favors without reciprocity may doom us to failure. 

Lagniappe. Billy Donovan calls it the "95", the 95 percent of the time you don't have the ball. Moving without the ball creates opportunities for teammates and yourself. 

Lagniappe 2. Don't get caught ball watching. 

Lagniappe 3. Share with your top players to make them even more effective.

 

Finish five can be particularly relevant and don't forget to use the glass. 

The Exit Interview - Opportunity for Grievance or Stimulus for Change? Plus Quadruple Lagniappe (Something extra)

Do exit interviews change anything? If not, they're wasting time. The concept reminds me of David Brooks' "resume virtues" and "eulogy virtues." Resume virtues extol what we've done for ourselves, while eulogy virtues inform how we've changed others. 

Brooks admits, "It occurs to me that I’ve achieved a decent level of career success, but I have not achieved that. I have not achieved that generosity of spirit, or that depth of character."

Forbes discusses exit interviews and shares recommendations:

1. Vent ahead of time, not during the interview. 
2. Plan and prepare for the session. 
3. Exit with grace by focusing on the positive. 
4. Provide useful facts. 
5. Have your own informal exit interviews. 

When leaving the Navy, a colleague had an exit interview with the hospital CO. "Is there anything we could have done to keep you in the Navy?" He answered, "No."

We don't have formal reviews of the coaching by the Rec Department. They usually just say thanks and let me know the parents were mostly happy. 

Some parents and players would put us on a pedestal. Others want to hit us with one. What might distinguish the two? Dissatisfaction arises for many reasons - playing time, role, and especially gaps between expectations and reality. Coachspeak says you earn your minutes and role. Why? Because most of us believe that.

Few players or parents express open disdain for the coaching. It usually surfaces through the grapevine. "So and so thinks your coaching stinks." That's unhelpful without specifics. I'll listen. If somebody says, "I disagree with your approach of substituting four or five in," I won't disagree. It keeps playing time more equal, not perfectly equal. If they say, "you don't scrimmage enough in practice," that's also true, arguable, and opinion. I'd say that small-sided (3 vs 3) games at each end gets more touches and more shots per player with one coach coaching each group. Full court 5 versus 7 no dribble work is a form of scrimmage (advantage-disadvantage with constraints). And every practice ends with about 15 minutes of O-D-O (offense-defense-offense) three possession games, possessions beginning with special situations (BOB, SLOB, ATO, free throws). 

If they say, "my kid didn't learn anything," that could be true, but how did so many other kids have the same experience and succeed as All-League players or beyond? And how many of those disaffected players did the unrequired work, attending offseason workouts (twice weekly) for additional teaching and training? <Crickets>  

If your child has a mediocre two or three year varsity career, a lot of ground got crossed between eighth grade and upperclass varsity seasons. The cynical, logical reply is they succeeded despite their formative coaching. 

When coaches leave, how often do they get an exit interview? When players transfer, they usually don't have an exit interview. Perhaps nothing could reverse the exodus of public to private talent, but it doesn't happen in every sport, mostly basketball and hockey. 

Summary: 

• Exit interviews resemble resume and eulogy virtues.
• Focus on the positive
• Provide useful facts 
• Play small sided games
• Use advantage-disadvantage with constraints
• Practice special situations to excel in them
• Do the unrequired work
• Be self-aware about progress and limitations

Lagniappe (something extra) Art imitates life. GOLD. "What do you love?" 

Lagniappe 2. Coach Hanlen breaks down a shot. 

Lagniappe 3. "Majerus closeouts." Flip, flyby, recover, repeat and stop drive.

 

Lagniappe. ATO game winner with an unusual screen-the-screener action. 

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Signs are part of sports culture, sometimes revealing hidden truths, sometimes not.  

Life Lessons in Doing More, "You Have to Scratch and Claw"

"You have to scratch and claw and it never f–king ends. And it doesn’t get better, it just gets harder. So don’t complain to me that I’m making your life hard. You don’t even know what that means." - Deborah Vance in Hacks, Episode 2

Success stories recap the fruits of labor, doing more, studying more. Success demands sacrifice. And give credit whenever possible.

Usher advises that we study our mentors' mentors. He studied James Brown and Gene Kelly. For me, that meant coaches Dean Smith and John Wooden.  

Doris Kearns Goodwin explains that Abraham Lincoln walked miles to borrow a book. Scholarship is hard. 

Kevin Eastman emphasizes "unrequired work." 

"Be off book." Samuel L. Jackson explains the importance of knowing your lines. If you can't learn them for an audition, why should someone hire you? 

Dan Pink says, "do five more." Study five more minutes. Do five more sprints. Read five more pages. 

Steph Curry has a legendary work ethic to perfect his ballhandling, pickups, and long-range shooting. Would we expect anything different? 

David Lynch explains that ideas require patience, like fishing. Drop your bait into the metaphorical sea of ideas and wait. 

Winners do more. Here's the Anson Dorrance quote (again) about Mia Hamm, working out, alone, unnoticed. 

Author James Clear (Atomic Habits) shares how a friend writes three pages a day. Every day. That translates into three books annually. Three pages = three books. 

Venus and Serena Williams became athletes under their father's tutelage, BEFORE they became tennis stars. Serena explains that she can throw a football as well as many NFL quarterbacks. 

Larry Bird took 500 free throws BEFORE school. Ironically, the dustup between Isiah Thomas and Bird happened because Thomas wanted the basketball world to see that he wasn't born great but worked tireless hours on the playground to become great. 

Ken Burns didn't have money to get into the documentary film industry. He moved to New Hampshire to reduce his living costs. 

Bob Woodward explains that research or interviews may take two to four hours a day beyond the "normal" work day. That separates him in finding the "best available version of the truth." He submitted a story about the Mayflower Coffee Shop code violations and his editor asked "have you been there?" Woodward went to the Mayflower Hotel and asked to meet the restaurant manager. He learned they had no restaurant. Do your research. 

James Cameron didn't have the budget to make epic pictures, so he learned how to do everything from storyboard art to filming. The Terminator was a low budget film that led to a franchise. The initial 6.4 million dollars spawned sequels earning hundreds of millions. 

Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code) was 150 pages into a novel and discarded it. The difference between good writers and bad writers is that good writers know when their writing is bad. 

Sara Blakely's father asked the children at dinner, "what have you failed at this week?" He gave his children permission to fail. 

One of Malcolm Gladwell's signature pieces was "10,000 hours." He believed that MOST disciplines like music, chess, law, medicine, and so forth required what Thomas Keller would say was "time and temperature." 

Embrace the Deborah Vance quote. "You have to scratch and claw and it never f–king ends. And it doesn’t get better, it just gets harder. So don’t complain to me that I’m making your life hard. You don’t even know what that means." 

Lagniappe. "Find a home." Most basketball is unscripted so why not practice that way? 

How Do We Add Value to Winning? Plus 2 Drills, An ATO Stagger, and Saban Coaching

"Good artists borrow; great artists steal." - Picasso

Basketball Friday shares concepts, drills, and a set play. 

Excellent coaches take teams where they cannot go alone. Give a short list of how you specifically achieved that. We build a program not a statue. 

1. Be an anteambulo (clear the path). Help individuals pursue their dreams. What specific needs (athleticism, skill, game knowledge) can we enhance for each individual? 

2. Networking. Develop contacts that steer a player into the school or field of their choice. My experience and contacts as a Naval Officer for ten years at Bethesda helped a former player earn entry to and a degree from Annapolis.  

3. Recommendations. Let players know that we write letters and email, make calls, and online recommendations to help advance their basketball and academic opportunities. 

4. Skill development. "Every day is player development day." There's no substitute for skill. As a player, ask "what am I doing to improve today?" 

5. Motivation. Does motivation inspire results or do results inspire motivation? Energy, positivity, modeling excellence, and seeing progress serve as positive feedback loops. "The job of a youth coach is to help their athletes develop the skills, attitudes, and habits that will enable them to achieve success on and off the ice, field, or court." 

6. Focus. Teach players to be here now. The answers don't come from the stands. "A man distracted is a man defeated." Practice eye contact and listening skills. Leverage strengths. "Do more of what works and less of what doesn't." Mindfulness training is proven to increase attention testing in students as young as six to eight.

When studying use the Pomodoro technique...25 minutes on and 5 minutes off. 

7. Director Ron Howard says, "the film is made in the editing room." Another worthy saying is, "kill your darlings." As we find better drills, techniques, and tactics, retire others. What are we doing and why? 

8. Communicate better. "Speak greatness" by avoiding negative words like BUT instead of AND. Use "sandwich technique" to put correction bracketed by praise. Be strategic in praise or criticism in front of a group. 

9. Grow complementary players, those "who play best together." Bob Knight said, "just because I want you on the floor doesn't mean I want you to shoot." 

10.Build your teaching library. Compile a drill book, teaching clips, and your play book. I find Google Drive convenient and free. 

Drill. Hustle double. 2 Minute solitary shooting drill. Constraints are time (two minutes) and need to make consecutive shots at each spot. 

Drill 2. Three lines two balls passing. Advance the ball quickly. 

Set play. Stagger truncated into curl. 

The defender anticipates defending a staggered screen and gets caught in traffic.

Lagniappe (something extra). From Nick Saban via Kevin Eastman... are we ordinary or extraordinary? 

"The Audience" - Give Fans a Memorable Experience

Great organizations connect with fans...though branding, social media, and performance. 

"Give me a lifetime of promises and a world of dreams..."

Entertainment becomes identity, the "Showtime Lakers" or the St. Louis Rams, "the Greatest Show on Turf." 

"Don't be boring." Don't check your personality at the door. Radiate joy.

Playwright David Mamet explains that the audience is "collective genius," recognizing what works and what doesn't. Basketball fans are the same, knowing good basketball when they see it. Our work must be road tested in front of an audience. 

Leverage "cinematic tricks" like cheerleaders, music/pep bands, and fancy scoreboards. They're part of the entertainment package. 

"It's the basketball, stupid." What makes basketball great to watch? 

• Coach Wooden said, "Basketball is a game meant to be played fast." 
• Where's your shot clock, America? 
• Great teams play pace and space basketball. 
• They value the ball minimizing turnovers. Own the tagline, "stop the steals." 
• Defensively, they play "color on color" defense as defenders arrive near the catch. Rejections and deflections...

"Connect with fans" checklist. 

• Play better basketball. 
• "Make it. Sell it. Promote brand awareness." - Sara Blakely
• Reach out with multiple media platforms.
• Entertain. "Don't be boring."
• Immerse fans in the experience. 
• Add "cinematic tricks."
• Share your personality.

Lagniappe. Young teams often struggle with early offense. Have a variety of actions, including drag screens. 

 

Lagniappe 2. Eric Musselman credited Lason Perkins with sharing Lt. Gen. Hal Morris's maxim, "there is always one more thing you can do to increase your odds of success." What's our one more thing?

Lagniappe 3. What do former players say about a coach? 

Championship Effort

Do results define us or process? Coach Auriemma's MasterClass lesson eight (How to Get Maximum Effort) informs his vision. 

But we're not him. What tips are available? No comprehensive list exists. 

1. Set the bar high. Every year can't be rebuilding. "We're young, not a lot of experience and we'll take our lumps." Or do we say, "we're young, enthusiastic, and we'll bring the fight to the floor every day." Same team, different message. 

2. "Always do your best." Our best won't always get championship results but leaves no regrets. Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements is Tom Brady's favorite book. 

3. Give honest feedback about effort. We don't have the resources to have heart rate monitoring to measure work. But we have our eyes. If players want more, they must give more, do more, sacrifice more. 

4. Ask "what's your why?" You're here to reach a standard of excellence or you're not. "Champions behave like champions before they’re champions." —BILL WALSH  

5. Model excellence. Players see everything. What's our commitment to planning and preparation? If we don't give our best, why should they? Auriemma says it's tempting not to engage fully, "my door is open, they can find me." That doesn't work. 

6. "How you play reflects how you live your life." After a lackluster effort by a former group, the head coach asked me to say a few words. The girls had been pushed around and didn't respond, showing no fight. Six months later a player told me that message really got to her. 

7. Be relentless. A top prospect gave the most consistent effort in practice or games that I've ever seen for a young player. She earned All-Scholastic efforts as a freshman this season putting up big performances (20/14/5 blocks). In Relentless, Tim S. Grover wrote, "Being relentless means demanding more of yourself than anyone else could ever demand of you, knowing that every time you stop, you can still do more. You must do more."

8. Build winning habits. In The Vision of a Champion, Anson Dorrance describes Mia Hamm, working out alone in a park, "The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when nobody else is watching.”

One year I had this poster printed for each of the girls.

9. Excellence has no boundaries. Excellence doesn't stop at your front door, the classroom, or the side and end lines of the court. Brad Stevens said that he never coached a great student who was a bad defender. A mother told me that her daughter, a league MVP, was every bit as pleasant and helpful at home as she was elsewhere. 

10. Championship practice. Coach Auriemma says that when competitors understand and want to do it right, they simply won't accept mediocre execution in practice. He's had the Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Tina Charles, Maya Moore, Breanna Stewart type players that reached that ethereal level. 

Lagniappe. Have an improvement plan today. 

Lagniappe 2. Craft moves to create separation.  

Basketball: Objectivity

Focus on truths. Director Ken Burns says one of his strength's is watching a clip and being totally objective about its strengths and weaknesses. Fellow director Ron Howard adds, "the movie is made in the editing room."

Objective feedback helps us to edit our process. If making floaters is a weakness, then either work on it or cut it. If we're overweight decide to change our lifestyle or remain overweight.

Effective coaching (Thomas Crane, The Heart of Coaching) is "performance-focused, feedback-rich to provide sustainable competitive advantage." 

"See with our eyes not with our heart." A coach I respect told me, "you will win more, if you play your best players more." I couldn't agree more, but in a developmental program, I have a responsibility to all the players. A few more wins in middle school don't mean much in the big picture. But we own helping the exceptional player grow, too. 

Use checklists.  

Acknowledge cognitive bias. 

"They behaved badly because they're bad." I behaved badly because I had to...I was in a rush, I was late, I had to get this done. 

How can we be more objective?

• Use the stats. "If he's such a good hitter, why doesn't he hit better?" - Billy Beane in Moneyball.  Chart shots, hustle plays, and turnovers grouped by failed decision or execution. 
• Measure. In The Politics of Coaching, Carl Pierson measured speed, strength, and jumping ability at tryouts. If a parent asked why their child didn't make the team, he could say, she was in the bottom five percent of all athletes tested. Few impact players lack athletic explosion.
• Use the Stoic principle of the "indifferent spectator." What would she say? 
• Watch the film...the Truth Machine. 
• "Invert." What if we did the opposite? 
• Verify the facts. "I heard" is not "I did the research." One study of patients in alcohol rehab showed that when staff was 100% confident patients were not using, half tested positive. "Trust but verify."
• Get more eyes. Trusted observers help. 
• Consider a range of possibilities, probability and outcomes. Think in bets.
• Choose the red pill (reality). 

Lagniappe (something extra). Clear-eyed. 

Lagniappe 2. The biggest disruption of the UCLA series is non-urgent cutting. 

Lagniappe 3. Why not? Too many things have to go right, including having an inbounder who can make this pass off screen-the-screener action. Just because we see something doesn't mean we should use it. 

Dice Basketball to Innovate Offense?

See the game differently. Literally roll dice to innovate offense. Start with "great offense is multiple actions." 

A lifetime ago, I played "dice baseball" with outcomes based on a roll of the dice. For example, 4-4 (1/36) was a home run. In a more sophisticated game (e.g. Strat-o-Matic), each hitter would have a personal card, e.g. more strikeouts or higher average with singles. Any outcome with a second roll of the die as a six would be a strikeout, such as 1-6, 2-6, and so on.

Could we develop 'random' offensive themes (multiple actions) based on a roll of the die?

1 = ball screen 

2 = off-ball screen 

3 = isolation

4 = back door cut

5 = DH0

6 = Give-and-go

Roll the die and it comes up 1-1 (ball screen, ball screen). 

1-1 could morph into Horns 11 Roll Pop staggered ball screens. 

What about 36 (iso give and go)? 

3 - 6 from a spread allows both isolation and a delayed give-and-go. Or maybe from Horns it mean post entry and then a possible return via an urgent cut or a handoff. It's your offense. 

22? Off-ball screen, off-ball screen creates a wealth of options. 

Run Iverson actions from varied formations or run options off the core play (often 4 would clear through first). 

54? DHO with backcut? 

Alternatively, teams set up actions to create a back cut option via a fake back cut. 

Only our imagination limits us. 

Lagniappe. Many of us are "different" and earned acceptance via achievement. What else? 

What 'Collaborators' Do We Need to Raise Our Game?

MasterClass is an invaluable resource in my process. Legendary leaders in their craft - Bob Woodward, Herbie Hancock, Reba McIntyre, Spike Lee, Thomas Keller, Geno Auriemma and more - share their process. 

All of us have been part of teams - our family, our school, sports teams, communities, and more. How our role meshes with their needs and expectation often defines us. I say about the Navy, it was easy to know any decision because it was based on the good of the organization above the needs of the individual. 

Lesson six from Coach Auriemma shares "How to Attract and Keep Top Talent." 

My notes (self-contained in the MasterClass app) are above. 

Auriemma shares many other thoughts, especially "Coaches get too much credit...it's the players who win."

How and whom we select to have around us is critical. Hire people with complementary skill sets. Don't be afraid to have people around who are better than we are. I fall back on John Calipari's Personal Board of Directors, surround ourselves with people whose opinion we value and trust. Auriemma says his first hire was Christine Dailey, who has been with him for 37 years. Eleven National Titles and two Olympic Gold Medals later, that's a winning hire.

We don't hire the administrators we work with but we choose whether to work there. Most of the time, we have clarity on whether that will work. 

Auriemma informs the qualities he wants in players in the "box" above. At the beginning, number 9, selling ourself, matters because top talent has no reason to join us. But getting "next level" talent into the cauldron with us raises us to the level where we can attract top talent. 

Get "silent mentors." Use historical figures and people we admire at a distance and steal from them. I'm a huge admirer of Abraham Lincoln, Atul Gawande (Better, Being Mortal, The Checklist Manifesto), Tim Ferriss (Ego is the Enemy, Tools of Titans), Dean Smith, Sara Blakely and others.

Find qualities to copy and emulate.

If I had resources to bring on other coaches, I'd have a young woman former player on staff as a role model for players. She'd be more relatable for young girls. And I'd have a "bench coach" to help with everything from substitution to special situations.

Share credit. The lions share of individual credit players achieve belongs to them. That gets back to Auriemma's, "it's the players who win." Teach them about branding and media relations, too. Recognize key contributors who inhabit the shadows of more recognized stars.

Borrow from programs of legends. Director Ron Howard says movies evolve in three parts - development and preparation, production (the script reaching its potential or taking it beyond), and editing (the actual making of the film). Any collaborators, from coaches, to front office staff, and players, need process awareness.

There's far too much grandstanding in today's society - across the communications spectrum to social media. Capture the power of teams. 

Lagniappe (something extra). Coach Hanlen shares a shot process tip. 

Lagniappe 2. The process evolves. Where do we set the bar?