"Play ball." "Work ball" said no one ever.
I love practice. Find ways to make and keep the game fun. How?
Start with "invert, always invert" the command of mathematician Carl Jacobi. What do players hate?
Conditioning. Effective players must be in great shape. Chuck Daly reminded us, "I'm a salesman." We sell our whole program, including conditioning.
Physically abusive practice. After a bad loss in 1971, we spent the entire two-hour practice running. Sprints, laps, no basketball. Some players got physically ill. We had lost the JV game badly as we were badly outplayed. We won the sophomore game in the afternoon. Now, that would be an MIAA violation (two games in a day).
Verbal abuse. Hard coaching and verbal abuse are not the same. In one of the Wooden books, he explained that he couldn't get their mule moving. His father came over, whispered something to the mule, and she moved.
Being ignored. "How does it feel to play for me?" Is the twelfth player "on an island," isolated and ignored? Everyone on the team deserves coaching, not only because it's the 'right' thing but because it's the 'best' thing.
Dehumanization. File under "lack of empathy." The person matters first. If as a coach, our players only add value if they impact winning, that's unfortunate.
Constant negativity. "Winners" don't treat players badly. Yes, there's meaning in teaching "what not to do," but full-on negativity isn't the best means to an end.
Scapegoating. "If you (individually or collectively) weren't so incompetent, shiftless, useless players, we'd win." That's a great slogan for "obsessing the product," right?
Author David Cottrell wrote, "people don't quit jobs, they quit people." And I'm reminded of a quote, "Never be a child's last coach." I was always a 'first to show up' player. We had an eight-hour indoor baseball practice in college including a lot of simulated game play. The coach excluded me, no doubt trying to get me to quit. If we want a player to quit, then have the decency to say, "there's no opportunity for you here. I know that you're a committed student, so you might want to invest more time academically." Man up.
Do more fun stuff.
Warmups. We used to jump rope for five minutes as part of the routine. Watching boys jump rope can give us a chuckle.
Dribble tag is fun (six players within the arc, with a ball). Add constraints, like dribbling with the non-dominant hand or add a crossover every three dribbles. Brad Stevens allegedly had players "capture the flag" as a warmup.
Condition within drills. As a coach, I had limited practice time, so combine skill building, defense, decision-making, and competition within drills. Scrimmaging, 5 versus 7 press-breaking, and O-D-O situational play (ATO, BOB, SLOB) blended the technical, tactical, and physical mandates. Oh yeah, Pete Carril conditioned within drills.
Throw the players some bones. Our players loved a drill I developed, "Frito Lay." An imperfect drill, it offered competition, basket attack, an outside shot, and it was invariably 'close'. Frito-Lay? Free throws to layups.
You can play one-on-one to six-versus-six.
Be positive. Constant negativity or any scapegoating, "it's on you, not on me. I gave my best," have no place. Coaches have ownership.
Stop the abuse. High tempo isn't abuse. Demanding excellence isn't abuse. Coaches calling players lazy, worthless 'expletives' is abuse.
Copy greatness. Reproduce elements building excellence from Adam Grant, Ken Burns, Thomas Keller, Sarah Blakely.
Grant wrote, Give and Take. Be an ambitious giver
Burns is the king of documentaries. Unearth discoveries worth sharing. Give people more of what they don't know.
Keller has multiple Michelin 3-Star restaurants. Critical feedback matters, because we're a team from the dishwasher to the chef.
Blakely advised us to design prototypes of excellence. Her first SPANX idea grew out of cutting the feet out of pantyhose. She turned an idea into a $5 billion dollar enterprise. She never raised capital through stock or bonds, by obsessing the product.
Lagniappe (something extra). "Every day is player development day." Use or modify these drills. Be on balance. Protect the ball. Read the defender. Play low. "It's a shoulders game."
