Coaching: Basketball Turned into Life Lessons

Yo!! It’s Jay again! As I begin to type this, it’s the day before our last game of the season. It’s been a LONG season this year for boys basketball. But overall, I’m thankful we even got to have a season in the first place. For those that don’t know, I took a job last year as an assistant coach on the Varsity level at Fayetteville-Perry. This year, I took over at the Junior-Varsity coach at the school, and kept my Varsity assistant job as well. While this year has been far from normal with everything going on, I learned a lot of things not only as a coach, but things I apply in the business world for my full-time job. Over the course of a long year, I want to share what I have learned and how it applies in the business world, and heck, just life in general.

“Are you sure?“ My mom asked, after I told her they went 3-19 last year, with two of their wins coming against the same team who won less games than them.

“You’ll have your work cut out for you” said my dad when I told him about the new opportunity I took.

Perfect. For anyone that knows me, knows I LOVE challenges. I love having a chip on my shoulder and having a tall task that people think is not going to be completed. Nothing drives me more than that. But more importantly in this situation, I knew I had to take this job because of the culture that my best friend was building on the Varsity team at Fayetteville. He is the one who brought me into this job, so I knew that I would be doing him a disservice by not taking the job, regardless of the circumstances. So, I took it. And one thing for sure, two things for certain, things were going to change at this school.

I think the best picture we have from the season is the one above. It is from the first huddle from the first game of the season. One thing we made clear is that when we are going over something, all eyes need to be focused on who is talking. There aren't a single set of eyes that aren't looking at the board in the middle seeing what we are doing to start that game, even the other guys who weren't even in the game at the time. When someone showed me this picture after the game, I knew we were in for a good year.

And thankfully, I was right.

We won the opening game 41-37 on the road. The game was tough, and we played from behind for most of the second half, but we made it happen. And just like that, we were 1-0. And then...... COVID-19 came and we missed an entire month of the season. Finally, we were back at it for the Brown County Holiday Tournament. From my understanding from talking to the Athletic Director we hadn't won a game in the tournament in a long time. So we enter game one, and we played Western Brown. And man, we got drummed. We lost by 58-31, and we couldn't get anything going. And I was a bit upset after the game, but I knew I had to address the team and get us ready for our next game, as the 3rd place game was less than 24 hours away. My message to the boys was simple:

"You can sulk and carry this performance over to the next game.... or you can get ready to redeem yourself tomorrow." Well, this was the result:

We beat the host team by double digits the next day. Although it was not our starting goal to win it all, we didn't sulk over a bad performance. We made adjustments, and got it done the next day. And boy, did it feel good. It felt even better when one of my players came to me and said "Coach, this is the first trophy I've won since playing sports here at Fayetteville, and that is the first time we ever beat this school. Thank you."

Woah.

You had never beat them before since being a student here in basketball? Ever. That was just wild to think about. But... we did it, and we did it together. And that made the win even better knowing that a lot of those kids beat a team that had never beat before.

Business Application

There are so many days where we just have all-around bad days. It happens, because everything isn't going to be perfect all of the time. That's how the cookie crumbles. However, the true test of character is how do you respond in the face of adversity? I talk to the kids all the time about adversity and how it is going to hit them during the season in different ways because it is inevitable. But when adversity hits, I always tell them they have two options: they can falter and give up, or rise to the occasion and accept the challenge that was given to them. In business, it is no difference in facing adversity. Everyone has been vastly affected by COVID-19 in some way, shape or form. For me, traveling in the field has become a major privilege, as a lot of customers have a lot of new protocols that has not allowed me to go see them. However, I still have a quota to hit and goals to reach. So what do I do now? I get creative, use resources, and figure it out. And a lot of people are following suit with that. In life, there is going to be constant change. We have to be willing to adapt to that change, or take the risk of falling behind. Either way, the choice is ours.

Ubuntu

"I am because we are."

Often times when we break huddles, this word comes up as the word we use. "1, 2, 3 Ubuntu." So, the question is, why do we use it?

I am because we are is so important to our team and the culture we are trying to build. One of the things we preach to the kids is about how you are going to have to work with a tea in order to get things done, and how leveraging your team can elevate you and make you look even better. The varsity coach, DJ, who also happens to be one of my best friends puts a quote on the top of the practice plan every day. One quote that comes up quite often is "Alone we can do so little. Together, we can do so much." Quite honestly, it's one of the most powerful quotes that can be used in a team setting. The best part about teams are that there are a group of people who are likely all good at different things. For basketball, you can have a guy who shoots the ball really well, a great defender, a great rebounder and a great ball handler all be four different people. However, when those four learn to play together and play to each others strengths, they seem like they are all good at everything. Why is this? The answer is extremely simple. When you trust other people to do their jobs, and you do yours as well, life becomes easy. When you get out of what you are good at, and start worrying about everyone else and trying to do everything, life starts to become difficult. That is how it works, and that is how it will always work. The boys over the course of this season have learned to trust each other and play to each others strengths, and that's why they are going to finish with a winning record this year, unlike in years past.

Business Application

Everyone reading this who works full-time, think about your team and how everyone on it is doing. You have an idea? Now think about who your supervisor or boss is, and think about what they are doing to make sure everyone is doing their job for the team. Are they helping?

Teams in the business world are just like sports teams. They are comprised of multiple people from all different walks of life, who all have strengths and weaknesses. The goal is to create and develop a team that will play to each other's strengths to help mask the weaknesses of the group. When we are able to do that successfully, you hear more comments surrounding how good the group is and how they work together. When you don't do it as well, you hear more around how the group can use some work or how the group is shaky in a certain area. The bottom line is, you have to be able to lean on someone else on the team where you may lack. Great teams have a lot of chemistry, and can help mask mistakes and weaknesses of others on your team. It's hard to be on your game every single day. The best of the best in every field have off days. But when they do, when they have great teams behind them, you don't even notice half the time because they are still able to get the job done, and at the end of the day that is what is most important. It's not always going to be pretty, but the main objective is to get the job done. On great teams, they seem to always find a way to make that happen.

Coach Hard, Love Later

Since starting my head coaching journey this year, my dad always told me his philosophy from when he was a coach: coach hard, love later. What does this mean? One thing about me is I don't sugar coat things. I always tell it like it is.... and sometimes that gets me in trouble. But I always want people to be honest and tell me the truth and give it to me straight, so I do the same in return. One thing that has been consistent with me in all my leadership positions is that I expect 100% effort out of whatever team that has been. From being my fraternity's President my senior year, to being in charge of Toledo's second longest standing tradition, to now a head coach for a high school, I expect everyone to give it their all while they are present. It takes 0 skill to give 100% effort. In fact, you don't have to be good at whatever it is at all to give it your all. So as a coach, when I see it, it frustrates me. When I saw it in those other leadership positions, it frustrated me. It frustrated me because I knew that people could be doing better, but they were choosing not to for whatever reason. I know that I am hard on the kids, but they need it. They didn't go 3-19 the last season because of lack of skill, or not enough good players, or anything like that. They just needed some structure, discipline and most importantly, someone to believe in them and tell them they could do it, while simultaneously not letting them get off by giving half effort. And that was my intention coming into this job.

Looking above, you can see that I am looking directly at the kid sitting in the back seat on the left side of the picture. He is arguably the best player on our team. He knows it, and the rest of the team would probably agree as well. I remember that in this picture and up until this point, he simply wasn't playing well.

"I need you to be better. More importantly, your teammates need you to be better."

He wasn't playing well, but it wasn't because of his skill or anything like that. He simply wasn't focused. He wasn't locked in on the game plan that he helped create, just like every game where each player has to watch film of the other team, and send in their plays, tendencies, etc. I don't really like surprises, so I always had them do that to make sure that they were prepared for what they were walking into each game. Anyways, he picked his game up for the rest of that game, and we did end up winning. After the game, he texted me and apologized for the way he played. I told him that it happens sometimes, and don't worry about it. Because it does. I stated it before, even the best players and best employees have off days. They are inevitable because we are all human. Again, being on great teams helps with that because others and there to pick you up where you may lack. And that happened time and time again this season with us. Sometimes we just need a little kick in the butt to get us going, and honestly high school kids are no different.

Business Application

I can remember being vividly upset one day by a variety of things that all decided to compound and happen right to start my day. I called my manager to explain everything going on, and she then told me to log off my computer, take an hour and then revisit the situation at hand. Boy, did I need to hear that, because I was way out of my element and whatever I would have done right when the situation happened would not have been good. And I really don't lose my cool too often like I did that day, but again, bad days happen to everyone. This is just like me taking a player out of a game for a couple bad plays, and then putting him back in after he has a couple minutes to regroup and get himself back focused. Sometimes we just need to hit the reset button on ourselves to get ourselves back going in the right direction before going to attack the task at hand. For me, I saw that with my players at times, and made the appropriate sub to take them out, talk to them about what I want them to work on, and then getting them back in the game. For my manager, she could sense I was off my game and needed a break, and it allowed me to regroup and get my head back into the game. If you can feel yourself getting out of control and doing things you normally don't do, take a step back, assess the situation and then get back to it, because some things once you do them, you can't take them back.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes a change of scenery is all that is needed in situations to get them going in the direction that you want them to go. Sports can really teach you a lot about working in teams, and life in general. Here are some keys that I have found where I have been able to correlate the two:

1. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Just like we had Junior-Varsity boys watch film and send in scouting reports, as sales reps and business people, we need to make sure we do pre-call planning. The more we know about a customer before seeing them, the better chance we can relate and find something that we have that will help them and make their lives easier.

2. Together. More likely than not, you will be a part of some team or you will lead some team. Always remember: Alone we can do so little. Together, we can do so much. Utilize your resources, lean on your teammates and you will be more successful. Just last week we were able to close a six-figure deal at an account that was 90% competitive product. I had helped from two of our engineers, one product specialist and one marketer to get this done. I knew I couldn't tackle this opportunity alone, and I asked for help from those I knew could help, and we got it done. Teamwork makes the dream work, always.

3. Work Hard, Laugh Later. Sometimes people need a little pick-me-up to get them going. Don't be afraid to be hard on people because sometimes it's necessary. I don't get on players to berate them, I get on them because I care and I see potential in them to get to the next level. I refuse to accept average for a group that wanted to be great. So, I got on them accordingly. Managers, don't feel bad for wanting the best out of your employees. If you are being genuine and do it from a place of caring and wanting more for them, it is okay to do it. Work hard, coach hard, love later, laugh later.

It's been a long journey like I said before this year, but the journey has come to an end. I am happy for how the year turned out, and I knew I had made an impact. One of my players texted me "thanks for giving me my best season and first winning season ever here at Fayetteville coach," and also after our last practice just gave me a big hug and didn't say a word. That meant the world to me, and reminded me of my why. I didn't do this, we did it. It took all of the coaches, from myself to my assistants, to the players and their parents for getting them to practices and games. And now... the season has ended. Oh...... we finished with the JV's first winning record in a long time, went 10-8, and beat 4 teams the boys had NEVER beat in their Fayetteville careers.

We ALL did this. Together. Ubuntu.

Peace.