Moral Victory-Does It Exist?

The common definition of the moral victory is losing the competition, but feeling as though you won. A moral victory might be forcing a more talented team to their limits and almost winning the competition with less skillful players. Most people do not believe in the moral victory. They will say that you either win or you lose, there is no middle ground.

I have always been ultra competitive. I want to win no matter what. There was nothing worse in life than losing a competition in my mind for many years. If someone told me "good job" after losing a game, they might as well have been spiting in my face. It insulted me. I did not believe you could have done a "good job" if you had lost a game. The game did not have to be very significant. The game could be as small as a friendly game of miniature golf. I wanted to win!

Now, I am a coach. I still have the competitive drive to win. It might be even greater now than ever before. The will to want to win can numb you or worse it can blind you. It can numb you during stressful situations because you are focused on winning instead of doing what it takes to win. Wanting to win can blind you by overlooking mistakes because of the fact you won. That is being results oriented. The mind is trained to be results oriented. If you have good results, you must have done things correctly. Then, you repeat what things you did to get good results. Most times in life, being results oriented is incorrect. You must examine if you did things correctly or if you got lucky.

A coach cannot be results oriented. If you are coaching a less talented team, you will not make any progress by just looking at the win-loss column. If you are coaching an extremely talented team, you will overlook mistakes and that will probably lead to your failure down the road. So, you are not supposed to be focused on results...what should you concentrate on then? Every person in a competition should be playing against the game itself instead of their opponent(s).

The athlete should be trying to play the perfect game. They should be concentrating on their fundamentals. The athlete should be trying to execute at a higher level than they ever have before. The basketball player should be focused on footwork, passing, dribbling, shooting, and playing defense without making mental errors. Physical errors will happen in any sporting event. Mental errors do not have to happen.

The coach should be closely watching each athlete. The coach must watch for fundamental mistakes and mental errors. If an athlete is out of position, it might not cost the team immediately but at some point it will come back to haunt them. Ther time it bites you could be when you cannot afford it like at the end of a tied game.

Do I believe in the moral victory? I do believe in the moral victory, now. I believe it is rare though. A moral victory would include playing a near perfect game at near the team's potential. Both of those things are extremely rare. I do not believe anyone can achieve their full potential because you can always improve. It is just like giving 100%. It is impossible to give your full 100% in a sporting event. You might be able to get to 90% for a short time, but it's not sustainable. So, I do believe in the moral victory, but only on specific occasions.

What Makes a Good Youth Coach?

Go to any youth sporting event and you will see it from grade school to high school. It is hurting today's youth more than they know. What is it? Out of control youth coaches. The out of control coach wants to win at all costs. They do not allow the lesser players to participate and they verbally abuse the players that get to participate.

So, what makes a good youth coach? It starts with their outlook on the game and life. Competitiveness is an important part of sports, but it is not the only part. No one cares if you won the Little League state championship when you were twelve years old during a job interview.

Youth coaches should, instead, focus on playing the game the right way. The right way being the fundamentally sound way. Athletes are made from the ground up. If the athlete does not get taught how to do basic skills, they will never be able to progress. For example, in basketball, coaches should be teaching the young athlete to dribble, pass, and shoot without making mistakes. When they do make mistakes they should be corrected immediately. Overcoming mistakes is a huge part of sports and young athletes need to understand that.

A good youth coach will combine teaching fundamental skills with teaching life lessons at the same time. They have to take their knowledge of the sport and mix it into a "big picture" perspective. Today's youth are more protected and shielded from reality than generations before. Most young athletes lack mental toughness. Athletes can be taught mental toughness and fortitude, but it is a slow process. Verbal abuse is not the best medicine. Constructive criticism should be given, but you must be aware of how the athlete reacts to the criticism. No one likes to hear criticism. As you grow up, it is important to learn to accept criticism and not to take it personally.

If coaches ignore the score and try to get young athletes to compete against the game itself, it will benefit everyone greatly. I'm not saying wins and loses should not be recorded. Score should still be kept in sporting events. Winning at all costs should not be the motivation of coaches though. Youth coaches should put their effort towards getting the athletes to play the game correctly and to the best of their ability.

Review of Online Coaching Sites I Visit Daily

There are a lot of sites with great information for coaches. Basketball is always changing so as coaches you need to constantly be learning new ideas. Here are some of the websites I visit for coaching ideas and advice.

http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/coachinghoops/
The first one is a yahoo group. I have the group messages sent directly to my email which makes things easy. The group is wide ranging from youth coaches to college coaches. The group is great for philosophy questions and advice on how to teach different things. I'm glad I found this group.

http://www.coachesclipboard.net/
This site is for youth and high school coaching. There are a lot of good articles on the site. The forum doesn't have much participation but it sometimes has some good things. The articles are the best part of the site though.

http://hoopscoach.wordpress.com/
A coaching blog that is written by a Junior College head coach. He writes about current events in the coaching world and provides links to the stories he writes about. It is a very good site to keep up to date in the coaching world. There are many posts about coaching philosophies and what coaching should be about.

http://www.coachrb.com/resources/article.php
Overall, the site is designed to get people to pay Coach Rb for mentoring. I like the idea of mentoring, but hate the idea of commercializing it. The link I provided is to his free articles that have some very good stuff in them.

These sites are a great way to learn to be a better coach. They are just a starting point, but combined with other resources it can really help you grow as a coach and teacher. I think they are useful for aspiring coaches and coaching veterans alike.

I need to write more

I noticed I get decent traffic to my blog even though I have been averaging less than 1 post per month lately. I haven't been doing anything new and exciting lately to enhance my coaching career.

One thing I have looked into is being a D-2 student assistant coach. I have emailed a large number of D-2 coaches to ask about the position. Most D-2 teams do not list a student assistant on their sites. If they listed a student assistant on their site, I sent the coach an email about the position. I have not gotten a good response so far. A few have said they are nothing more than managers. It seems like a good option to kick start your career while getting some money for tuition.

I have also begun to email schools to set-up my camp schedule for this summer. It is too early to email them about summer, but I wanted to get an early start. UNC already turned me down saying they have plenty of help from former players and people who have been working the camp for 10-15 years. It is disappointing, but it is obviously hard to get into a camp like that. I'm planning on working the Butler camp for at least two weeks in June and then branching out for the last two weeks in June. Then maybe finding a couple of camps in July to work around AAU tournaments.

For Christmas, I asked for and received some literature from coachmeyer.com. He has written out some very good stuff. He really lets you in his head. I like to hear about the coach's thought process, I believe that's how you grow as a coach. I would suggest his site for any coach.

I think that is all I have for now, but I promise I will write more blogs in the future!

Rare Update

I haven't updated recently because I haven't been coaching. I am only coaching my AAU team this year so this is still my off season I guess.

I have been watching all the games I can though. I have picked up a few plays and sets from different college teams. I have been watching NBA games also. I haven't been a big fan of the NBA since Jordan retired but this year I have been excited to watch games. I haven't picked up too many sets from NBA games, but their late game situational plays are probably what I can incorporate the most.

I have planned out what I want to do offensively and defensively with my team. I am now working on how I am going to teach my stuff systemically. I really want to run stuff that is going to help all the player progress individually while also letting us have success as a team. When you win in AAU tournaments consistently and make deep runs frequently people start to notice and will check the team out. That gets players attention from colleges and player ranking services. So that's what I am currently thinking about.

Congratulations to Zack Novak who broke the career scoring record for Chesterton High School in the first game of the season. He has had a great career so far and I hope he gets a chance to contribute to a division I program next year.

Start of the season

Quick update...the college season has already begun. I have made it to three college practices for three different colleges so far. I hope to make it to a few more places before the season starts. It is fun to see how each coach teaches something...the terms they use, the way they get their point across. Basketball is a simple game and most of the time people make it more complex than it really is by trying to do too much.

I am looking for some good coaching books/DVDs. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. I will update the blog soon when I have more time.

It's been awhile

Let's see what is new since my last post. I moved, I started school, I started a new job and I am currently looking for a weekend job. School is my main priority right now. I think it is important for me to have a strong first semester back. I'm motivated and have a goal to work towards. Motivation and knowing what you want to do makes boring work just that more bearable. I really can't wait to finish school and start my career.

I haven't been thinking much basketball. I read my daily websites and sometimes those provoke a thought or two but I haven't been doing much else with basketball. I should find some old games to watch. Something to keep the mind sharp. I don't have a coaching job for this winter lined up. I might just focus on school and work with possibly volunteering somewhere. I think I will just go with the flow on that one.

An esp. educated young person who is anti materialistic, purposeless, apathetic, and usually works in a dead-end job by definition is a slacker. I was the living definition from 2003 til now basically. I had never looked up the word before, but it's not that bad of a word by definition. I think being anti materialistic is a very positive thing(I guess I am biased). Purposeless...hardly any young person really knows what they want to do with their life or what they want to have to eat for the next meal. It takes experiences in order to find a passion. A true passion is hard to find. Many people chose a career choice without having a passion for it. I am genuinely sorry for those people. They might even think they have a passion for it because they think of the material rewards tied with their career path. People usually find out that without a true passion they won't gain those material goals. Then they are either stuck in a job they hate or they have to find something else to do.

The stigma of being labeled a slacker is the worst part. Most people associate being a slacker to being a "loser" and labeling anyone a loser is probably unfair. I had a post about depression in young adults a few months back. I would guess most of the young adults fighting depression in the U.S. could be defined by the word slacker. So I urge everyone to embrace slackers. They are not losers. Their lives are not over. Many former slackers are among the richest people in the world. Once a slacker finds their passion the weight of the world is lifted off their shoulders and you will not meet a happier person no matter what situation they are in.

It's just a thought...I could be wrong :)