Coaching youth basketball (sixth to eighth grade girls), we added value from player and team growth on and off the court.
Seeing players succeed in life reinforces that people built on lessons. Some opportunities included:
1. Forge lifelong relationships. Be available. Be an anteambulo. Write letters of recommendations. Network.
2. Help build skills that get and keep you on the court. "What is your varsity skill?"
3. Emphasis. Focusing your light on making others better, reflects more light upon you. Top players make everyone better.
4. Impact winning. Top players went to or won state championships.
5. Become a student of the game. The players who excelled the most maintained their notebooks and studied video. Integrating skill, athleticism, tactics, and psychology gave them a great chance to succeed.
6. Create edges. Emphasize separation. Footwork, urgent cutting, and screening shape hard-to-defend advantage.
7. Develop "possession enders," guys who gets scores and stops.
8. Craft leaders.
- Model excellence.
- Share great info like Wooden's "Pyramid of Success" (laminated)
- Share 'the right way', Jay Bilas's "Toughness" qualities (laminated)
- Teach leadership stories about men and women who changed the world.
10.Create opportunities. Players had offseason sessions available (90 minutes, twice weekly) allowing them to practice key skills, especially scoring at multiple levels.
Set the bar high. Players got the same opportunity. A few seized it.
Lagniappe.
What do Winning Programs do Differently?
— Greg Berge (@gb1121) October 21, 2023
A lot.
Here are 5 Things Found in Winning Programs.
1: High-Level Commitment
You cannot have a consistently high-performing program without a relentless consistency of commitment. Committed players WIN. Committed teams WIN. Each season,…
Lagniappe 2. What is the Mamba mentality? Becoming your best version.