HELPSIDE DEFENSE GUIDELINES

Excellent, defined parameters for good helpside play via Coach Rick Majerus.  These don't have to be your principles but the key is what are your principles of helpside play -- and more importantly, do you players know?

1.       Help Stance

a.       No cuts below you

b.      Jump to ball in stance with vision and talk

c.       One step off line of the ball

d.      If anything, be close to the ball

2.       Help on Baseline Drive

a.       Attack to below the block

b.      Attack outside the lane

3.       Helpside Flash

a.       No one cuts below you

b.      Move on a diagonal to the cutter

c.       Meet at or outside the lane

d.      Maintain ear in the chest

e.      Through you! Stand him up

f.        Deny to the top and force back door

g.       Butt to the ball

4.       Helpside Blockout

a.       Get outside the lane- make the hit

b.      If your man doesn’t go, step at him & rebound down.

5.       Helpside vs. The Lob

a.       Come low and outside of lane-thru you.

b.      Deflection-only if you know you can get it.

JAY BILAS ON PUSHING LIMITS

Our team passout today via the book "Toughness" by Jay Bilas.

COACH WOODEN ON PRACTICE PLANNING

As we quickly approach the first of our practice sessions, here are some great thoughts on practice planning from Coach John Wooden:

“I would spend almost as much time planning a practice as conducting it. Everything was planned out each day. In fact, in my later years at UCLA I would spend two hours every morning with my assistants organizing that day’s practice sessions (even though the practice itself might be less than two hours long). I kept a record of every practice session in a loose-leaf notebook for future reference. Prior to practice time, the secretary would type the entire daily plan onto a 3x5 index card, gave them to me, and I distributed them to all coaches and managers. Those cards informed every staff member of all activities and the exact time each would start and finish. As a result, coaches and managers were prepared to quickly transition from activity to activity without any wasted time. Every second is important…”

QUALITIES OF A SERVANT LEADER

Preparing to start our season-long study on leadership with our Aggie Leadership Council. Our council is made up of members of our team and we will meet weekly to discuss, learn and develop leadership concepts.  The core of our group will be centered with the goal of being Servant Leaders.  In dong some research today for workbooks, I came across an outstanding blog post from Skip Pritchard dealing with nine qualities of servant leaders.  You can read the entire post here but here is a brief look at the nine qualities:

1. Values diverse opinions.
A servant leader values everyone’s contributions and regularly seeks out opinions.  If you must parrot back the leader’s opinion, you are not in a servant-led organization.

2. Cultivates a culture of trust.
People don’t meet at the water cooler to gossip. Pocket vetoes are rejected.

3.  Develops other leaders.
The replication factor is so important.  It means teaching others to lead, providing opportunities for growth and demonstrating by example.  That means the leader is not always leading, but instead giving up power and deputizing others to lead.

4.  Helps people with life issues (not just work issues).
It’s important to offer opportunities for personal development beyond the job.  Let’s say you run a company program to lose weight, or lower personal debt, or a class on etiquette.  None of these may help an immediate corporate need, but each may be important.

5.  Encourages.
The hallmark of a servant leader is encouragement.  And a true servant leader says, “Let’s go do it,” not, “You go do it.”

6.  Sells instead of tells.
A servant leader is the opposite of a dictator. It’s a style all about persuading, not commanding.

7.  Thinks “you,” not “me.”
There’s a selfless quality about a servant leader.  Someone who is thinking only, “How does this benefit me?” is disqualified.

8.  Thinks long-term.
A servant leader is thinking about the next generation, the next leader, the next opportunity. That means a tradeoff between what’s important today versus tomorrow, and making choices to benefit the future.

9.  Acts with humility.
The leader doesn’t wear a title as a way to show who’s in charge, doesn’t think he’s better than everyone else, and acts in a way to care for others.  She may, in fact, pick up the trash or clean up a table.  Setting an example of service, the servant leader understands that it is not about the leader, but about others.

COACH MEYER ACADEMY NOTES FROM 1994

Coach Ari Fisher whom I worked with on the staff at LSU forwarded me some of his old Coach Don Meyer notes -- from the 1994 Academy.  As Coach Fisher said, "Amazing how this still holds true."

Suck Scum = pay dues, nothing is above you in the program (Wooden sweeping floor himself)  

Know why you coach = ask yourself what it would feel like to be coached by yourself

Ideas= you can’t use every idea; must use what fits within your personality and personal style of play 

Why am I coaching? = must have detailed, specific answer, nothing to do with x’s and o’s (Meyer/help build a foundation for life and how young people should treat others regardless of circumstance)  Listen to older coaches; even if you dislike them or their methods or system of play

Learn from games = NBA, high school, WNBA, D-1, 2, 3, JUCO, NAIA (tape as many games as possible)     

Young coaches problems= transition (defense), zone offense, press offense, rebounding….. 

Wooden = “Love and balance” avoids burnout & shows kids they aren’t tools but are human beings  

Mandatory reading = ‘Make the Big Time Where You are’ by Frosty Westering FB coach at Pacific Lutheran College   

Three golden rules of coaching = preparation, preparation, preparation, 

Reason to help others = because you want to or because it is right; not because it is nice or makes you feel good OR you hope someone does something for you; better to want them to pay it

Confidence = comes from trusting fundamentals, preparation, and knowing everyone else on team has the same feeling- it is done through teaching, practice under game conditions, and attitude of perfection, “demonstrated ability”- Bill Parcells  

Careful what you say = a life can be destroyed in the few seconds something pours out of your mouth.  There aint no rebound button on life.

Over check = ‘check, check, and recheck’.  Expect, Inspect, Accept 

Careful scheduling = must breed or create confidence before league or conference games.  With a good team, do not go overboard so kids will still be fresh and crisp mentally and physically during March 

Ownership = players call out drills, have a phone list for emergencies, communication paramount between players, coaches, and coaches to players      

Concept of how to play = uncomfortable pace, must be able to speed up or slow down equally well

Team building = winning is not enough, developing a team is most important

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COACH NEWELL

It's Coach Pete Newell's birthday so in honor of this tremendous teacher, here are some of our posts from Coach:

Pete Newell: The Leadership Example

Motion Isn't For Everyone: Believe and Know What Your Teach

Taking The Other Team Out of Their Offense While You Still Have the Ball

Pete Newell: An Inside Look

Pete Newell on the Pros and Cons of a Changing Defensive System

Coach Newell: I Wanted to Make Them Figure it Out

Wise Words from Coach Newell

What You Do You've Got to Know

A great list of articles on Coach Newell that ran in papers across the country when he passed.

SUMLIN: "WE CONSIDER OURSELVES A DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAM

I love this quote by Texas A&M football coach Kevin Sumlin.  Our Aggie football team will soon take play in the renovated Kyle Field -- arguably the nicest, most modern collegiate football facility in the nation.  But still, Coach Sumlin doesn't want his team and program to forget what their program is about:

“A sense of responsibility. Here, we consider ourselves a developmental program. We’ve got a lot of bells and whistles and a lot of TVs, a lot of flat screens — I don’t know how many TVs we’ve got in this place, but I don’t want to get that confused with what this program’s really about.”

DANSBY SWANSON'S OPPONENT? LIFE

Big thanks to Lipscomb coach Greg Brown for forwarding me this article on Dansby Swanson that was written by Jason Quick for OrgeonLive.com.   I'm going to post a few big take aways from the article but I promise you'll want to click hear and read Quick's article in its entirety.  In fact, it will be an article that we will run and give to our team to read.

Here are some great parts of the article:

Quick talked about pushing Swanson with some tough questions but having no luck:

But through all my probing and pushing, and all his thoughtful answers, I couldn't find the hook to his story.

I sighed.

"You are tough,'' I told him.

He turned his head in confusion, then showed intrigue as I explained the basics of profile writing. The best profiles identify a protagonist and an antagonist, while developing the tug of war, or conflict, between the two. Sometimes, the story leads to a resolution, and other times it alludes to the clash ahead.

He nodded.

"You can't get the antagonist,'' Swanson surmised, before pausing. "Well ... I guess I feel life is too short to be negative.''

Then, it started to unfold. The protagonist, this great baseball player who has lived a charmed life, unknowingly started to reveal his antagonist.

His reveal wasn't what I expected from a 21-year-old, let alone a rising star who was hours from playing in his 11^th professional game.

That antagonist pitted against Swanson? Life, and how the trends of society are threatening the way we treat each other, the way we interact. The challenge before him? Leading by example to initiate change.

He admits his life includes little else besides baseball, and the pursuit of greatness in the sport.

However, he knows the better he becomes, the greater stage he has to lead his charge for change.

"This is how I look at this,'' Swanson says. "Obviously, I've been blessed with a great platform. What I do with it is my gift back.''

Quick asked him about his what he wanted his platform to be about:

"Make this world a better place,'' Swanson said. "I've always thought about that question. Does what I'm involved in make everything better? Does me being on this team make the team better? Does me being here make this park better? Because I've lived in this world, is it better? I think that's important because it doesn't happen enough with people.''

He leans in and re-establishes eye contact, his deeper point about to arrive.

"Because, you see, people are so consumed with things that don't matter. In the grand scheme, what matters is how happy you are and how happy you make others. That's so lost these days. Everyone is so driven and they have their blinders on. So we end up living in a society where everything is me, me, me, me, me, me ... they don't worry about anything else around them. (Life) is more than a just-about- yourself type deal.''

And then he spoke about his love for his school:

Swanson says Vanderbilt is a life-shaping program, which is why he cried after the final out this season.

"I didn't cry because we had just lost,'' Swanson said. "I cried because I didn't want to leave. What has been built there is soooo incredible. You are surrounded with the best people you can imagine, and you know as well as I do that when you surround yourself with good people, it makes you better. And that's what we take pride in: making each other better. Not just baseball wise. In school, as a person, you name it. That's why I want to back to live in Nashville, so I can be around everyone.''

It was at Vanderbilt where the roots of his leadership skills took hold. When he was injured his freshman year, he observed the different types of leadership exhibited by various seniors. He found he gravitated toward the exuberant leadership of Tony Kemp.

"I found that the best leaders are the ones who are servant based first,'' Swanson said. "There is a difference between leadership and authority. Authority is more of a title, whereas a leader is the one who is always helping someone first. I think that gets lost in translation these days. Just because you have power doesn't make you a leader.''

COACH SABAN CAMP LECTURE 2014

Another classic Nick Saban lecture at his summer camp.  We posted one from Coach Saban's camp in 2011 and was one we shared with our own team.  This one comes from camp in 2014.

BRIAN KIGHT: 5 THINGS I WISH I'D LEARNED EARLIER IN LIFE

I've came across an amazing blog by Brian Kight. Brian is part of a leadership team titled Focus 3.  I came across Brian and Focus 3 reading a story about Urban Meyer and how he has utilized the Focus 3 program to develop leadership skills with his Ohio State Buckeyes.  This particular blog was titled "5 Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier in Life."  I've seen lists like these before but no effected me quite like this one.  They are each profound in their own right.  You can read the entire blog here:

1. Don't equate the delay of consequences with the absence of consequences.
My dad said this all the time. All. The. Time. As a kid & young adult it mostly annoyed me. Now I see how true it is. Just because you don't see the cause & effect of your actions in the moment doesn't mean they're not happening. You can't see gravity either. There are consequences for all of our decisions. Sometimes they take years to realize. 

2. You will work hard early in life or late in life, but you will have to work hard.
In general, most people avoid truly hard work. I don't mean staying busy or active. I'm talking about hard, uncomfortable work that creates explosive growth. Things like changing habits, launching your own business, addressing your fears, or practicing an unfamiliar skill. If you don't put in the work early it doesn't go away. It just comes later at an inconvenient time when you're more set in your ways. Do your hardest work early so you can reap the benefits later. 

3. Studying & practicing is about building skills.
Whether high school, college, or a job -- it's about developing your skills. It's not about what you know or memorize. It's about what you can do & how well you can do it. Devote less time time to showing what you know. Devote more time to building life skills & job skills. And understanding how those skills help you perform on the field or in the workplace.

4. Caring is a choice, not a feeling.
I learned this years ago & it changed my life. I can choose to care. Despite how I feel. It has transformed the way I interact with strangers, my family & my fiancé. Here is the definition I use, "Find out what is important to the other person & make it important to you in a way they can feel it." What's the best part? It creates an emotional connection! People feel better when you choose to care. And so will you.

5. You can be "right" & ineffective.
This was a big one for me. Being right was important. And I often made the mistake of hammering people with facts, opinions, examples, & conclusions until they conceded the point. I failed to grasp that in the process of proving myself right, I annoyed people & made the situation much worse. It's better to focus on being productive. Focus on understanding the situation better or what it looks like from another person's perspective. Remember that the end result is far more important than whoever is "right". In today's world, being "right" is usually a combination of many inputs.