The Hands of a Sherpa...

 

This blog was started a few years ago with the title and idea of helping coaches, and maybe some parents and athletes, to navigate the fluid world of youth sports in a sometimes feral atmosphere.

The depths can be frightening and paralyzing, sometimes causing the principle irreparable harm and a possible future career guiding young people into adulthood with sport.

Yet the heights can be overwhelming and almost spiritual. Seeing a player you helped guide, like a sherpa on K2, accomplish their goals and dreams is nothing short of euphoria, giving you confidence for the next athlete that comes your way.

While we as coaches can make careers and businesses on these accomplishments, it's always important to put our egos aside and recognize that however large we feel our contributions were, the athlete is the nucleus of that growth atom.

A 12 year old boy leaves a note for his Mom. "Could u please wake me up at 7:00. And could u leave me a couple of dollars. James Harden. P.S. Keep this paper. Imma be a ⭐.

His love of the game drove this 12 year old to get to the courts early, to play, work on his game and an inner confidence that shone through this note has made Harden a future Hall of Fame guard in the NBA.

Maybe a Mother knows or maybe she just wanted what made her son happy at the time. Harden  probably couldn't have known the path his career would take but that inner confidence was a catalyst for his work ethic and skill acquisition. Along the way, Harden probably had coaches he would credit for his success but it was 12 year old James who made the decision to get up early and work. It was James who put the time in and learned. And it is James who will retire as one of the greatest shooting guards in NBA history.

When she was in fifth grade, a skinny but athletic youngster from Burleson, Texas told her teacher she would be in the Olympics some day. Her teacher scoffed and rebuffed her, telling her she was dreaming and she should set her sights on realities and leave the pipe dreams aside.

That night, the young girls painted this.

Crying a river of tears as she dreamed of being an Olympian, this young 12 year old, who was playing softball, volleyball, basketball, track and every other sport she could muster, put her confidence in overdrive and the work she put in followed.

Stacy Sykora joined the USA National team in 1999 and wound up a three time USA Olympian, a multi year winner of Libero of the Year and finished her career in 2011 after a life altering bus accident in Brazil. Her high school, club and college coaches had a hand in her success and perhaps it was a fifth grade teacher who could take most of the credit. But it is Stacy who is a model of grit and determination, of beating the odds with her work ethic and confidence. 

On a Christmas morning in 1987, a three year old boy is gifted a play hoop and ball. His other toys surround him in the picture, but the smile on his face holding the tiny basketball is infectious. 

Thirty seven years later, this young boy has toppled nearly every NBA record printed. He is playing in his 21st season still revered as one of the best in the game. His work ethic to get to this place is the lore of legends. 

LeBron James' first hoop at 3 didn't make him the conversation starter of greatest players of all time. He has a confidence, a standard he continues to hold himself AND his teammates to. He has won four NBA Championships in ten appearances. That is not luck. That is drive, intelligence and the goal to stay physically superior to all he plays against. While a three year old might have the dream, it is the next 37 years that dictate the epic saga that is LeBron's career.

"We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort." - Jesse Owens.

If you are a Coach, (or a teacher), we can all  be Sherpas. We can help guide our athletes up and down the mountains and valleys. We can urge them to take the steps, forge their own way in the paths we have laid out for them, but make no mistake, it is their lungs burning at the top of the mountain. 

Be humble, accept that we can only be part of greatness, not the only reason. Great athletes recognize who their guide was along the toughest parts of their journey. Sometimes they will remember and tell you, other times they may not. Either way, relish the moments you have as the Sherpa in the life of your athletes. NBA stars, Olympians, Super Bowl Champions, Premiere League winners or simply kids who needed someone to believe in them, build their confidence and teach them the meaning of hard work in the sport they love. Both are equally paramount.

Coach, what you do is important. You are important. Whether they say it or not, your athletes thank you and appreciate you when we do it right.

Happy Holidays.

Six Smart Stocking Stuffers...

Happy Holidays. It's another installment of quotes from people way smarter than us, this one a six-set-sampler for around the tree.

First up is Oxford Brookes University Senior Lecturer and Subject Coordinator for Sport, Coaching & PE, Danny Newcombe. Here, Danny talks about the idea of giving our athletes problems to solve instead of the solution first.

"So, once we set that problem, then how do we help them? How do we support the players to solve it? So, it's not just, ‘I’m going to throw the child in the deep end of the swimming pool’ and set the problem. but I have to coach. What I’ve seen, I guess, is we coach the solutions before we've set the problem. So, it's not the game as the teacher because I still think there's a vital role in what the coach says in that process.” 

Chris Chamides is in his 3rd season as the head women's soccer coach at Loyola Marymount University. In that three years, he has taken a program not known at all for soccer and turned them into a WCC feared opponent. He was named the WCC Coach of the Year for 2024, and in this chat, he speaks of under coaching to get to know his players and what they are capable of.

“The reads that a player has to make cannot be something where they're glancing over the sideline to me. They have to be in real time like any athlete does. And with that, I have to foster that. I have to foster that sense of ownership for their game. And so, for them to get to their highest levels, I have to give them a million reps of freedom in order for me to understand how they're wired and how they typically do things without ignoring me, just how they do things. And once I understand how they do things: how they pass the ball, what choices they make, what are their inclinations in this moment versus that moment, once I understand them really well, then I can begin to coach them. So, I under coach to learn them. I don't want to give them too much information. And then once I get them going where I have a sense as we as a staff, can kind of wrap our head around who they are as a player, then we begin to give some information, not too much, just some in order for them, in my opinion, that maximizes their abilities in the long run and it makes them enjoy their game more.” 

"You can't really influence somebody until you meet them where they are and then lead them from that point. You can't just get frustrated that they're not where you want them to be. You got to figure out where they are. why they are there, connect with them at that point, and then build up some equity to influence."

This sage advice comes from Jenny Boucek, a former player, WNBA coach and now an assistant coach with the NBA's Indiana Pacers. She speaks from several opportunities to coach and interactions with players. 

Staying with the NBA, New Jersey Nets Head Coach Jordi Fernandez, who has coached with some of the NBA's greatest, saw his team coming together a few weeks ago after a win over the Phoenix Suns. It was also a win the same day he found out his top player and leading scorer would be lost for a month due to injury.

"I think that we're coming together. We're valuing the same things. At the beginning, you hear it, but you know, you start buying into it when you see it, and that's the most important thing. In every five-game series, we were two and three, and finally, in this one, where we're three and one right now, we have the opportunity for one more before we play the fifth. And it's important, because that shows you growth. A lot of times you look at the season, like, 82 games, and you can get lost with, you know, goals. It's a lot of games coming at you. So, I learned that from teams that I've been with and always has helped your focus. Whether you're in a good place or you're struggling, you got to look at things with perspective and find the positives and clean up the negatives. And I think that that was a big step. It was our second chance that we had to win three in a row, the first time we couldn't do it, we couldn't accomplish it. And now we did."

Harvard Professor, author, podcaster and self described happiness expert Arthur Brooks spoke of the disconnect when trying to solve complicated and complex problems.

"In mathematics, there's two kinds of problems. There's complicated problems and complex problems. It sounds like I’m splitting hairs, but I’m not. Complicated problems are solvable with enough genius, but they don't change, and you've got a solution forever. Complex problems are human and dynamic. They're behavioral. They're like falling in love or winning the Super Bowl. Those are complex problems. You can simulate the Super Bowl, the Patriots versus the Seahawks, over and over and over and over again, and you're not going to get it right, because it's a highly complex and epic human situation. So, if your work is all that complex, 1,000% it's about love. It's about success. It's about human interaction. It's about sports interpretation of the experience. We've got all these complicated solutions to complex problems, and that's why we feel empty."

Finally, Pittsburgh Pirates skills coordinator, mental performance coach Andy Bass tries to drill down on what constraints actually are in coaching, how they can be used and how coaches should use this as a tool, not a coaching replacement.

“I wish he'd made a different name than constraint. It does not mean inhibiting movement. That can happen, but it's not a constraint. It isn't a strait jacket where you're limiting movement and signaling movement. It's a constraint, like an evolutionary constraint. It’s basically allowing the drill to do the talking. And I know that from a purely theoretical standpoint. I think coaches hear this and they say, well, I should never talk. Not true at all. Outcome goals give them external cues, but it's thinking about making the drill get more information in the coaching itself. It's not tones when you're drilling through in soccer. It's allowing the environment to dictate the outcome of the movement, and it's allowing the athlete to explore through failure and variability, versus one guided repetition."

 Books, interviews, podcasts; however we can get you more information, we will continue to do so. If you have any for us to share, please forward to erichbke@msn.com.