Lessons In Coaching And People Management

I coached youth basketball for years and have a good feel for it.  However, all the experience coaching youth doesn't prepare you for working with adults.   I've been a captain / coach in various adult leagues for many years.  However, early on, I lacked confidence in dealing with certain players. I was great with the low key folks who just followed my directions.  But on every team, you have guys who are outspoken and want to do things their own way.  

However, in recent years, I've started to tighten up as I know what I like and don't like.  I had an interesting situation tonight where two players were getting into it.  Our team was down 22-13 as well and there was some heated discussions.  I even got into it a bit with a few people because there was just a lot going on. 

Ultimately, I made a choice to sit a couple of players down to let them cool down.  We fell behind 29-13 but somehow came back to win 54-52.  Did my choice to bench people have something to do with it?  I don't know but it was a sacrifice I made.  If we lost the game then so be it. 

Sometimes I don't think people realize that coaching a team is basically like being a manager at a job.   Basically you have to coach people to play a game and work with their "personalities".  I didn't do the best job today but I learned a lesson in how to manage situations for the future. 

Back In The Saddle Again (Not By Choice)

For the first time in a long while, I was forced to miss a league basketball game due to injury.  I suffered a hand injury during a softball tournament this past Saturday.   My right hand was quite swollen Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  Despite my hope that the hand would get better by game time tonight, it wasn't meant to be.  Ultimately, I made the game time decision to sit out to rest my hand.   My hope is the injury is just a bruise / sprain and nothing more serious than that.  

Despite the fact that I wasn't planning to play, I dressed anyway.  My team was missing one other player and only played with six players.  I figured I would only enter as an emergency sub if needed.  Fortunately, I wasn't needed though I resisted temptation to enter the game a few times.  My team hit some bad stretches where we were struggling.

With my ability to play limited, I was in full coaching mode as I pulled out my coaches clipboard and was marking it up all night.  It's a little ironic.  I don't remember the last time I sat out a game due to injury as it's been a while.  It's also been a while where I had STRICTLY been a coach and not a "player / coach".  My last OFFICIAL team I coached was a youth (8th grade girls) team around 2005.  Since then I had been strictly been a player / coach for my adult leagues that I played in. 

Thinking back to tonight's game, it reminded me how tough it is to be a coach.  You have to know your players strengths and weaknesses.  Then you have to figure out how to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.  

Tonight was a little harder as some players were forced to play out of position with me and the other player missing.  The other player is a vet who can handle the ball and let some of our players focus on scoring.  I did not grow up playing basketball with training as a point guard but have assumed those duties in recent years.   I'm not a great ball handler or distributor.  However, I have a good feel to tempo of games and when things get out of whack, I slow things down to let the team get back into balance. 

Alas, as a coach, you have to trust and rely on your players to do the right things.  If they are not, then you have to teach them.  But unlike coaching youth basketball where you have practice, games are the practices.  So it's a little tough when players are doing things that are not exactly what you want them to do. 

Thus patience is the last thing.  I've definitely changed a bit since 2005.  I was still a bit of a screamer to my 8th grade girls basketball team in 2005.  Tonight, I wasn't screaming much. I was mainly directing players a lot as I saw the action unfold.  

While coaching (paid or otherwise) is a tough gig, it's actually pretty rewarding.  While I wasn't asking to coach tonight, it was good to back in the coach's seat again.  Hopefully, it will be the last time in my adult leagues as I get back on the court as a player soon.   I wouldn't mind coaching again at some point though.  

 

Adaptability Is One Key To Coaching (or Leadership)

When I first volunteered to coach youth basketball many years ago, I had no idea what I was doing.  I had minimal experience playing basketball let alone COACHING basketball.    I was just a screamer who didn't know what I was talking about.  I've never been one to remain static so I dug into various books about basketball including ones on coaching philosophy, skill development and tactical details. 

Fast forward to 2013 and things have changed quite a bit.  I coached youth basketball for about 15+ years and learned a lot about skill development, coaching philosophies and communication.  What has advanced my coaching is the fact that I have PLAYED in adult leagues for the past 20+ years.  Coaching without playing experience of any kind is a difficult thing.   So now I can talk about strategy and tactics much better than I could in the past.  

Despite having all this experience, I believe one of the keys in coaching is adaptability.   One reason I believe this is within the current structure where I spend most of my time coaching these days.  When I coached my youth basketball teams in the past, I had time for practices.   I could talk to my teams about my expectations and gear practices toward what I needed done.  Practices also gave me insight into all of my players and what they could do. 

Currently, I do not coach any youth basketball. I spend time playing in adult draft basketball leagues AND volunteering to be a captain (aka coach) of the team as well.   Unlike my youth teams, I don't have any practices.  Plus, these are draft leagues so you get new sets of players just about every season.   Many times, I learn about the team on the fly.  If you happen to have great players that mesh well, you're all set.   As we all know, it's not always going to happen. 

The challenge becomes to figure out your players, their styles, skills and put all of them into one consistent team while they are playing.  That requires a ton of adaptability.    Whatever strategies you used the season before may not work as you have different players. 

Beyond the strategy, adaptability in communication is key.  I learned early on that every kid responded differently to me.  I had to adjust to maximize the abilities of my kids.  With adults, I feel most listen to you if you stay generic.   However, there will always be some that are stubborn or take more time to connect to.  This requires a lot of experimentation.  Sometimes you get through and sometimes you don't.  

I mention this because of our softball game today.  We lost and a lot of us made mistakes.  I know I made plenty today and can self adjust.  Some players are newer and may have felt bad due to some of the mistakes.  Even though I'm not the captain of the softball team, I chatted with one of the players and quietly pointed out what happened and what the expected outcome was supposed to be. 

After all, knowing a mistake was made is good.  Knowing WHY is better.   Just taking some of the lessons I learned in years past to all the teams I participate in.  

The Passing Of The Torch

After a month off, it was time to get back into the swing of league basketball.  One of the summer league's began this afternoon with a 1 PM game which we lost 47-41.  This particular team is talented on paper but a lot of the guys have not played with each other that much.  That showed in our chemistry today.  There were a lot of turnovers because everyone wasn't used to playing with each other.   The chemistry can be worked on as we lost a couple of guys to injury and that will shrink our rotations down a bit.

But the one thing we can't work on is our ages.  Out of the 11 players who played today, eight of them were over 30 including guys who were 47, 39, 38 (two), 35, 34 (two), and 31.   The other three guys were 27, 26, and 24 respectively.   The old guys looked a little slow against our competition, many of whom were in the early to mid 20's.  They were stronger,  more physical, quicker and simply more athletic that us.   Our 24 year old was our most effective player simply because he could still get up and down the court. Most of the old guys struggled against the other team's quickness.   

Yet, as I look at some of our old guys, I remembered the days when we could do the same to other teams.   Our team will be fine as we all know how to play.  It'll just take some time to get the chemistry together. 

However, I see there are a few other athletic teams similar to our opponents today.  We will have to play real well to be competitive.  We can no longer out run and out jump our opponents.  That's what the next generation of kids are going to do to us instead!  :)

The Coaching Days

In the past couple of days, I decided to upload a couple of old basketball I had to YouTube.  They were of me coaching some youth basketball teams back in 1995.   In getting the videos uploaded, I got a chance to look back at some old memories including my team's championship in 1995.

However, I also got a chance to look back at those youthful and innocent days during the 1990s overall.  Two guy friends and I devoted a lot of time to coaching during those years.  Between the three of us, we coached multiple teams and were able to win a few league and tournament championships.

But it was the memories of just being together that I appreciated.   While the three of us coached different teams, we all made efforts to go to each other's games.  If time permitted afterward, we would go out to dinner and just talk about the game or anything else that came to mind.  It wasn't always possible due to scheduling conflicts but it was fun when we did get together.  It wasn't just between the three of us friends.  The school we coached for had multiple teams and we all spent plenty of time watching other teams play as well.

As with anything, things changed over time.  By the year 2000, me and my two guy friends had stepped away from coaching.  I had burnt out and wanted to focus on other things.  My friends had intentions of starting families and that took priority.

However, recently, I caught up with my two guy friends individually.  Last week, one of them stopped by my work place for lunch.  Tonight, I watched my other friend coach his son's team in a playoff game (they won and are now in the championship).

Those coaching days were ones to remember.  Thanks to my guy friends for being part of it.   I definitely appreciate it and it was great to get a chance to reminisce about our youthful days!

Coaching Is About Making The Tough Decisions

During the summer, I've been playing in two basketball leagues.  On my Monday night league, I was just a player on the team.  The Captain of the team has played in the league for a while but has never been captain or coach before.

After a slow start (zero wins in four games), I told the Captain, I'd help out with the lineups and subs.  Two Mondays ago, I didn't need to interject too much.  The team had only six guys and we all played well enough to win our first game.

This past Monday was an entirely different story.  Unexpectedly, our ENTIRE roster (9 players) all showed up.   I told the Captain I would figure out the lineup before the game.  I made a decision to go with a certain lineup and had the subs planned out.  Alas, neither the starters or the bench lineups worked particularly well and we were down by about 25 points at halftime.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  With nothing to lose, I inserted the starting lineup from two Mondays ago.  I told the guys that we needed to make a run early or the bench was probably going to play the rest of the game.   This group had been successful and I thought we could do better than we did in the first half.

It ended up working pretty well.  The rotation went from nine players to about only six (with a 7th playing briefly) throughout the second.  The large deficit hurt us pretty bad as ultimately lost by about 7 points (79-72 or something like that).  However, we made the other team sweat quite a bit.

On one hand, it was good that we came back.  It's never fun to lose in a blowout fashion.  On the other hand, I felt bad for the guys who sat on the bench in the second half.  After all, it's an adult league and you pay to play.  You don't get PAID to play.   I've been through that kind of situation personally and I try to avoid this when I am coaching.

Safe to say, it was a bit of a weird night and I apologized to the guys who didn't play.  The Captain didn't really have much to say and I think he was ok with my decision to ride the starters.  It is definitely a delicate balance between trying to win and giving out playing time, especially in adult league.

Coach vs Player-Coach

Being a basketball (or any sport) coach is a challenging task, even for the professionals.   In my years of involvement of basketball, I've been lucky to have been a player, coach and referee.   If being just a coach itself is tough, imagine being a player-coach.

I coached kids basketball for 14 years and the challenges were running practices, skill development, motivation and preparing the kids for the games.  Coaching during the game was not always easy but probably the best part of being just a coach.  However, my best skill as a coach was identifying a kid's best talent and putting it to the best use for the team.  After all, five Michael Jordan's or Lebron James' do not make a team.   You need the Rodman's and Paxson's too.

As I went away from coaching kids and playing myself more, I eventually started being a captain / coach to some of my adult league teams.  With the adult leagues I play in, there isn't practices.  I might have say in the players if the league was a draft league but this wasn't always the case.   Season by season, the challenge was you had a changing set of players with varying skill sets.

As time went on though, I realized the hardest past WASN'T figuring out the players on my teams.  That was actually the easy part.  The hard part was figuring out how much I SHOULD PLAY, especially if you're not having a great night.  You see, some of the other team captains are talented and highly skilled.  For myself, I am the jack of all trades and fit into a team in many different ways.   If I'm on my game, I'll play more for sure.  If my game is off, I might play myself more to see if I can work through things.  Otherwise, the hard choice is to sit yourself.

Coaching at any level is tough and it's even harder when you have to "coach yourself".  But I wouldn't keep doing it if it weren't enjoyable at some level.  :)

Taking Off My Referee Hat For A Moment........

Yesterday, I blogged about a very competitive game I officiated:

Never Judge A Game By It's Cover

Tonight, I am going to take off my referee hat and offer a different perspective.  Why?  Well, for people don't officiate basketball, they don't understand that officials are fans of basketball too.  We're not robots or some evil people that want to make one team or another team lose intentionally.

So tonight, instead of my officiating hat, I will put on my player and coaches hat instead.  I've played 19 years of adult league basketball and have a good understanding of what a player thinks while on the court.  I also coached CYO basketball for 14 years and have a good feel of the strategy and tactics that are involved during a game.

A brief recap of the game last night:  home team (2-10 overall) is playing the visiting team (11-5 overall) in a rivalry game.  In checking the stats online tonight, the home team throughly outplays the visiting team for the first three quarters and holds an 11 point lead entering the fourth quarter.  The visiting team doesn't give up and outscores the home team 27-10 in the fourth to win by 6 points.

PLAYER PERSPECTIVE

As a player, I know that when you're the underdog team, you want to get in the first punch against a superior team.   The underdog team wants respect so they will come out hard and try to impose their will on the superior and more talented team early.  Think about the Warriors and some of their games against the Lakers and the Heat.  The Warriors came out like gang busters on a few occasions.

On the flip side, the superior and more talented team has likely been through these situations before.   They have confidence that no matter the situation, they always have a chance to win.  Sometimes, the superior team has to fight complacency.   They can't always let an underdog team take leads and expect to come back.   Think about the Lakers and Heat games against the Warriors.  The Warriors play well early and the Lakers / Heat played well late to win.  But the Lakers and Heat sometime falter and let a weaker team win (think Clippers games).

That was the key difference I saw between the home and visiting teams last night.  The visiting team had won a good number of games this season and had confidence that could execute down the stretch.  On the other hand, the home team faltered late as the visiting team turned up the pressure.

For both coaches, I'm sure there were some frustrations and things to be learned.  Let's jump into the coaches perspective next.

COACHES PERSPECTIVE


While I know the visiting coach from officiating his team's games during spring league, I have not seen him much during high school seasons.  For the home team, I did not know the coach at all.

The visiting team coach is fairly laid back though he rode his kids pretty hard when they fell behind.   On the other hand, the home team coach is intense and emotional.  She was thrilled when her team was winning but started to yell at the officials when the home team started to make their rally.  I think her players responded to her intensity.   One thing I won't comment is on both coaches tactical ability.  I don't remember that much of the game to judge their X's and O's.

From a coaches perspective, last night's game was lost when the visiting team made their rally.  The visitors went on a 10-0 run which I believed turned a 6 point deficit into a 4 point lead.  My partner and I were surprised that the home team coach DID NOT call a timeout during the run to try and break the momentum.

To me, that indicated some inexperience on the part of the coach.  No matter if you're a player, referee and especially if you're a coach, you should be aware of the flow of the game.   As referees, the flow of the game is important because we need to be aware of taking care of situations.  As a player, you should be aware of the flow (especially if the flow is not good for your team) and settle the team down if needed.   That's why a good point guard is very important for any team.

However,  out of all the parties, only the coach has the full power to completely stop the flow of the game by calling a timeout.  Yes, one can argue that players can call timeouts as well but it's usually when coaches tell them to call it.

For the game last night, I think the home team players did the best they could to keep the game from going out of control.   However, when the visiting team made their run, it was obvious the home team players were rattled.  Unfortunately, the coach did not call timeout until they fell behind and that hurt their chances.

Note that is is not meant to criticize the home team coach.   I used to be a screamer and yeller in my early years as a CYO coach.  Unfortunately, that only takes you so far.  The home team players seem to respect their coach and she seemed to be able to make adjustments.  Hopefully, the home team coach can learn to channel her energy but also be more aware of game situations.

All in all, it was a great game.  I hope the players and coaches enjoyed it as much as I did.   Yet, there were some lessons to be learned and I hope both teams learned their lessons well for the rest of the season.

The Evolution of Coach41

Most people know I am a basketball nut. I play at least twice a week (sometimes more) and I officiate a ton of games (though not as much recently). What flies under the radar is that I used to coach youth basketball as well. I coached at my old grammar school from 1988 to 2000 and at another school from 2004 to 2005. Overall, that's 14 years and 228 total games coached at the youth level.

However, when I think back to when I started coaching, I find it amusing that I started coaching one year after I graduated from 8th grade. At this point, I had a grand total of 10 official organized games played under my belt.

With such limited playing (and life) experience, it's not a shock that I wasn't really a great coach in my younger days. Fortunately, like with most things, I had an inclination to improve and have gotten better over the years. Here's a brief look at the evolution of "Coach41":

1st Evolution (1988 to 1994) - With minimal playing experience, I was pretty much the screamer. I didn't know how to teach tactics beyond the basic zone defense and had no clue how to coach offense except to roll the ball out there.

2nd Evolution (1995 to 1997) - Though I wasn't a great coach, my teams were competitive and played some higher level competition during these years.  I realized I couldn't quite stay static and tried to learn more about coaching.   I learned more about basketball defenses including the 2-3 zone, 3-2 zone and using press defenses.  I still had no clue how to coach a set offense, but grasped the concept of fast breaks and got my teams to get up and down the court.   I also started to focus on skill development.  I primarily focused on shooting and a little on rebounding.

3rd Evolution (1998 to 2000) - This was a new chapter for me.  Whereas I had older teams (6th to 8th grade) for the first 10 years, this was the first time I started with younger kids (3rd to 5th grade).   From working with the younger set, I learned to teach the foundation of the game including dribbling, passing, shooting, defense and rebounding.   While it would be great if everyone did everything well, the fact was that some kids were able to some things better than others.

It was from this experience that I began to learn how both identify kid's strengths and also put each kid's talents to the best use in the overall team concept.  After all, if a kid is a good defender, you might as well put them in a position to do something with those skills.  No point in trying to force them to do something they aren't good at.

Patience was something I learned when working with the younger kids.  Though I admit I resorted to my old screamer days a lot when I got frustrated.  After working three years with the kids, I resigned in 2000 because I felt burned out.

4th Evolution (2004 to 2005) - After taking a few years off, I was asked to pick up a team in 2004 that needed a coach.  It was yet another challenge.  It was a combined 7th/8th grade girls team at a school I had never worked at before.  Since the kids didn't know me, I felt I had the burden to prove myself.   It took a little while to get to know my team as we lost our first two games in league but went on a roll before injuries derailed a potential championship season.  My time off allowed me to put to use some of the things I had learned from previous years to good use though.

While the team was fairly skilled, I did do some work on their dribbling and shooting and it helped some players greatly.  But the major thing I learned from this season is that even with a skilled team, you have to put the right pieces together out on the court.  Chemistry is super important and I learned I had a good skill in recognizing the pieces that could play well together.

After the 2004 season ended, I lost the four 8th graders to high school.  For the 2005 season, I had my four remaining players from the year before plus two newbies.   The 2005 year was difficult overall and tested my patience.  With only six players practices were difficult.  Plus, attendance to practices were pretty sparse at times as the kids were ready to graduate.   Despite the obstacles, I learned some perseverance and the team played as well as it could have.

Current Evolution (2005 to Present) -  I have not officially coached a youth game in 5 years.  However, I have continued to learn about basketball via playing in my various adult leagues and officiating.

In fact, I serve as "Captain" in some of the leagues I play in and that means I also serve as the defacto "coach" as well.  While I don't practice with my teams, I still impart some of my coaching experience.  I throw in different zone defenses and even do full court presses, which are rarely seen in adult leagues.  

However, "coaching" in these adult leagues have taught me flexibility.  Some players are extremely flexible and can adapt to what I ask of them.  Some players not quite so flexible and play to the style they are used to.   The main thing I do in these adult leagues is try to fit all the pieces into one cohesive team.  

Sometimes I have been very successful and other times, things have blown up pretty spectacularly.   If there is a major weakness in my coaching, it is that I prefer a team oriented style rather than a superstar oriented team.  My team oriented approach usually keeps me competitive but I sometimes don't win every game without the superstar.   This may be from my experience as a youth coach and sometimes this isn't favored by the guys who play for me.

Alas, that may be my next evolution.  I have to learn to integrate a star into my team oriented approach.  

In the mean time, my return to youth basketball coaching may soon be coming.  My old grammar school is constructing their new school building and gymnasium.  I may return to coach a team just to get in some time at the new facility.