Tag Archive: basketball

Personal Story: The Coach

The boy was six years old when he first started playing for the coach.  It was the summer between first and second grade and the boy still remembers it to this day. The coach was in his fifties and in his thirty fifthyear ofcoaching young men in the fine art of how to play basketball. But the boy would tell you that being a coach was only a disguise, one of many he wore.

He had a knack for talking to kids. He put them at ease from the first word, even though he was six feet two inches tall, broad-shouldered, two-hundred twenty pounds. He was an imposing figure but the children flocked to him.

He had been a three-sport athlete in high school: basketball, football and baseball. He probably could have played in college but he went to war right after high school. When he came back from overseas he plied the trade he had learned in the Army, working in electrical construction. This was another persona. He was the lineman for the electric company. The guy who took the neighborhood kids for rides in his bucket truck. The same bucket truck he used to hang a backboard and basket on a telephone pole.

While raising a family, he began to mentor some of the neighborhood kids. He started coaching, first baseball, then basketball. He had nine children of his own, six boys and three girls. He often joked he could field his own baseball team.

The neighbors respected the coach. They knew that not only were their kids safe with him, they were also learning. And not just learning a game. They were learningvalues andbuilding character. Sportsmanship, teamwork, handling tour emotions and dealing with a loss were all subjects the coachdelved into on a daily basis. And the kids ate it up. They responded to his teaching and developed a brand of basketball that is rarely seen: A truly unselfish team.

In 35 years of coaching Catholic League basketball, the coach won thirty-two league titles. He took his young men to the state finals a whopping twelve times, winning eight. More importantly, all but four of his student athletes graduated high school. Most went on to college and a few even played Division One basketball.

It turns out that he wasn’t just a coach. He could be a mentor, a teacher, a philosopher and a poet. He could be your bigbrother, your crazy uncle or your stern father, depending on what you needed at the time.

Watching the boys, now men, return for his funeral was very emotional. There were different eulogies, but allin all, there was very little talk of sports. Odd for the funeral of a man with his pedigree. Instead there were words like love, family, character and commitment. Words that were to be the real lesson taught by the coach. I know because I saw him with his disguise off. He was my father.

What makes a great basketball coach?

What makes a great basketball coach? The list of answers to this question can be extensive, as you can well imagine. So, let’s try and find some traits and characteristics that some of the best basketball coaches in the world share.

One of the characteristics that can be found at or near the top of everyone’s list is integrity. Coaches must be trustworthy and honest.  From Elementary and Middle School coaches watching over your son or daughter to NBA coaches working with multimillion-dollar per year professional athletes, coaches must be honest and forthright in their dealings with the players. Parents won’t let their kids play for a coach that they can trust and likewise, professional athletes won’t perform as well for a coach they can’t put their faith in.

Perhaps the second most important characteristic of a successful coach is x’s and o’s. Coaches must know the game inside and out, upside and down. They have to adapt on the fly to changing game situations, manage offenses and defenses and quickly adjust player personnel. Basketball is an extremely fast-paced game and the successful coach must be prepared for any eventuality. The amount of variables in what makes up a winning basketball team make a coaches job extremely difficult. And because of the number of variables, the coach must become a master of delegation to his or her assistant coaches. Selecting assistant coaches that they can trust is one of the more important decisions a coach can make.

Analysis and the ability to recognize tendencies are other attributesthat the most successful basketball coaches share. Coaches spend countless hours breaking down film, trying to determine what opposing players do in any given situation. They also use game film to analyze the tendencies of their own players in an effort to correct flaws or enhance certain aspects of the game. Learning the tendencies of all players on the court provides a distinct advantage. Knowing what a player may do in a certain situation can help you to either defend him or get him the ball.

A successful coach must also decide on what aspect of the game to focus most of their attention. Insome games you may need more rebounds, in others you may need more three-point shots. In some you may need more defense, in others you may need more fast-break points. Knowing which facet of the game will provide you the biggest opportunity for an advantage could mean the difference between a win and a loss.

Getting to know players personally can lead to success on the basketball court. Prayers recognize when the coach is personally invested in them and tend to perform much better in that setting. The players will consider the coach an integral part of the team if he can demonstrate that he truly cares for each and every one of them.

Get to know your prayers, get to know your opponent’s, exploit weaknesses and maximize strengths. Most of all, be prepared for any eventualities.