"Mentoring is the only shortcut to excellence."
Fifty years ago Coach Sonny Lane instilled core values. They still apply.
1. "If I stop yelling at you, it's because I've given up on you." (He didn't.) Coaches don't waste our breath on unredeemable players. An important corollary is, "if I correct one player, the message applies to everyone." One of Bob Knight's messages was "everyone plays defense." Everyone gets back fully engaged in transition.
2. "I'm pleased but I'm not satisfied." Coach Lane came to Wakefield High School with no winning basketball tradition and no reputation and transformed it in three years to a sectional champion in a league that had produced a pair of NBA first round draft choices (Ron Lee, Bob Bigelow). Nobody gave him anything.
3. "Sacrifice." Basketball builds upon sharing. My favorite basketball quote is Phil Jackson's, "basketball is sharing." Shared vision, shared goals, and sharing the ball characterize strong teams. Madeleine Blais wrote the classic In These Girls Hope Is a Muscle about the Amherst Hurricanes who came together only when their two star players learned to coexist and thrive.
Ego is the enemy. I see it at every level, when middle school girls glare at each other when not getting their shots and touches. "There is no MY TURN in basketball."
4. "Hats and gloves." Coach wanted us to dress properly for the weather. "You're no good to the team sick." It's science. "Most isolates of human rhinovirus, the common cold virus, replicate more robustly at the cool temperatures found in the nasal cavity (33–35 °C) than at core body temperature (37 °C)." Keeping our nose warm (masks) may help stunt the viral growth. Another reason masks might work in the frozen north.
5. "You know what I like about you guys?" We'd answer together, "nothing." Excellent teams express a mindset of "one band, one sound."
Asked about his team, the great Amos Alonzo Stagg said, "ask me in twenty years, I'll be able to tell you then."
Summary:
- "If I stop yellng at you..."
- Sacrifice.
- "I'm pleased but I'm not satisfied."
- "Hats and gloves."
- "You know what I like about you guys?"
Lagniappe: Practical Suggestions for Competitive Advantage
- Ask players to get more sleep. There's evidence (from a Stanford study) that improved sleep improves speed and shooting percentage.
- Eat breakfast. A study showed eating breakfast improved shooting, especially free throw shooting. Whether it's better energetics or improved cognition, breakfast bumped performance.
- Don't dismiss informal learning. "It would, in any case, be unreasonable to believe that formal education could ever surpass informal education in terms of the volume of information and experiences a person acquires in a career." Kristen McDonnell (personal communication) shares that she participates in regular teleconferences with area coaches to discuss coaching.