EIGHT STEPS TO IMPROVING YOUR PROGRAM

1. Refuse to take any news tragically.
The most powerful leadership tool is to radiate hope in tough times. Avoid the “woe is me” syndrome. Handle tough news by saying: “Okay, what good can we learn from this.. and let’s do it.”

2. Attack the behavior, not the person.
Erase all negative criticism, finger pointing, and howling folks out for less than perfect work.

3. Give specific praise.
General comments are dismissed as insincere. “Thank you, Bill, for staying late last night to finish this project” instead of general praise carries a lot of weight.

4. Happy hello’s in the morning.
The first half hour of the work day sets the tone for the entire day.

5. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Poke fun at yourself in front of your employees at the appropriate times.

6. Make merry on the phone.
Answer phones with high positive energy.

7. Color your corner.
Decorate your office for informal openness.

8. Look for the right way, not your way.
A good idea is a good idea, regardless of who thought of it.

Credit: St. Mary’s University Basketball (via Creighton Burns)

PROGRAM POINTERS: READING ASSIGNMENTS AND WORKSHEETS

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.

PICK UP GUIDELINES

One of those necessary evils of basketball is allowing your players to compete in pick-up games. These are obviously primarily done during the summer months but occasionally in the fall and spring as well.

About six years ago our staff decided we were going to give some structure to the summer games to keep them from becoming lay-up drills. You know the games — teams take turns running out for fast break lay-ups and not working on good half-court basketball fundamentals.

Our concern was that not only were they not getting the proper work in, but they were also developing bad habits they would have to spend time in the fall correcting. It’s the same as shooting. More players waste time going to the gym or the outdoor court down the block and just throw up shots instead of having a concentrated workout.

We decided we were going to take a look at some vital areas of how we play and make sure that they could be worked on during pick-up games. Since the NCAA rules do not allow us to observe the pick-up games, some general guidelines would not only improve play but also help with the safety factor. Often players can get hurt in pick-up games because they get too wild. Following are some guidelines that we chose to fit our program.

PICK UP GAME GUIDELINES

ALWAYS PLAY MAN-TO-MAN DEFENSE
NO SWITCHING
Good pressure on the basketball (even if you get beat on the drive)
Get a hand up on every shot
Make contact, blockout, and finish the possession

ALWAYS RUN MOTION OFFENSE
Spacing: High and Wide
Minimize your dribble usage
Take good shots
Set good screens to get your teammates open

START WITH HALF COURT GAMES
Even if you have enough for 5/5, start with a couple of half court games
Will help us to develop our man defense and offense principles

UTILIZE CONVERSION
After half court games, finish up with full court games
GET BACK ON DEFENSE
Even 4/4 games can be played full court

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO PLAY
3/3, 2/2, 1/1
Play, play, play

INDIVIDUAL IMPROVEMENT
Each of you have a few things to work on
Make sure you apply them in pick-up

BE A GOOD TEAMMATE
Encourage teammates
Help freshman to understand offensive/defensive principles

PLAY HARD
Is there any other way?!

There will come a time when winter will ask,

"What have you done this summer?"

PROGRAM POINTER: NEWSLETTER

The absolute most valuable information we can depart to you in regard to creating a Basketball Newsletter for your program is that you can build it in any shape or form you desire. You are the creator, the editor in chief! We are now in the 8th year of publishing Full Court Press. There is not enough space to tell you the response we have had in that short amount of time.

So why have a newsletter? First and foremost, it is a tremendous way to let those who have played for you in the past know that they are still a part of the “family”. Practically every great program that we know about, regardless of the level of play, is dripping in tradition. Utilizing tradition to help your program means you must find ways to link the past with the future. At LSU, we send newsletters to every former player, manager, student trainer, and assistant coach that have been a part of Lady Tiger Basketball. We also send them to the parents of all those listed above. In fact, a great portion of our response comes from those parents. Also on the mailing out list are key members of our administration as well as supporters of our basketball program. It has also been a major component to our Fast Break Club, which is our booster organization. Our newsletter is a great means of addressing the issues of our program to those who support us.

The newsletter is also a great way to promote your program in a wide variety of ways. You can promote events that your program is sponsoring, such as fundraisers, games, banquets, etc. We also use our newsletter to promote the Lady Tiger philosophy, which deals largely with attitude and its importance in becoming successful in life.

For instance, in our newsletter we always have an inspirational quote on the bottom of the first page titled, “Thought of the Month” which deals totally with a motivational thought. At times, we will also add other motivational items that we want to share with our “family”.

How do we create a newsletter? It’s actually very easy — if you allow it to be! We already added some color in the banner of our newsletter. In our 2nd year, we wanted to spice it up a little bit. However, it’s important for you to understand that our first newsletter wasn’t nearly as nice as the one we are turning out now. Just as in coaching basketball, it is critical to keep it simple. Our first newsletter had no photos and very little art. The important thing for you is to just get started. You also can add on, and spruce it up as you go.

Without question, a computer is a major advantage for a newsletter but don’t think you can’t get by without one. Still, if you don’t have one available to your program, there will be someone who does that would probably love to put the copy in newsletter form for you. Possibly a student in your school or someone on your faculty. Talk them into doing the newsletter on the computer for you and give them a credit each issue. For simplicity, we do our newsletter on a computer but then run off our copies on our copying machine. The color comes from pre-printed stock that we put in the copy machine. Obviously you can’t do the same things that you can with a computer but coaching usually brings out the best of your imagination in the most difficult of times.

How often should we print an issue? One of the first questions to ask yourself is how often do you publish a newsletter. The answer to this one is easy — as often as you want or feel it would be beneficial to your goals and needs. We choose to publish once a month. We have the information monthly to go out as well as the time and manpower to meet our objectives. But again, it’s your call. You might choose to go out bi-monthly (6 times a year); you might decide to go seasonally- spring, summer, fall, and winter; you could go out twice a year or even once a year. These are all answers for you to decide and there are no wrong ones.

We tried to put our newsletter together by using some very common principles to make it as attractive as possible. Here are some areas that have been successful for us that might also be of help to you.

Personalize your newsletter as much as possible. It is an old maxim in journalism that anyone will read a newspaper with their name printed in it. We use several angles to involve players’ names. One way is to list former players’ birthdays for that particular month. Each month we also have a feature titled “Where Are They Now” that we use to update the readers on past players and what they are doing these days. We also have a segment called “Getting To Know Your Lady Tigers,” which is about current players in the program and things they have accomplished or are involved in.

Use short quick hitters. Most newspapers actually use what they call “word count quotas”. This means that each article in the newspaper has a certain number of words that it cannot extend. Few wordy articles are ever read while short quick hitters are read by up to 90%. In our newsletter, the quick hitters include Thought of the Month, Alumni Update, Did You Know, and In The SEC.

Talk to your readers. This is hard for most newspapers to do, but very easy with a newsletter- especially one that is directed to a select audience. We use a personal letter from Coach Chancellor to the reader titled “Dear Friends & Family”. We take this space to send a personal message, just as if it were an actual letter to the reader. It is almost always something along the motivational line.

Use comedy/cartoons. Another prospect we are exploring is the use of cartoons. There is a service that you can subscribe to that provides cartoons for newsletters. Almost everyone will stop to read a cartoon. Another possibility is a “Joke of the Month”.

Utilize quizzes and contests. About twice a year we run a segment titled “Did You Know? Test Your LSU Basketball Knowledge”. In this section, we have trivia questions about our basketball program. We usually run 4-5 questions and add the answer at the bottom of the article. We have thought about once a year having a trivia contest where the winner would win an LSU item, such as a sweatshirt. Reader participation items are always a big hit, as well as a way of extending positive facts about your program to those who are reading.

Accentuate the positive. Newsletters are one of the best ways to spread good will and promote the positive aspects of your program. Good PR is often hard to come by for athletic programs but you are in complete control of what you want your readers to read. Spread the good news about your program. It’s a tremendous way to get people enthusiastic about what you have done as well as what you are about to do.

Use the newsletter as Advertising. Having a fundraiser next month? Want to let others know about your basketball banquet? Starting a season ticket drive and want to let everyone know how they can help? Whatever you need to let anyone know, the newsletter is the perfect medium.

Take advantage of the mail out. We used to send our newsletter in envelopes. That way we can add anything we want in the envelope with the newsletter. For instance, we always send out schedule cards with the November newsletter. Sometimes we may also send a motivational pass out along with the newsletter.

Email the mail. We now send our newsletter out in a PDF format via email. It allows us to utilize a lot more color and there is no printing or postage expenses and we can literally email them to everyone but recruits.

A newsletter will create more than you can ever imagine. For a copy of our newsletter, email me at rstarke@lsu.edu and I will email you a copy of our newsletter.

PROGRAM POINTERS: MOTIVATIONAL CARDS

We started doing this seven years ago. We take a concept, put it on a business-size card, have it laminated and then give it to our players, coaches and support staff.

The key is to find something to rally around. It needs to be a concept that will light a fire in your players. Very often, it works best when that concept comes from the players themselves.

During the fall of the 2004-05 season, for example, we brought in Felicia Hall, one of the nation’s most renowned motivational speakers. She spent two days with our team putting them through various exercises before the players came up with four goals for the season. These goals were derived completely by the players with no help from the coaching staff. It gave them ownership. They would be in charge of policing their own team by the standards they themselves put forth. Those goals were:

To be self-motivated.
To make any necessary sacrifice.
To have an uncompromising commitment to the team.
No one cares who gets the credit.

As a coach I get chill bumps when I think that this collection of players came to those team guidelines on their own. There was nothing about number of wins, going to the Final Four, or winning the SEC Championship. This team knew it was about the process and figured out that those four goals would help them achieve a great deal if they stuck to them. Of course, that team went on to win 33 games, win an SEC title and go to the Final Four.

Their team card was designed with those goals on it with the header, “The Real FINAL FOUR.” We give these cards to our players in a team meeting and ask them to carry it with them at all times.

There is something about physically having something — being able to visually see it — that gives it a stronger impact in the mind. We are to the point that our players expect them now.

You can use a variety of concepts for these cards. During the 2003-04 season we took our team to the movie theater to see “Miracle,” a film about the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey Team. The movie had an amazing effect on our team. We were going through some adversity of our own as Coach Gunter became ill during the season. We wanted to make sure that our team maintained its focus so we devised a card that on the front showed the USA Hockey Team with the simple slogan “Do You Believe?!” On the back we had a photo of the New Orleans Arena (home to the 2004 Final Four).

Certainly we are not saying these cards have been the reason for our success. However, your ability as a coach to plant positive, motivational thoughts is a key component to keeping your team reaching for its goals.

PROGRAM POINTERS: GUEST SPEAKERS

There is a quote that is worth mentioning anytime you are involved with teaching. “It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.” Often, as leaders and teachers, we lose sight of this fact. We think because we say it, they should understand it.

Repetition is an extremely important part of effective teaching but it goes beyond doing drills repeatedly. It is also in what we communicate to our team. If you follow our program you know that we believe in repetition but you also know that there must be variety in your repetition.

For example, if you want to be a good rebounding team, you might utilize a 2 on 2 blockout drill. Certainly this is a good drill. But you have a much better chance of being a good rebounding team if you have a variety of rebounding drills. In our program, we have around 15 rebounding drills. We don’t use each of them everyday but at certain times during the course of the season. They all stress the same fundamentals but the variety makes it fresh for our team. A new or rarely used drill will help stimulate the learning curve.

We have found the same can be true of communicating. We think the ability for a staff to communicate to a team is tremendously important. Having said that, it should be noted that it is not always an easy thing to do.

Just as in parenting, sometimes you can say that same thing over and over to your child and for some reason it doesn’t register. Yet one person outside of your home mentions it to your child and it’s like a light switch has been turned on.

Knowing this up front, we work hard as a staff to look at how and what we communicate. But we’ve found out that who can also be important.

We often bring in other people outside our program to speak to our team. Obviously we are careful in who we select but you’d be surprised at how many people out there can bring a good message to your team. We have used coaches from other sports, teachers from LSU, sports personalities, politicians, business leaders, and even an occasional booster that has a story to tell.

One such example is a member of our Fast Break Club. Lydia Sims has been a big fan of our program. We later learned that she played on some of the great Immaculata teams with Marianne Stanley and later coached on the collegiate level. She addressed our team and she talked in great detail on the struggles of female athletes and the difficulties they had to overcome. It was time well spent for our players to get a great history lesson.

During our run to the Final Four in 2004, we were fortunate enough to be involved in a regional in which Ann Meyers-Drysdale was doing the color commentating for ESPN. We asked her to talk to our team and she did a wonderful job in painting a picture for them on the excitement of going to the Final Four.

At LSU, we are blessed with great coaches and motivational speakers. We have used Skip Bertman several times along with Dale Brown, Nick Saban and Les Miles. Each year during our first four Final Four runs, we brought in professional Felicia Hall who did a tremendous job of working with our players in team building exercises along with guiding them through team goal setting.

This is a great way to motivate your team and to have them learn from some great “teachers” outside of your staff. The greatest benefit is that it almost always comes back to reinforce what you’ve been teaching them.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED FROM COACH (#16)

If you have ever attended one of Coach Meyer's clinics or academy, he will at one point early on let you know that one of the common denominators of successful people is that they are great note takers.

I don't believe I've ever met anyone that takes more notes than Coach Meyer. He once told me that he attended Bob Knight's first coaching academy at Indiana University and took a 145 pages of notes. Coach said it "got me over the hump as a coach." And as he is quickly approaches Coach Knight as the all-time victory leader in men's college basketball, he still takes notes.

It is common place for me to get a packet of notes from him in the mail from the most recent clinic that he has spoke at -- because when he is not speaking, he is in the bleachers taking notes and trying to improve as a coach. I return the favor as often as I can because I know he enjoys reading about the game.

He even takes great notes on himself. Coach Meyer carries a handheld recorder with him at all times. He is constantly talking in to it to remind him of something involving his program or his craft. He utilizes it in games as well, pulling it out and talking in to it while walking the sideline.

One of the things that Coach Meyer shared with me during our last visit together in July when he was speaking at a clinic here in Baton Rouge, were notebooks in which he jots down his messages from the dictaphone. Written on the notebooks were "Dictaphone Notes 2007-08" and "Dictaphone Notes 2008-09." Each evening he replays the dictaphone and transcribes each message into the notebook.

I've been using a handheld recorder since my very first Coach Meyer Free Coaching Clinic at David Liscomb in Nashville. I now have my own notebook to write down my recordings. It is a tremendous way to help me go over those things I learned from the day as well as to help prepare for my tomorrow. First, saying it into the recorder and then writing it to paper is a powerful way to burn it to my memory and then bring it to action.

EMPHASIS OF THE DAY

Each practice, we choose an “Emphasis of the Day.” It’s a simple way to make sure that your team improves in one area each day. That sounds simple, but think about it. If you could do something that would ensure that your team improves in one phase of the game each day, wouldn’t you jump at the chance?

Well, we’ve had that type of success with this concept and here is how it works.

First, you must pick what you want to emphasize each day in practice. We have a couple of schools of thought in this regard. The first is obvious—pick something that you struggled with the day before. Maybe on Monday your team didn’t do a good job of blocking out. So on Tuesday you make blocking out your emphasis of the day.

The second way of choosing an emphasis is to look at your upcoming opponent. Maybe the next team on your schedule does a nice job of running with the basketball. Your next practice might have transition defense as your emphasis of the day.

Choosing the emphasis of the day is just the beginning...now it’s time to start emphasizing! This comes from several different means and they all need to be a part of the process for it to be successful.

First, when the players come to practice, they will find a sheet of paper with the emphasis of the day in their locker. On the way out of the locker room they will see that same sheet of paper on the bulletin board. When they walk on to the practice floor, they will see it taped up at each basket and at the water cooler. There will be no doubt in their mind that the coaches are going to work diligently that day to improve that area.

At LSU, we start each session with a “Pre-Practice.” In this segment, the team is broke down into smaller numbers for some individual attention and part-method teaching. Some of these drills will be devised to work on the day's emphasis.

Following Pre-Practice, we will start regular practice by huddling up, at which time we will mention the emphasis of the day and why it is important. We will generally start practice with a drill that is specific to the emphasis of the day. Throughout practice, the coaching staff will constantly mention the emphasis in all drill work. The majority of the time, the emphasis will be related to a basketball fundamental: Blockout, Low Post Feeds, Shot Fake, Contest the Shot, etc. On occasion, it will be a mental emphasis: Concentration, Communicate, Listen, Intensity, etc.

We have also on occasion tied our video into the emphasis of the day. Before going to the floor for Pre-Practice, we might watch some video clips of what our emphasis of the day will be.

PLAYER NOTEBOOKS

We have been using player notebooks for eight years in our program and we are big believers in the effect it has on our team. There have been studies that suggest some of the most successful people in all fields have been great note takers; it is a skill within itself that we can teach our student-athletes.

The notebook is something that the players are required to have with them at all basketball related activities including video sessions, practices and road trips.

Our notebooks have five sections.

GUIDELINES AND INFORMATION
In this area we would include the various guidelines we have for our team including academic and study hall guidelines. We outline our expectations in terms of appearance in class and while we travel. This also would includes a section with phone numbers of their teammates, managers, coaches and other essential members of our athletic department.

MEETING NOTES
This section is designed for the players to take notes anytime they are involved in a meeting. The majority of the time this is in the video room where our team is watching video on practice, games or our next opponent. It could also mean an individual video session with one of the coaches or a meeting with her academic advisor. We will at times stop practice and have them right something down in regard to how we play. This is especially true during the fall in our early developmental practice sessions.

PLAYBOOK
This is an area where we provide passouts for our players on the various phases of our system. They would store such things as an inbounds play, a motion entry, guidelines for defending screens, etc. This is a little different because it is already prepared for them to put in their notebook as opposed to them having to write it down.

SCOUTING
This is an area where they can store their scouting reports and take down notes on our next opponent. Our preparation is very important because of our system of play. This an important element of the notebook.

MOTIVATION
We give our players a great deal of motivational items. Many of them you can find under Motivation in the Winning Edge section on this website. We also like to give them something called “In The News” which would be an article from the paper or a website pertaining to something other than basketball that we believe they should be aware of.

Our philosophy is that we want to treat basketball just like a class. We often tell our players that the mental is to the physical as 4 is to 1. We want them to think the game as well as play the game. We believe the player notebook has been very important to our success. We will occasionally “test” our players on the info that we pass out. We will also from time to time, take a look at their notebook to make sure they are taking good notes. As Don Meyer has taught us, “it’s not what we say, it’s what they hear.”

Obviously at LSU we have the budget to order nice notebooks but you can get the job done with a 3-ring sprial binder with sheets added or even a regular spiral notebook. As Coach Meyer has also taught us, "make the big-time where you are."