Essential Qualities to being a Successful Coach Part II

Does anyone read Jaq's blog? Because let me tell you...it is great. And, I'm not going to lie, as crazy, funny and cooky as she is, I can relate to a lot of things she writes about (even though I don't necessarily think I'm crazy, funny or cooky). Thus, I have stolen this blog idea (as I do with so many blog ideas) to discuss those very essential things that make up a successful coach. For instance, I learned from Jaq that a successful coach NEVER forgets their whistle. I have truly taken this lesson to heart. After I dug my whistle out of my backpack (which I haven't touched since bball camp this past summer), I was ready to go. However, over the past two weeks, I have found that there are even more aspects to coaching that are absolutely necessary if you want to be a good coach. I have highlighted four for your reading enjoyment:

Essential Quality #1 -- Stopwatch. Always have a stopwatch. But don't just have one, know how to use it. On the second day of practice, I swung by Walmart to purchase a stopwatch. While at Walmart, I ran into a couple of my players, and I quickly covered the stopwatch in my basket with other items so the girls wouldn't know that I didn't already have one. (Always give the illusion of greatness!) Successfully hidden, I checked out and drove to practice. I unpackaged my stopwatch 3 minutes before practice began. However, as the girls warmed up, I couldn't get the stupid stopwatch into "stopwatch" mode, the only mode for which one ever really uses a stopwatch -- to time something. Which brings me to my tangent point that stopwatches should only have ONE mode. The one where it counts up in seconds. That's it. No alarms, (and definitely NOT 2 alarms), I'm even against a stopwatch showing the time or having 2 different stopwatch modes. Keep it simple people. Anyway, once I got the stopwatch in stopwatch mode, I lined the girls on the baseline to time their sprints. I blew my whistle hit the "start" button on my stopwatch. So far so good. I counted down from 5 at the end of the sprints, and when I hit stop and blew my whistle to end the sprint, my stopwatch didn't stop timing. So I hit it again and again. About 10 seconds past, it stopped. By this time, the girls are watching me wondering what I'm doing and when the next sprint whould start. Flustered, I hit "reset", but the stopwatch wouldn't reset. I hit "mode", it went to the alarm, I hit mode again, and the numbers started flashing! I ended up just blowing my whistle so the girls could run, and then watched the stopwatch, pretending to be timing them. I randomly counted down from 5 when I guess-timated that it was the appropriate time. I was definitely giving my finest acting performance of watching a blank stopwatch that I have ever given.

Essential Quality #2 -- Once you know how to use a stopwatch, be sure to watch it. Simple enough. I mastered the stopwatch after about a week of faking it. Congratulations should be in order. However, I hate wearing my whistle and my stopwatch around my neck at the same time because then the cords tangle and it's just a bad scene. With that said, I usually put the stopwatch (when I say usually, I mean for the last two weeks that I've owned a stopwatch) in my hoodie pocket. However, if, say, I'm running a drill for 10 minutes, and I'm not looking directlyat the stopwatch, how am to know when 10 minutes is up? To put it simply, I don't. So the girls ran their pretty boring motion offense ("Fist") for 16 minutes. What's the big deal? Extra practice is good. However, to make up the time, they only ran their next offense for 4 minutes (although they were told they'd run each for 10 minutes. I kept the stopwatch in my HAND this time, and I watched it like an hawk! When I blew the whistle, I heard murmurs like," is that it?" and "wow, that was quick". I really think they might be on to me.

Essential Quality #3 -- Never leave your clipboard behind. Like I did. Yesterday. At our first scrimmage. Not only does it have my awesome diagrams that I diagrammed during the scrimmage (I know, very coach-like behavior), but it had my totally awesome speech that I gave at bball camp over the summer and that I saved because I'm going to need that again someday. The speech was entitle "Basketball will Take you Places" -- there were visuals as well -- all in my clipboard! Luckily, the school we scrimmaged is right across the street from our high school, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get it back. But I'm going to need to make some calls on Monday. Shoooooott!!

Essential Quality #4 --Have confidence. Luckily, I have "some". Not a lot, but enough. Meghan definitely had to talk me off of the coaching ledge last night. (woah, maybe I shouldn't put suicide references into my blog...I don't know...is that inappropriate? I'm leaving it in). I concluded that I'm good at TEACHING the game of basketball, only because I've worked every camp station that there ever has been over the last 10 years, but I'm not great at COACHING. I'm good at practice but not so good in the games. I can't base my entire coaching career on yesterday's scrimmage, but let's jus say that I need to improve and improve quickly. I know I'll be good at it eventually, (hopefully?) but it'll take practice in game situations and time. Any pointers to speed up the process?

For all of you coaches out there, take heed. 1.Get a stopwatch. Read the instructions (which, by the way, even if your stopwatch package says "detailed instruction inside" there may NOT be any to be found) 2.Watch the stopwatch. 3. Don't lose your clipboard (maybe I should attach a string to the clipboard and put it around my wrist, like our mittens were attached to our coats back in the day so we wouldn't lose them...now I'm really thinking!) 4. And have a little confidence -- things will get better. A wise person once told me that even though I might not know what I'm doing, my players have no idea that I have no idea. I am really banking on that right about now...