Players frequently try out for teams, working as hard as they can to make a school team or a regional select squad. What is the point of this exercise? Certainly, youth are enabled to meet their fitness, belonging, and esteem needs. Some might even achieve their self-actualization goals. To satisfy all of these requirements, athletes must possess a deeper motivation. Everyone must ask themselves: what do I want for myself today, this week, and this month? What do I want for myself in the long-term? Once that vision is established, one should ask themselves how they will get there. What …
Mindset
As they pass through adolescence, most players develop physical performance factors and improve their sport-specific skills. Far few elect to enhance their mental abilities, placing a ceiling on their performance — at school and on the basketball court. Arriving at a practice, training session, or class with the appropriate mindset removes this cap. Players must want to come to the gym. Forcing anyone to do something will not achieve the desired results. An athlete who doesn’t want to train is like a student who is constantly late, they are not motivated to improve. Throughout the year, it is not incumbent …
The Dangers of Coaching, Part II: Theocracies
As a basketball coach and a teacher, I endeavour to focus on the big picture. Did the team win? Did individual players improve? Did students achieve the overall expectations for the course? When all is said and done, did we meet our mastery and performance oriented goals? Throughout our studies, we create theories to make things easier. Why continually reinvent the wheel when there is a perfectly good drill to develop the skills required or a practical classroom routine to facilitate student learning? But we should be mindful not to become dogmatic. Suboptimal scenarios include Master Practice Plans which eliminate …
The Dangers of Coaching, Part I: Teaching a Motion Offence
Introducing a motion offence provides many benefits to a basketball team. Offensive efficiency relies primarily on precise execution of individual skills and team systems and it is easier to master a small number of concepts than a wide array of plays. Instead of memorizing a pattern for every possible defence, players apply the same principles and take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Individual abilities are free to shine and the entire exercise will improve performance under pressure. However, coaches must be mindful of a number of issues while instructing such an organic system. Above all, it requires the support …
Watching the League
The League is for entertainment only. Tempting as it may be, it is not sensible to take the games seriously. Professional athletes rarely provide a second thought to their partisan supporters. Even if they did care (and provided total effort, played through injuries, set a good example, used their heads, etc.), the game is almost fixed. Officiating is inconsistent and influences the outcomes of games far too frequently. Nevertheless, professional basketball offers many benefits, ranging from bursts of exceptional athleticism to occasional examples of incredible teamwork. Players and coaches can study the League and learn a great deal, providing they watch the …
Continuous Improvement
So many times, a student-athlete performs a skill and observers, coaches, officials, and spectators alike, agree that it was “truly a high school play.” The sequence may play out differently – lacking a clear plan, forcing a low-percentage option, misunderstanding how the play will be officiated – but the process (emotions out of control) and outcome (a missed opportunity) remain the game. It’s bound to happen from time to time during the season but how often is too much? When is it time to learn and move on. Players seem to think that they can fool coaches but they’re crazy. …
The Talent Code
Mind or matter, art or science, nature or nurture … coaches have been debating how athletes develop talent for years. Hypotheses abound, some supported by empirical evidence and others by experimental results. The Talent Code hopes to cut through all of these ideas and provide a concrete theory. The slim volume may lack the depth to settle this debate once and for all but it certainly provides a few pieces of advice that could help any coach, teacher, or educator. The book focuses on the creation of myelin, a substance which insulates connections between neurons and improves the efficiency of …
What is Defensse?
Defense is possessions. Every possession is a battle and good defenders win every possible battle. Contesting a shot, tipping a pass, stripping a ballhandler, bumping a cutter, hitting the floor, and boxing out comprise the countless battles which occur during a game in order to secure possession of the ball. Good defense equates to fewer possessions for the opponents and less points on the scoreboard. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to fight for the ball every play like it’s the last one of the game, you can become a good defender. Defense is pressure. Great …
Values Education
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” – John Wooden Coaches and teachers concern themselves with values education, a subject as integral to the construction of elite teams as defensive fundamentals or offensive skill. No good team has progressed to the excellent level and maintained that greatness over time without a core of solid values. Frankly, the current generation of student-athletes shares a different perspective from their predecessors and this is neither good nor bad. It means that what used …
Acting Like a Team
In practice, teammates should push each other constantly. During games teams should remain focused. A sad scene transpired during Toronto’s last exhibition game against Chicago. The Bulls held a ten point lead and had just called the games final automatic timeout. During the timeout, Chicago was immensely attentive, huddled around coach Tom Thibodeau as he reviewed some tactic or strategy. The team could have relaxed as they held the advantage but they chose to remain focused, because that is the behaviour that they will need to succeed in the playoffs.
Stream of Consciousness, Part VII
Maintaining Focus: On Wednesday night, Roy Halladay demonstrated the elite focus (and pitching ability) which has made him one of the top pitchers in baseball. Many times, an athlete who has experienced a lengthy career before reaching the postseason makes a mountain out of a molehill and becomes overwhelmed by the occasion. The solution for most athletes is to treat the playoff game like any other but it appears that Halladay was able to take eleven years of frustration and convert it into positive energy. Halladay’s focus was even more intense and as a result, he was able to pitch …
Cito Gaston
Cito Gaston managed his last home game as manager of the Toronto Blue Jays Wednesday, a 8-4 victory over the New York Yankees. Praised and criticized throughout his tenure, Gaston remained true to his low-key nature and flourished. Over the years, basketball coaches have become much more active, no longer sitting on the bench but walking the sideline and calling plays. Much like this action is often confused with effectiveness, Gaston’s laid-back attitude was frequently mistaken for a combination of meekness and ignorance. The calm persona was paired with exceptional discretion, making him an excellent manager for all sorts of …
Movement
When a squad is outmatched, they need to play the game better than the opponent. The simplest way to do so is to create continuous movement: not only the ball but the people on the court as well. When C.S.K.A. Moscow led the Toronto Raptors at halftime during a 2008 exhibition game, it was not entirely due to the Raptors’ poor skill level; the Euroleague Champions Cup holders never stopped moving. The patterns were simple but ceaseless (flex, pass/screen away, and other basic sets). C.S.K.A. ran their offence throughout the shot clock until Toronto committed an error. On the pick-up …
Skills We Should Teach More, Part VII: Balance
Out of the number of tactics and techniques that coaches can teach, those which improve balance achieve disproportionate results on the court. So often, children are not ready when they play basketball. Youth coaches do not instruct balance during high school or club basketball and nobody considers balance once athletes become adults. Footwork, footwork, and footwork are the keys to all the locks across many sports. They volleyball player requires the fundamental footwork skills to get in position to set a ball or approach a spike in the same way that the basketball player needs to explode into their first step …
Resilience and Environmental Factors
The recent World Cup has proven to be an excellent opportunity to showcase resilience (or lack thereof). Asamoah Gyan may have missed a penalty shot over the net because of the high altitude or the defective Jabulani ball but he still needed to compose himself, take control of the situation, and score another penalty minutes later. Resilience allows individuals to persevere in the face of adversity. Sport and play helps youth experience “to experience social competence, empathy, caring, problem-solving skills, critical and creative thinking, task mastery and a sense of purpose and connectedness” for the rest of their lives (Henley, …
Stream of Consciousness, Part VI
According to ESPN.com, Doc Rivers’ run onto the court to call timeout before an eight-second violation was a critical moment of Game 2 (Forsberg, 2010). Certainly, it was an alert manoeuvre that saved a possession but why didn’t any of the players call timeout first? All five Celtics on the court abdicated leadership by doing nothing, like the Orlando Magic did in their series in the Conference Finals (J.J. Redick dribbled the ball up the court instead of calling timeout; Vince Carter had the attention of the referee but used the opportunity to raise his arms and complain about a …