We look upon the profession of coaching as teaching. We want to help our student-athletes acquire knowledge and this expands past the basketball court. The best programs not only have their student-athletes graduate from their program as better players but as better students and better people. It has been our finding that the better the student and the better the person, the better the basketball player.One way that we challenge our team to improve is by assigning them reading material. It may be a short passage, a magazine article and sometimes even a book. Each summer, we assign a book for the team to read. We then have them write a two-page synopsis to turn in when they report in the fall. Generally, the summer book has little to do with basketball and a lot to do with life. An example would be “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington which shows the great sacrifices made by African-Americans to acquire an education and is the book we have assigned to our players this summer.
We also assign a book to the team to read during the season. When we do this, we assign a few pages every couple of weeks and give them a worksheet. It will ask a few questions (an open book test) but more importantly ask them to relate the reading to them individually and our team. This past year we utilized “Be Like Mike” by Pat Williams which is a great book that delves in details of Michael Jordan and his great work ethic and competitive spirit. This is a great book for players to read -- after all, most players want to "be like Mike." Along with the work sheet, we will also find some time either individually or as a team to discuss what was read.
We have also had great success with a lot of the John Maxwell books. One such book is short book and easy read with tremendous lessons titled, "The Difference Makers." As mentioned earlier, we will assign them a section to read and the give them a work sheet to go with that section. The work sheet will have two goals. One will be to ask them questions where quite simply they will write the answers directly from the book. But this is a great way to make sure they are reading the main parts of the section. The other goal, and maybe the most important one, is to ask them how the section relates to them or what did they read that they can incorporate into their day to day routine.
For a copy of the works sheets we used for "The Difference Makers," email me at rstarke@lsu.edu and I will email it to you.
