Coach John Carrier, the author of the "Coaching Basketball - My Dream!" blog, writes in the "About Me" section of his site: "...I know enough to know that I don't know anything." I know what he means and recent experiences have strengthened my conviction that a key to being a better coach is understanding how little I know, or expressed more optimistically, how much knowledge I have the opportunity to gain, about building a strong basketball program and helping players become better.
One of my former players, P.J. Meyers, who is entering his senior year at Life College as a Business Management major and as the basketball team's leading scorer, called me recently to say hello. It had been over a year since we had spoken. In the interim, I had seen P.J. play a game against Augusta State University during the 2010-2011 season. Augusta State defeated Life by a huge margin and my former player distinguished himself by shoving opponents, bickering with the opposing coach, and generally behaving poorly. When I told him I saw the game he quickly, and humbly, confessed, "I don't know what happened to me that night." I was pleased to hear the young man I have always cared for so deeply express this regret and humility. I have been in similar situations. Unchecked emotional outbursts can cause the most well meaning person to behave in a way that he later regrets.
I explained that I thought that night he wanted very badly to play well and to help his team win, and that the same passion and competitive spirit that has propelled him to put in the work and time to become such a good player can ignite emotions that can cause him to lose focus on the task at hand. Learning to control his emotions when things do not go as planned will serve him well not only on the basketball court, but during the remainder of his studies, in his chosen career, and in his family life.
After reflecting on this conversation, I thought about the 2010-2011 season coaching my current team, the Augusta Eagles. Our team performed much better toward the end of the season after we started focusing intensely on controlling our emotions when things were not going well. We were not always successful. Our players care about becoming better, and they invest a lot of time and energy into doing so. They are also very competitive and they play very hard. These are all characteristics that my current players share with my former player, P.J. Like P.J., these young men are disappointed when they fall short, and it is common behavior for a disappointed young man to "take a possession (or multiple possessions) off." But I am convinced that the constant focus on the control of our emotions (it applies to coaches too) enabled the Eagles to be far better than they would have otherwise been.
This focus on the behavior and demeanor, including body language, of our players and coaches during the trying times of games and practices is something for which I have only this season gained an appreciation. I have coached basketball for over ten years, spending seven coaching P.J. John Carrier is correct. During those seven years I knew nothing, or at least I did not know enough to teach P.J. to control his emotions when games do not go as planned. But the good news is that knowing nothing provides an endless amount of things to learn. So I think I learned something this year, and I am glad that P.J. called me so I could teach him too, however late I may be.
Hopefully, ten years from now I will say that I knew nothing in 2011. And hopefully in the future I will get the chance to teach my current players some of the things that I am not smart enough to teach them now.
No comments:
Post a Comment