Sunday, April 28, 2024

Basketball: Origin Stories

"Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story." The precise origin of the quote is debated. 

Origin stories appear in biography and legend. Biographer Walter Isaacson explored beginnings of DaVinci, Ben Franklin, Einstein, and others. 

Origin stories even cross species. 

Basketball origin stories proliferate. 

Perhaps the best known and most extensive was the Netflix Michael Jordan series, The Last Dance.

Bill Russell's family relocated from Louisiana to Oakland starting the chain of events that launched his career. 

Origin stories aren't exclusive to Americans. Giannis Antetokounmpo rose from poverty to international prominence and an NBA title.

Where's the value? Origin stories inspire, inform 'complexity' of characters, and trigger emotions which could range from disdain, to sympathy, or awe. 

Coaches have our own origin stories but refocus on helping players write their narratives. These should work across domains. How? 

1. Be an ambitious giver. Adam Grant's Give and Take shares how givers are both the most and least successful. Reign in the self while prioritizing players and teams first. Complex coaching personalities like John Calipari and Nick Saban show how difficult that is. 

2. Develop. Without expanding our teaching foundations, how can we grow skills in others? That means studying coaches domestic and foreign, borrowing and combining their methods. Here are just a few, alphabetically:

  • Chris Brickley
  • Dr. Fergus Connolly (Human performance expert)
  • Drew Hanlen
  • Don Kelbick
  • Bob Knight
  • Mike McKay
  • Etorre Messina
  • Kirby Schepp
  • Arik Shivek 
  • Dave Smart
  • Ed Smith (former English national cricket selector)
  • Jay Wright

Without a doubt, you'll add another few dozen that impacted you, your knowledge, and approach. 

3. Expand horizons across disciplines. Stay open to the firehose of ideas around us. Read, read, read. Learn analogies. Study both success and failure. Why did space shuttle Challenger fail? Was it lack of knowledge or misreading available information? 

4. Never stop learning. Stay curious. Being a "know-it-all" is the height of hubris and vanity. Walk into a library in awe of our ignorance. Grow our players through our stories and our mentor's stories. Remember Usher's recommendation to study your mentor's mentors. My mentor's intellectual mentors included Dean Smith and John Wooden. 

5. Become a storyteller. What will our former players remember from our mentoring? Stories have power and durability. Stories add both simplicity and complexity. Teach excellence, triumph, and tragedy. 

Lagniappe. Remember principles of symmetry. What we want to do on offense we want to limit on defense. 

Lagniappe 2. Think again. 

Lagniappe 3. Winners are different. Coach Berge and I are on the same wavelength. 

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