MAKE TODAY COUNT: ATTITUDE

Our assigned reading for our team this year is John Maxwell's "Make Today Count."  Our first worksheet deals with pages 1 through 11 on "Attitude."  In that section, Maxwell gives us attitude pointers.  They are listed below.  We asked our team to pick one they could improve on and then explain how.

_____ Recognize that your attitude needs daily adjustments

_____ Find something positive in everything

_____ Find someone positive in every situation

_____ Say something positive in every conversation

_____ Remove negative words from your vocabulary

_____ Express gratitude to others daily

KEVIN EASTMAN'S ROOKIE AWARENESS "MUSTS"

Special thanks to Coach Bret Burchard of Taylor University for sharing this Kevin Eastman passout from the Taylor Basketball Notebook. I will change the word "rookie" to "freshman" and make sure this makes the Lady Tiger notebook.
..........

1. Understand that there will be different types of people from different backgrounds; remain true to yourself and how you were brought up.

2. Be strong enough to make your own decisions. All players know what is right and what is wrong in every situation. If in doubt, know that it's probably wrong.

3. Always choose "right" when confronted with these "right/wrong" situations.

4. Be humble off the floor, but don't concede anything on the floor.

5. Understand you are a rookie, but you are also 1 of 12 competing to play. Your youth should not be an excuse. You have as much right to play as the veterans do! Respect them, but don't be afraid to compete against them.

6. Never become an attitude problem on the team. And most important, don't let the malcontent recruit you to their team.

7. Remember, coaches always see players who dive on the floor, take charges, encourage teammates, play unselfishly, and defend their tails off!

8. Understand that the best way to get on the floor is through defense...not offense.

9. Get through your rookie year with big ears and a small mouth. Listen and learn, obverse and learn.

10. Understand that the next level is tough, but it's tough for every rookie everywhere. Those who overcome are those who keep coming back the next day with a great attitude. Mental toughness will separate you from those that don't make it!

DECISIONS -- THEY CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR LIFE (AND OTHERS)

After receiving this video from Coach Dale Brown, we forward it via email to our current players and then to our alumni.

Dear Lady Tigers:

Please take a look at this video – it’s a little bit on the long side but it has a very important message…please email me back to let me know you got it, watched it, and exactly what the message is that you got from it.

http://bit.ly/4nckRf

THOUGHTS ON COMMUNICATING VISION

From GIANT Impact comes "Communicating Vision" by John C. Maxwell. I have posted some of my thoughts in regard to coaching in purple italics.

Nothing motivates an organization like a clear and compelling vision. But it can be tricky to paint a picture of what's in your mind so that others can see exactly what you're seeing. As a leader, how do you enable others to glimpse your vision and how do you inspire them to adopt it?

1) Connect relationally
Leaders err when they believe the content of their vision will sweep others up by itself. Don't focus on the mechanics of your message to the point where you disregard connecting with your team. People buy into the leader before they buy into the leader's vision. Touch a person's heart before you appeal to their head and ask for a hand.
Quite simply, it's about people. It's the quote that "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." As coaches, we must let our student-athletes know that they are much more than just a basketball player and that we care about them not just today but forever.

2) Simplify the message
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has a place among the great speeches of American history, yet it was barley three minutes in length. As leader, we can learn a lot from Lincoln. When communicating vision, what you say is important, but how you say it determines whether or not the message sticks. Slice and dice your vision until it can be shared in a single sentence. The more concise you make your vision, the more memorable it will be.

For coaches, we've all been told that so many times, "less is more." But how many of us truly subscribe to this theory and try to incorporate it into are teaching methods. It's just as true in painting our mission for our team. Our we single-minded in what we trying to get them to achieve or all we all over the place with different thoughts?

3) Embody the vision
People need to see a vision to connect with it, which is why the great communicators harness imagery to amplify the power of their message. Storytelling gets much more mileage than fact-spewing. However, the best representation of a vision occurs when a leader embodies it. People sooner follow what they see than what they hear. When a leader is ablaze with passion, people invariably are attracted to the flame.

At LSU, we are big believers in visual teaching and visual motivation. It is not just enough to say it -- they need to see it. Video has been a big part of what we do. But beyond video, it is how we "frame" our message. To through to our team we need to be about a lot more than a page of bullet points.

4) Prioritize Influencers
Leaders treat everyone with respect, but they certainly shouldn't spend equal time casting vision to each person. To make sure your vision catches on in your organization, prioritize sharing it with key decision-makers. Set up one-on-one meetings. Field questions and respond to concerns. Don't rush this step. If you convince key personnel to buy-in to your vision, oftentimes they will sell it for you to the rest of the organization. On the contrary, if you cannot gain their support, implementing your vision will be an uphill struggle.

An important part of coaching is recognizing who your leaders will be -- as well as who will be the followers. There will be different types of leaders. Some will lead by example and others will be more vocal and active in their leadership roles. They key is to make sure you take the time to lead them so they are sharing the message you need to be shared.

5) Honor the Process
Speechmaking has merit, but vision casting happens daily, not just on one occasion. It's a process rather than an event. To communicate vision effectively requires continual reminders to keep it in the forefront of people's minds.

Once the vision begins to take shape, every victory is an opportunity to celebrate and reinforce the vision. Also, each defeat must be evaluated and put into perspective lest the setback dishearten people. Unless a leader actively and continually champions a vision, with time it will evaporate.
This was an important lesson we learned from Nick Saban. We focused greatly on the process which means that every minute of every day was about improving. We stayed away from result-oriented goals and worked with our team to understand that working on the process daily is what makes us reach our potential.

6) Call to Action
Leaders don't impart vision to make people feel good, but rather to change something. Communicating vision should motivate people to take action by enlisting them in a focused strategy. The goal isn't simply to get people to agree with a vision, but also to take responsibility for translating it into reality.

For us, this means being organized in our practice to make sure that we are giving them the best possibility to exercise the process. It also means that we need to be working as well and not just barking out commands.

LADY TIGER WAY OF VIDEO

Video is a big part of the teaching environment at LSU. We obviously video our games as well as every practice. We utilize video in scouting opponents and use motivational videos. Here are some various thoughts as to how we do it.

1. We watch video nearly every day.

We may watch before practice. We may watch after practice. At times we have done both. On a long practice, we might watch video in the middle of practice to take a break and learn at the same time.

2. We watch short spurts of video.

We rarely have more than 10-15 minutes of video to show our team. Even when watching video of a game we played the night before, we won't watch more than 20 minutes. Their attention span won't allow them to concentrate long enough for it to be effective. We might watch 10 to 15 minutes of our offense before practice and maybe watch our defensive clips afterwards or the next day.

3. We will ask our players questions during video.

We might stop the clip and ask our players "is everyone positioned properly?" In regard to our motion, we might freeze the video and ask a player "what are your options right now?" Asking them questions gets them involved and keeps them alert.

4. We chapter our video clips.

For instance, we will watch all our transition offensive clips in one segment. Then we will watch our motion offense clips in one segment. We think by "chaptering" we can really concentrate on one phase with our team and increase their retention. We do the same thing with our scouting video.

5. Utilize balance.

After a well played game we will obviously view clips of us executing well. But we will go out of our way to make sure we have clips of areas that fell short of what we wanted to let our team know that we still have room to improve. The same holds true when we play poorly and there are a lot of clips of our mistakes. We still want to make sure they see some good clips.

6. Utilize example video clips.

We have used clips from teams other than our current ones to show our team what we want. We have used video of past teams playing at a high level to show defensive and offensive clips. Several years ago, we put together a clip tape of the men's team at Texas Tech running Triangle Motion to show our players the type of spacing and screening/cutting combinations that we would like for them to use.

THE FUNDAMENTAL C'S

The word fundamental is a very basic and simple word that means “essential.” With this definition, players often come to think of fundamentals as unimportant, too trivial and even boring…but without it, we cannot reach our potential. Within this framework, we have developed the Fundamental C’s. The secret to the Fundamental C’s is that you only have to work on the first one and the other three will fall into place for you.

The first C, the one you are responsible for is concentration. It involves you blocking everything out of your mind when it comes time to practice. You cannot be thinking about shopping, or heading to the movies, or playing with your friends while you are practicing. You have to dedicate yourself to focusing in on that which you are presently doing. Concentration is one of the most difficult things for a player on even the highest level to obtain and then to maintain.

“Concentrate...for the greatest achievements are reserved for the man of single aim, in whom no rival powers divide the empire of the soul.”
-Orison Swett Marden-

Concentration makes it possible for a good one hour workout with maximum results. Without concentration, you could be out on the court with a basketball for the entire day and not achieve as much.

A great story on concentration is told of golfing legend Ben Hogan. Of course Hogan is considered one of golfing’s all-time greatest. He is one of only five golfers to capture the Grand Slam of golfing while winning PGA Golfer of the Year four times. Hogan was in the middle of a key putt when in the background a loud train whistle sounded. Without any problem, Hogan sank the putt. A member of the group which Hogan was golfing with asked him if the whistle had bothered him. His reply: “What whistle?” He was so focused and concentrated on the immediate task at hand that he had blocked out all possible distractions.

With proper concentration comes control. You can control the basketball, you can control your body, and most importantly, you can control your thought process. By concentrating on doing everything you do as well as you possibly can do it, and within the fundamental guidelines, you will find that you will be able to have control over situations that you couldn’t before. It is difficult to improve greatly on foot quickness but if you work on concentration during your drill work you will seem quicker. Yes, you will be a little quicker but the majority of it will come from being in complete control on the court.

By adding both concentration and control, we arrive at confidence. I have never seen a great player that didn’t have confidence in herself. Let me take that one step further and say that I have never seen a great player that didn’t do the things necessary to gain the proper confidence. You see, players aren’t born with confidence and they can’t go out to the mall and buy it. There are some athletes out there that show false confidence by bragging, but the truly great ones, the ones who reach their maximum potential know that they gained confidence from proper work habits day in and day out.

The final Fundamental C is consistency. That means doing what you do as well as you do it and doing it that way all the time. Working hard is not a sometime thing. Concentrating is not a part-time job. You want to be consistent in your approach in everything you do. It takes mental toughness to come to practice everyday and consistently give it your best mental and physical effort regardless of everything else going on. Hall-of-Fame baseball player Willie Mays summed it up perfectly when he said:

“In sports, it isn’t hard to be good from time to time. What’s tough is being good every day.”

A simple formula is:
CONCENTRATION leads to CONTROL…
CONTROL leads to CONFIDENCE…
CONFIDENCE leads to CONSISTENCY.

What is important to understand about confidence is that it is a result of the Ladder of Success along with the Fundamental C’s. One of the key factors in confidence is that key component of preparation. In other words, if you do your homework, you don’t have to worry about your test score.

“Confidence comes from planning and practicing well. You get ready during the week and the confidence will be there on Sunday. This confidence is a difficult thing to explain. But you do get it and the team gets it if you have prepared properly.”
-Vince Lombardi-
NFL Hall-of-Fame Coach

“One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation. Complete mental and physical preparation has to do with sacrifice and self-discipline. And that comes from within.”
-Arthur Ashe-
Legendary Tennis Player

“Confidence comes from preparation and the only way to be fully prepared is to practice something until you have it down so well that you know it will work.”
-John Havlicek-
NBA Hall-of-Fame Player

One final thought on the intangibles needed to become your absolute best is simply to maintain a good attitude. Attitude affects everything that you do on the court, in the classroom and in life. You must learn to be proactive in approaching your workouts. Our attitude is our greatest possession because it is something we completely control regardless of any and all outside benefactors. The power we have to choose our own personal attitude is tremendously important in our success. As President Thomas Jefferson said:

“Nothing can stop the person with the right mental attitude from achieving their goal; nothing on earth can help the person with the wrong mental attitude.”

LADY TIGER BASKETBALL WORKOUT (9-9-09)

Heres a look at our team workout today. NCAA allows us to work with players in groups of 4 or less up to two hours a week on the court. Today we had two post and two perimeter players in a group and these are the things we worked on:

12:30-12:38 BALL HANDLING & DRIBBLING
2 Ball Stationary Dribbling
2/0 2 Ball Passing (Hvy Trainer/Tennis Ball)
Alford Drill

12:38-12:41 SHOOTING
Partner Shooting (Jumpers/3’s/Shot Fake)

12:41-12:46 PASSING
2/2 LPF w/Relocation

12:46-12:58 CUTTING & SCREENING
8:00 2/2 Down Screen (Use Player as Passer--Call out Cut)
8:00 2/2 Back Screen to ReScreen (Use Player as Passer--Call out Cut)
6:00 2/2 Elbow Screen (Use Player as Passer -- Call out Cut)

12:58-1:02 SHOOTING
Free Throws Shoot 2, Rotate & Record

1:02-1:08 CUTTING & SCREENING
2/2 Ball Screen (Vs. Hedge Defense)

1:08-1:15 SHOOTING
2/0 DS Shooting w/2 Balls (Cutter Calls Out Cut)

1:15-1:20 DEFENSE
2/2 Contesting

1:20-1:30 OFFENSE
4/0 PE

THE LADY TIGER WAY #6

EMAIL ASSIGNMENT #2

Last week we shared our email assignment that we gave our team. We got some really positive responses so here is Email Assignment #2:

I was really pleased with the entire team in our first email assignment from the book, “The Essential Wooden,” so it is time to try another passage and see how it best relates to you and for you to share what you got from it:

Team Spirit: Six plow horses pulling in the same direction represent teamwork. However, this is not good enough – merely pulling in the same direction. Great organizations have a quality beyond simply moving toward a common goal. I call this quality Team Spirit, and I define it as an eagerness to sacrifice personal interests and glory for the good of the greatness of the team.

It is a selfless devotion to the group’s welfare and interests; it means putting ”we” ahead of “me,” which is a formidable task for the most people, including leaders. The most important team player is you. Leaders must teach those under their supervision that the team’s success is their own personal success. Selflessness is the leadership key to Team Spirit. When you and your organization are infused with the spirit of sharing – ideas, credit, work, information, and experience – here’s what happens: The team is greater than the sum of its members.

I think we can all agree that “teamwork makes the dream work!” But here is your assignment…name one thing you can do better or something you can start doing that would make you a better teammate in regard to Team Spirit…is there something you can eagerly sacrifice or contribute for the good of our team?

I look forward to your answers!!!

Have a great weekend!

NOTE: We are utilizing the book "The Essential Wooden" by John Wooden and Steve Jamison for these assignments.

THE LADY TIGER WAY #5

First workout of the season yesterday and our staff was really pleased with the effort and, more importantly, the concentration level. Our philosophy is to jump in and roll with it. We spend very little time in the first week explaining a lot of things. We will talk them through some teaching points but we want our returning players to do a lot of communicating with the new players as to what we are doing and more specifically, how we want it done. We had four different groups and the one common denominator was fundamentals -- got to start with the base. Here is a look of what we did with a particular group of perimeter players.

1:30-1:39 BALL HANDLING & DRIBBLING
2 Ball Stationary Dribbling (Hightower Lead)
2/0 2 Ball Passing (Tennis/Hvy Trainer)
Alford Drill (2 Balls)

1:39-1:43 CUTTING
2/0 V-Cuts (Both Sides)
Back Cuts: "Don't cut till the ball sees you"

1:43-1:47 SCREENING
1/0 ES to DS (Sprint to Screen --- Angles)

1:47-2:00 CUTTING
2/1 Cuts Off DS (No Shot) - call out cut

2:00-2:30 SHOOTING
DS Shooting (Curl, Straight, Flair, Back) - call out cut
ES Shooting = Reversal Curl - call out cut
ES Shooting = Flair to Jumper - call out cut
ES Shooting = Flair to Sweep, Drive & Pull Up - call out cut
BS to Re-Screen Shooting - call out cut
Ball Screen Shooting

THE LADY TIGER WAY #3

We are constantly looking for ways to make our team...

...think

...learn

...communicate

One of the ways we do that is through a quick email to provoke a response. They don't have a deadline. Just the next time they get to their email with a few extra minutes. Here is what we sent to our team tonight:

OK Team! I will occasionally be emailing you something of value that I think you should read or know. At least once a week during the fall I will include a passage from “The Essential Wooden,” a book about the great Coach Wooden. It is a book about leadership and since we believe in 360 Degree Leadership, than we expect each of our Lady Tigers to lead themselves as well and help lead our team. The passage will be short and followed with a question that I want you to answer and return to me. Here is the first passage of the year:

"These words are worth consideration. They go straight to the core of being an effective leader: ‘Live as though you’ll die tomorrow, Learn as though you’ll live forever.’”

What does this phrase mean to you? Email me back and let me know...THANKS - Coach Starkey

THE LADY TIGER WAY #4

After a day of activity, our team joins all the other athletes at LSU for the annual CHAMPS Back to School Bash. It is sponsor by the CHAMPS/Life Skills program at LSU. Director Mike Mallet, assisted by Jade Jenkins put together a tremendous amount of activities for the student-athletes ranging from health issues, to job fairs, to resume writing and a great deal more. What I like the most about CHAMPS is that it is sponsored by one of my former players, Shaquille O'Neal. Mike deserves all the credit for getting Shaq on board whom we should nickname "The Big Giver" for how much he does to help LSU. But while most of the issues that CHAMPS delves in are serious in nature, tonight is about starting off the school year with a lot of fun and camaraderie.

Now make no mistake about it -- while this function is a blast -- it also serves an important function. We firmly believe that to have a successful team, you must do things off the court as well as on the court. It helps that Mike used to be a successful basketball coach before coming to LSU and he has an understanding of that principle. Our administration also realizes this principle and supports the back to school bash as well.

As a coach, you need to look for these type of moments to build your team. If they aren't built in through your school, develop some on your own.

Check here for more on our CHAMPS Program:

http://www.acsa.lsu.edu/champs/index.php

THE LADY TIGER WAY #2

OFFICE (8-23-2009) - First team meeting of the year is over. It started off great with all 14 players seated in Sandy & Stephen Lucas Theater, 13 minutes before our official start time. Being on time is not the Lady Tiger Way -- being early is and it's nice to see a new team start of the year. The one quality of Coach Chancellor's that stands out is enthusiasm -- he's always "on!" Today was no exception. After passing out the notebooks we then went over some of our guidelines. We like to use the word "guidelines" as opposed to "rules." Coach Chancellor starts by stating that these guidelines aren't just about being a good student-athlete -- "these are guidelines that will serve you successful for the rest of your life."

Key guidelines for Lady Tigers include:

-Puncuality (don't be on time -- be early)

-Appearance (represent the program)

-Conduct (do the right thing, the right way, everytime)

-Team (be there for each other, help each other)

Don't seem like much but it has been the secret for our success for years. It has became a staple in our program to where the upperclassmen teach the new players and they actually police themselves. A perfect example is two years ago at a summer weight session, a player showed up two minutes late. NCAA rules do not permit the strength coach to discipline in the summer at all. So the team huddled up and decided that after weights that they would run a mile as a team to "punish" themselves for a teammate's mistake. That team won the SEC and played in our 5th consecutive Final Four.

After the guidelines, it was time for expectations. Coach Chancellor kept that short and simple as well.

"With such a young team last year, we had an excellent fall and laid the foundation for a good season," he said to them today. "But our defintion of a great fall this year will be one where we work hard than we did a year ago. We know more coming into this season as players and as a team and we need to commit to doing more and doing it better."

He spoke about this effecting our conditioning, strength training and basketball.

And with that, the first team meeting was over -- 30 minutes. Perfect! The players than left to go have physicals and meet with team doctors and then off to the first academic seminar of the year. They will finish up later tonight at the CHAMPS Back to School Bash and I'll have some photos and updates from that later.

THE LADY TIGER WAY #1

OFFICE (8-23-2009) - Today officially starts the 2009-2010 season for the LSU Lady Tigers Basketball Team. At 2:00 PM today we will have our first official team meeting. And then we're off...

What we want to do with our blog this year is give everyone inside glimpses as to how a collegiate basketball program is run -- THE LADY TIGER WAY!

We are talking about some amazing access as to what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we will attempt to do it.

Certainly there are as many ways to run a program as there are coaches but hopefully through the course of the season, you gather some insight from what we do at LSU that might benefit you and your program.

We will post blog updates on things life staff meetings, practices, game preparation and team meetings. We will post blog updates from the office, the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, the bus and hotels from road games. Our goal is to, through this blog, give you a look into a college basketball program on daily basis.

There will be updates from areas that many coaches understand but little is written about -- specifically about marking and promotions of a program.

For those that want an even great look into our Lady Tiger Program, please follow me on twitter at: http://twitter.com/LSUCoachStarkey.

I plan on twittering about our program "right there on the spot." Tweets will come from:
--practice...during breaks I will give you thoughts about our practice
--before tip-off...tweets about pre-game talks
--half-time...updates about our adjustments
--post game...immediate follow-ups straight from the locker room

Blog entries specific to our program will be titled, "The Lady Tiger Way." Certain posts will include my email to allow you a chance to ask questions and at times for me to invoke your advice and thoughts on what our program is going through at that time.

If we could, we would like to ask one favor: in an attempt to increase of viewership, we'd love for your to forward that is post: http://hoopthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/lady-tiger-way-1.html to other coaches you know. We think the more coaches we get involved the better this blog will be.

Talk to you this afternoon following the team meeting!