Character Coaching - Part 2

Speaking of Proactive Coaching, coaching character, and coaches of good character, I found a great story on the Proactive Coaching website. It is a story by Swen Nater posted on Swen's blog. I have had the great pleasure of working camps with Swen. He is truly a wonderful, kind, caring man and one heck of a knowledgeable basketball coach.

The following story is a great example of the life-lessons that Coach Wooden taught his players. It is something that I continue to pass on, especially when it comes to cleaning up locker rooms and hotels on the road.

"About seven years ago, Coach Wooden and I were in Boise, Idaho, speaking to a group of educators. I don’t think they wanted to hear from me so much; they wanted to hear from Coach. How do I know? It’s simple. When it came to the Questions and Answers segment, I had lots of answers, but nobody asked me a question. They put us up in a high-end hotel. You know, the kind where you get the “His and Hers Terry Cloth Bathrobes?”

The morning after, we were preparing to head to the airport to return home. I was already in the hotel lobby when Nan, Coach’s daughter, asked if I would go up to Coach’s room and help him bring his bags down. As I approached his room, I saw his door was propped open with his neatly-placed luggage. So I walked in.

The 90 year old “Coach of the Century” was washing out the coffee maker in the bathroom sink. He took out the coffee bag and placed it in the trash and then rinsed the dispenser until the water was clean. Then, he placed it carefully, upside-down, in the sink so it could drain.

Walking with a semi-shuffle because of his bad knees, and slightly bent over, he next collected the trash from the other baskets in the room and consolidated them into the bathroom basket. Finally, he placed all the dirty towels on the bathroom sink.

When I looked at the bed, I saw Coach had stripped it, leaving a neat pile of sheets and pillow cases. Then he looked at me, smiled, and said, “OK, Swen. I think we’re ready to go now.” Then, he walked back into the room, turned off the light next to the bed, walked out into the hall, and closed the door behind him.

When I was at UCLA, after we played a road game, Coach made sure we left the locker room as clean, or cleaner, than we found it. All towels were placed on a table in one pile and all trash was picked up and put in its proper place. I clearly remember three occasions when, before a home practice, Coach would read us a letter he had received from the custodian of a university we had competed with, expressing amazement and gratitude for our consideration.

Is it a coincidence, the most successful men’s basketball college coach of all time has deep consideration for others and believes he is no better than anyone else, or is there a direct relationship between consideration and success? Just asking.

By the way, to this day, when I lodge somewhere overnight, I leave my room in the same condition Coach did, just in case he’s got a spy reporting to him from Motel 6. I wouldn’t put it past him."

Thanks, Swen! If more people could model themselves after Coach, the world would be such a beautiful place.

5 Steps of Character Coaching

Had the opportunity to listen to Rob Miller from Proactive Coaching this week. He was gracious enough to come to campus and speak to our student athletes and the following day spent time with our coaching staff. Rob is fantastic! He did a great job and was very informative. Here are the 5 Steps of Character Coaching:

1. Clear and Concise Vision - Make sure it is abundantly clear to everyone in your program what direction you are headed in. Communication break downs can be as cancerous to the team as anything.

2. Words and Actions Must Align - Do not send mixed messages. You can no longer practice the "do as I say, not as I do". Take a self assessment. Be truthful to yourself. Ask a trusted colleague or friend to observe and report.

3. Know Exactly What Your Team Stands For - A quick gauge of this is to ask your conference opponents what they think your team stands for. If you don't know, your team won't know. What are the things you want to be known for?

4. Be A Coach of Significance - Do not settle for teaching the game and worrying about wins and losses. Have a deeper impact. As Frosty Westering, former Pacific Lutheran football coach, once said (and I've hear John Maxwell say many times as well), "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care."

5. Be A Leader, Not A Manager - Don't be a boss or a buddy. As I phrase it, be firm but fair. Leaders innovate, develop, inspire, have a long-term view, answer the questions "what?" and "why?", originate, and challenge the status quo. Managers on the other hand administer, maintain, control, have a short-term view, answer the questions "how?" and "when?", imitate, and are satisfied with status quo.

Teamwork

My friends and colleagues in coaching, I must apologize. Time is of the essence lately. I haven't been good about updating the workshop. Between working, going to school, trying to write a thesis, and wanting to stay married... you can see that things have been a tad hectic of late. Please accept my apology and I will do my best to post more often.

With the season approaching like a barreling freight train, one of the issues I want to conquer with our team is building a sense of togetherness; coming together and working for that common goal. We have a balanced team in regards to age and class, but I still feel as if we are very young. I have compiled a list of quotes that I am delivering to our players on a daily basis. I hope that these may assist you and your team.

"He who wished to secure the good of others, has already secured his own"
-Confucius

"The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say 'I'. And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say 'I'. They don't think 'I'. They think 'we'; they think 'team'. They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but 'we' gets the credit... This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done."
-Peter Drucker

"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success."
-Henry Ford

"A boat doesn't go forward if each one is rowing their own way."
-Swahili Proverb

"A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle."
-Japanese Proverb

"One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team."
-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

"None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful."
-Mother Teresa

"Light is the task where many share the toil."
-Homer

"When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality."
-Joe Paterno

A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skill of others."
-Norman S Hindle

"The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals."
-Rensis Likert

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results."
-Andrew Carnegie

"God created us to be interdependent. We were not designed to go through life alone. We become so much more when we come alongside others - and we make them better, too."
-John Wooden

Jim Rohn - Developing a Winning Attitude

Reading up on the great motivational and business speaker, Jim Rohn. He states that in order to fulfill your success and happiness goals, you must first have the right attitude. He also believes that the right attitude is critical for tapping into your potential. As coaches, we strive to achieve this every day with ourselves and our team. The following are four points Jim Rohn uses to harness that potential and make our goals attainable.

Use the past as a learning tool. “We must not beat ourselves to death with past mistakes, faults, failures and losses.” The greatest opportunity today brings with it “is the opportunity to begin the process of change.”

Adopt a new attitude. It can be about “who we are, what we are, what we want and what we are going to do. Today can also be exactly like yesterday, and the day before; it’s all a question of attitude.”

“Clearly visualize your future and draw inspiration from it.”

Develop self-awareness. “As we learn more about who we are, we begin to make better choices and decisions for ourselves and about ourselves. As our choices improve, so do our results, and as our results improve, so does our attitude.”

PreSeason Conditioning - 20 in 20

This is a conditioning drill I've used for several years. 20 sets of lines, suicides, horses, or whatever you call them, in 20 minutes. While at Eastern Washington University, we required all of our players to run the 20 in 20 until every one of them made their time individually. At Texas Lutheran, this drill was used as a reward for behavior we deemed to be outside of our expectations.

Set the game clock at 20 minutes and start the clock. At the appropriate times listed below, players begin their running. They have until the end of the minute to complete one rep. For example: the first rep begins at 19:43 on the clock and they have until 19:00 on the clock to complete the first set.

Here are the times that players begin their run:
20:00 - 19:42 rest
19:43 - 19:00 (17 seconds of rest)
18:43 - 18:00 (17 seconds of rest)
17:43 - 17:00 (19 seconds of rest)
16:41 - 16:00 (19 seconds of rest)
15:41 - 15:00 (19 seconds of rest)
14:41 - 14:00 (21 seconds of rest)
13:39 - 13:00 (21 seconds of rest)
12:39 - 12:00 (21 seconds of rest)
11:39 - 11:00 (23 seconds of rest)
10:37 - 10:00 (23 seconds of rest)
9:37 - 9:00 (23 seconds of rest)
8:37 - 8:00 (25 seconds of rest)
7:35 - 7:00 (25 seconds of rest)
6:35 - 6:00 (25 seconds of rest)
5:35 - 5:00 (27 seconds of rest)
4:33 - 4:00 (27 seconds of rest)
3:33 - 3:00 (27 seconds of rest)
2:33 - 2:00 (29 seconds of rest)
1:31 - 1:00 (29 seconds of rest)
0:31 - 0:00

10-Point Ethics Checklist

A very timely discovery from my Ethics instructor. This is originally from Michael Fortin's blog in which he shares one of his student's, Darrin Clement, 10-Point Ethics Checklist. Since we have seen over this summer some poor choices by coaches, I felt this was something important to share with you.

The 10-Point Ethics Checklist
1. The Golden Rule - Would I want people to do this to me?

2. The Fairness Test - Who might be affected and how? Is this fair to everyone?

3. The 'What if Everybody Did This?' Test - Would I want everyone to do this? Would I want to live in that kind of world?

4. The Truth Test - Does this action represent the whole truth and nothing bu the truth?

5. The Parents Test - How would my parents feel if they found out about this? What advice would they give me?

6. The Children Test - Would I be willing to explain everything about this to my kids and expect them to act in the same way?

7. The Religion Test - Does this go against my religion?

8. The Conscience Test - Does this go against my conscience? Will I feel guilty?

9. The Consequences Test - Are there possible consequences of this action that would be bad? Would I regret doing this?

10. The Front Page Test - How would I feel if my action were reported on the front page of my hometown newspaper?

Coaching Truths

I am conducting research for my Master's thesis and came across the 37 Coaching Truths written by Rick Burns. Coach Burns has coached soccer for over 30 years and has compiled a great list of do's and don't's.

1. Remind your players before each match to enjoy their experience.
2. A crisp, 90-minute training session beats a dragged-out, two-and-a-half-hour session every time. 3. On match day, step back, quiet down and enjoy watching the fruition of your labor (when the whistle blows, it's very much your player's show).
4. Real power comes from serving your people well.
5. Where there is a will, there is not always a way - but sometimes there is.
6. Find a kind way to tell your players the blunt truth.
7. Athletics participation is important, but it is just a temporary, wonderful phase to pass through on the way to real life.
8. Don't second guess yourself - make the best decision you can and move on.
9. Speak succinctly. Don't lose track of the value being uncomplicated.
10. Balance praise and criticism - too much of either can be harmful.
11. Set your standards early and don't compromise them.
12. Speak freshly, avoiding the gaggingly inane clichés, such as "stepping up," "moving to the next level" or "giving 110 percent."
13. In these sullen, win-at-all-cost times, enjoy the occasional belly laugh. Delight is the wage of living.
14. It's unnecessary to raise your voice to be heard if your players believe you have something important to say. Your impact is greater with a whisper than a roar.
15. Teach your players the wonderful freedom that comes from learning to lose with grace and dignity and without excuse.
16. Winning is overrated, and the singular quest for it leads to unhappiness.
17. Keep things simple - everything added is something lost.
18. Greeting each player personally at the beginning of training every day and saying something sincerely positive publicly about each player during the training session pays dividends.
19. Letting your players know that you care for them, and that they can trust you, is critical.
20. Cervantes was right: "The journey is more important than the arrival."
21. Teach your players that peace of mind is a result of giving all that they have.
22. Let your actions coincide with your beliefs.
23. Convey to your players your love of the game.
24. Don't posture - a confident person need not convince anybody of anything.
25. Don't allow one or two players to ruin things for the rest of the players.
26. The joy of winning fades immediately and precipitously.
27. Have the courage to say "no" when the answer is "no".
28. Don't script your training sessions down to the minute - allow room for spontaneity.
29. Convey to your players the intrinsic honor that comes from training and playing hard.
30. It's as important to have your players work on their strengths as well as their weaknesses.
31. Show some passion on occasion. They have to know you care.
32. Don't overanalyze. Sometimes, as Freud told us, "A cigar is just a cigar."
33. Run an absolute meritocracy. The better they play and the harder they work, the more they play.
34. If you don't know, say so.
35. Learning through self discovery is ego enhancing and more likely to last.
36. Introduce a service component to your program - it's good for everybody.
37. Even in these politically correct times, don't neglect the spiritual aspects of coaching.

Open Gym

Yesterday was move-in day on campus. I spent all day yesterday aiding new freshman haul their boxes and belongings into their new homes for the next 9 months. It was a fun day to be a part of such an exciting day in these young people's lives. Tiring, but still an enjoyable time.

The most exciting part was watching our new players arrive. With bright eyes and nervous energy, these young men are very hungry. The most frequent question asked was, "When is the gym going to be open?"

At our level, we don't have the luxury of working with our players in the pre and post season. Open gym is an extremely valuable tool for our players to condition and build team chemistry. We rely on our seniors to be the leaders and organize open gyms.

Some of the open gym suggestions we make to our players in leadership roles:

Half Court Games - Though we play up-tempo, full court style basketball, it is critical that we continue to work on our half-court principles. This aids in the chemistry building, communication, and teammate familiarity. Games to 7 by 1's. Winners of the half-court games stay on to play full-court.

Full Court Games - Full court games go to 11 by 1's. If all five of the offensive players are past half-court, they can score. If one of the five has not crossed half court, the basket doesn't count. We want to emphasize running the floor and conditioning.

One thought that I picked up from Herb Sendek when he was at NC State, is all players show up for open gym. If one person doesn't show, open gym is canceled for that day. This adds accountability, leadership, and communication to the mix in regards to open gym.

Player Notebooks

With the start of school upon us, I figured I'd share with you some of the items I consider important in player's notebooks. This is definitely not a new idea, but one that I feel is extremely valuable. The use of player notebooks lends itself to multiple purposes such as organizational skills, time management skills, and making sure players have the necessary information to be successful. This obviously benefits the student athlete. Notebooks also can serve as a fantastic tool for us as coaches to monitor academics, inspire and motivate our student athletes, as well as keep them all on the same page within our systems.

My player's notebook will contain the following:
Contacts - This will include key athletic staff members, the coaching staff, players, and managers phone numbers and email addresses.

Time Management - A master calendar is included in this section. Key academic dates such as the last day to drop/add a class, registration dates, holidays, last day to pay bills, and final exams. Other key dates for the team such as practice times, games, and travel days are included as well.

In addition, a week at a glance sheet for a typical week is included. Players then would sit with a coach and block off times for class, practice, workouts, studying, meals, and personal time.

Academics - Grade sheets for every class. The grade sheets would have a table that players, with the aid of a coach, will fill in assignments from their syllabi, due dates, and the grade they receive. All assignments, tests, papers, and the like will be included. This will give coaches an idea of how players are progressing academically.

This section can also include study tips, school policies on plagiarism and academic guidelines, and various items in regards to academia.

Motivational - This includes players' directive affirmations (mentioned in earlier post - very good stuff if you haven't read it). This is also where players add inspirational and motivational quotes I give them.

Basketball - Players will add the team playbook and scouting reports. This is to be written by the players themselves. I will write and diagram plays, notes, scouting reports in the locker room and the players are responsible for writing this information in their notebook.

Misc. - Anything else that does not fit the above descriptions included here.

I am a big proponent of the player notebook system. It is a great way to teach lifelong skills and support abilities that will benefit your student athletes outside of the classroom. I encourage you to consider using some of these ideas.

Clemson Notes

Reviewing some notes from clinics I've attended. The search dug up some great thoughts from Larry Shyatt when he was at Clemson.

- During a timeout, if you have nothing to say, write something on the whiteboard and walk away from the huddle.

- Philosophy is to demand like crazy on defense, but never put unnecessary pressure on the offense.

- Believe and strive for 80% freethrow shooting as a team.

- It is not about winning. The most important term players must understand is IMPROVE!

- When talking to players, communicate:
"Nothing good can come from cutting class."
"You just don't care when you made that decision. Now your messing with the system."
"The sand is coming out of your glass."
"To be successful I'll have to make you do things you don't want to do; ask things of you that you don't want asked."
"Pull your own wagon."

- Work on weaknesses for 15 minutes after practice.

- End practice a couple times a week by getting everyone to 1/2 court, half the team facing the other half, and hug the guy in front of you.

- How we lose bothers me more than that we lose. Ask yourself "How did we lose?"

- Concept of Sunday night activity, especially in the pre-season and off-season - It ends your week and begins the next one.

- Time Management Notebook
1st week of school, 5 days to get it put together. Majority of it put together in meetings. Organize players' semester.
Help players read their syllabi!
There is no homework in college, more assignments in clusters.
Share your Time Management Notebook with your professors. This helps the player and helps the program.

- "No team or group on campus will adhere to our standards."

- Control what we really can:
Our Commitment
Work Ethic
Attitude
Improvement
Academics

- Pick-up game rule: If all are there, they can play. If not all there, can't play.

- All drills play through either a score or a rebound.

- Blocking out allows you to start your offense further down the floor.

- Any pressure or control you put on your team, do it in effort areas not skill: image, work ethic, etc...