In rebuilding Rhode Island, Coach Cathy Inglese started her new team by explaining she wanted the very best from them -- starting in the classroom! If you want your team to excel you must demand it of them in all areas. Below is part of an article on her the beginning of her rebuilding stage in an article by Laura Pappano.Because she was only with the team for two weeks in the spring, summer session was the first time Inglese could give players a taste of her expectations. When she discovered that the team GPA was 2.4, she was… “really disappointed.” Not just because she’s a coach who boasts a 100 percent graduation rate, but because she believes you can’t be great in one arena and lazy in the other. There is a connection between life and sports, school and basketball – and she wants players to understand that, too.
“I tell the kids I don’t like mediocrity. I don’t like just getting by,” she says. “I want these kids to know what it takes to be successful. I want them to work hard in the off-season and learn how to win.”
It may be too soon to tell if Inglese can spur a mindset shift. But in her first challenge to them – earn a 3.0 for summer school grades – they responded with a 3.3. “To me that’s something. Our kids were coming in talking excitedly about what grades they got in summer classes,” she says.
It’s early, but Inglese sees several keys to turning around the program – short and long term:
1. Leadership on the court. “You have to have a person on the court who sets the goal, who sets the standard.”
2. More basketball talent and especially players who get the ball in the basket. “You can’t win a lot of games scoring 54 points a game – and that’s what they averaged last year.”
3. Limit turnovers. “We have to take care of the ball more. That comes with the teamwork.”
4. Hard work. Positive attitude. “They are tired of losing and they are at least saying they want to win.”
5. Understand success is not immediate and keep focused on the goal, realizing in the interim that some losses are better than others. “It is scary to work hard and not win, but even if you don’t win you can measure progress in other ways. Maybe this year you lose instead of by 20 points, you lose by 5.”
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