Reason Why Good Coaches May Have Bad Records

Evaluating one's coaching skills presents a fool's errand. Ego distorts the calculus. Self-assessment is tough. We grade ourselves too harshly or too loosely. Goldilocks, anyone? 

A lot of factors go into winning... 

• Intent (is winning the primary goal versus development or fun?) 
• Talent (chicken soup from chicken feathers) 
• Schedule
• Coaching (prior coaching of your players, current assistants)
• Luck (continuum of skill and luck)
• Circumstances (more below)

Remember the 'fundamental attribution error' where we attribute behaviors or outcomes of other people to character and our behavior to circumstances. "In other words, you tend to cut yourself a break while holding others 100 percent accountable for their actions."

Intent. As a youth coach, develop skills, teamwork, and have fun. Nobody became elite by quitting the sport. When blessed to have that "great" player, give them 'more' but sacrifice no one on the altar of victory. 

Years ago as an assistant, we trailed by 17 at the half. The coach asked me to take over. We had a furious rally with everything from changing defenses to "offense-defense" substitution and tied it late. But I felt badly about unequal playing time and put the reserves in for overtime. "We made our point" and lost by two. 

Share life lessons, too. Coaching girls, I enjoy sharing anecdotes from history about great performances (e.g. the Battles of Chancellorsville, the heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain) and women's empowerment (e.g. Arlene Blum and the climb of Annapurna).

Talent/resources. Great talent makes smarter coaches. As Earl Weaver noted, "momentum lasts as long as the next day's starting pitcher." Great talent helps coaches compete even on an 'off day.' There's even a formula:

Achievement = Performance x Time 

Talent ups the average performance and leverages time. Lengthen the game if we have talent and shorten it when we don't. 

Lose players to illness, injury, or transfer and we might be toast. 

Schedule. If you're the fifth best poker player in the world, enjoy success. But if you're in a game with the top four, not so much. They'll eat you for lunch. There are exceptional programs from small communities that overachieve. That's why they're the exception. Steve Harrington's Watertown boys program has won multiple state titles playing as a small school in a competitive league.

Coaching. Past and present coaching matter, including assistants. The high school coach who schools players in fundamentals is an incredible resource for the college coach who gets her players. Bob Knight said that the game is 80 percent mental. Remember what was said about Bear Bryant, "he can take his'n and beat your'n or your'n and beat his'n." 

Luck. A continuum of luck and skill define results. WSOP champion Annie Duke elaborated on this in Thinking in Bets. When we flip a coin often enough, we'll see five or ten consecutive heads. 

Michael Mauboussin clarifies this in The Success Equation. Gatekeepers recognize this in everyday life. Twenty percent of Navy SEAL applicants fail the "psych test' and 98 percent of those fail the training. Ergo, you fail the screening test and they cut you from the program. 

Circumstances. Sometimes a team implodes for uncontrollable reasons. Personality conflicts matter. One college team fell apart because the straight and gay players couldn't coexist. A high school team melted down in the playoffs when one player "stole" another player's boyfriend before the playoffs. Our team lost focus from a parental death during the season. 

Reduce our self-judgment to creation (offense) and denial (defense) of opportunity. View execution separately. Even with limited talent, orient toward spacing, player and ball movement and shrinking space defensively. Low talent clubs need extra attention to finishing and practice should reflect that. 

The same considerations go into assessing another team. Lack of talent isn't an excuse for lack of planning and preparation to create and deny space and time. 

Return to the "Achievement" equation that it's about performance over time. Someone asked the great Amos Alonzo Stagg about his team. He said, "ask me in twenty years and I'll be able to tell you." 

Lagniappe. Skill limitations have great impact on decision making implications. 

Short roll passing depends on the skill of multiple passers and three point shooting. With younger players (middle school), long-range shooting is generally weak (ergo the proliferation of zone defenses). 

Lagniappe 2. Barkleyvision...never boring.