Season Reflection #2 - Leadership

Bill Bradley once wrote:

Leadership means getting people to think, believe, see and do what they might not have without you. It means possessing the vision to set the right goal and the decisveness to pursue it single-mindedly. In means being aware of the fears and anxietyies felt by those you lead even as you urge them to overcome those fears. It can appear in a speech before hundreds of people or in a dilaogue with one other person - or simply by example.

I love this quote. It helps me to refocus when I get concerned over things beyond my control. The last few weeks I've been worried about our leadership in house. I've got 2 players who kids certainly look up to athletically and skill wise who will be ones with the ball in their hands in big moments, but neither of them are kids that other players look to emulate or support. Neither is the sort of kid the others would take a bullet for. On the other hand I've got a kid that every one loves, the emodies commitment and hard work but in big moments he won't even be able to get open let alone take over the game at either end because of his phsyical deficiencies.

The solution I continue to remind my self of is to identify the problem. If I think the problem is leadership then I need to define what leadership is and then go looking to see where we fall short.

In this light I don't have a leadership problem. I know exactly who everyone is looking to and whose attitude and performance makes people around them better. I know who our leader is and so do the kids. We just wish it was someone else. They'll do anything for that kid but he isn't the one charging them on to victory. We'll just have to hope Calvin Sampson isn't right and that your best player doesn't have to be your leader?

I've had other captains that weren't my best players have great moments of leadership (though in their defense they were a lot closer to being our top performer then this young person):

- We were in the midle of what would have been a huge upset on the road vs. the one of the top 2 or 3 teams in the province at any level. At half time we had let a 14 point lead slip away to end up tied at 53. This was primarly due to the best of their 4 university bound players deciding to take over and end the half going on a 14 point run himself culminating in a huge dunk. As I came into the locker room my captain was going round the room trying to keep kids fired up and saying "Just because he can dunk doesn't mean their pg won't keep turning it over!"

- I had a Captain that was facing an overtime game vs a cross town rival we'd never beaten. At that moment 3 of our best athletes told us they had to leave because they had an commitment to another sporting event. Instead of fighting or getting mad, my captain grabbed everyone else and said "Forget them. If they don't want to stay and win thats too bad, but we're all staying to win this." They did leave, and we did win.

- We had a freshmen on the line in our gym game tied 4 seconds left. He made the first, but back rimmed the second. The other team grabbed the defensive board and that palyer took 2 dribble towards half and heaved a 50+ footer that went in. On the way off the floor our captain went over and grabbed the freshmen saying "Hey, you won that game. If I'ld boxed a little harder and made someone else get the rebound that doesn't happen."

So I guess leadership isn't always about who you would get the ball too, though it wouldn't hurt if it could be. We'll have to see where we go from here.

Basketball Season Reflection #1 - Superstar

I'm not a superstar's coach. I preach 5 guys on offense working together the open guy will make the shot, 5 guys on defense will stop 1 ball, and we talk about our 12 being better then anyone elses best 5-6.

The truth is after all that is said and done I expect our best player(s) to the be the best players every single posseision.Is that unreasonable? Probably, but if you can't handle unreasonable then having any interaction with me is probably not going to go well.

This year I'm in a position with the kid who holds the keys to our kingdom's success being a phenominal athlete and talent. The only issue is that if he were any more relaxed I would have to water him.

I am not the sort of coach who is going to draw up plays to make sure so and so gets their shots. I expect the team on the floor (with consultation from me) to recognize the options available and get the player in the best situation to score the ball. What I face is we still have kids who can't make unconstested anything, and a kid who could play at the next level willing to defer to them.

I'm sure if I talked to my coaching colleagues about this I would get advice about winning the kid over, or giving him more responsibility, or even trying to find a connection to inspire him to greatness. The reality is we have a pretty good connection, and he does mean well, its just not a big deal to him. When I say "its" I mean everything, win/loss, score/shutout, getting yelled at getting hugged, its all the same so long as he's out there running around he's ok with that. If he's not out there running around he just sits back and waits for his turn.

What do you do with a superstar who's relaxed indifference would make the Budha jealous?