Five More Quotes From Smart People

Our first of five comes from former Olympic Marathoner and Coach Mark Coogan gave us this absolute gem of the realities of being an Olympic athlete;

"You have to put in 100% effort to extract a 1% improvement, and that 1% improvement is kind of what keeps us going forward. And to give that 100% , knowing that you might only get 1% back, that's the true courage."

Remember the last 11 year old you coached? Or maybe the last 17 year old? Maybe it didn't seem like they were giving 100% because they were slow to process or their body hadn't caught up with their mind yet. But this is a daunting proposition that we ask of our athletes each and every practice. It deserves our utmost respect and to be grateful for that courage!

"Coddling produces an ineptness that doesn't prepare us to survive, much less thrive. If Momma bird over cares for her young, then nature will destroy them. The bird that can't fly or hunt doesn't eat. The bird that doesn't eat doesn't survive. Bye bye Baby Bird. It is Momma Bird's responsibility to prepare her young to survive and it is our responsibility as leaders and Parents to prepare our young to survive. We don't do that by coddling them."

Authors Chris McAlister and Bret Burchard in their book "Leading for Impact" talk about how we as coaches, parents and leaders are letting down our kids, students and athletes by not holding them accountable and  how too many leaders are leading for validation, not impact, and modern leadership development isn’t helping people become great leaders.

Long Beach Men's Volleyball Coach Alan Knipe has been the leader of one of the most consistently excellent volleyball programs in the country for the last decade. In his tenure as the Long Beach coach, he took a four year hiatus to coach the 2012 USA Men's team in London. Here, Knipe talks about why WHEN we give feedback is as important as what feedback we give as coaches.

"It's not that it doesn't matter that we just made an error or we made a mistake or we did something out of character that doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter right now. It matters after the match in between sets in video session tomorrow as we go on Mindset Monday. It doesn't matter right now because it doesn't have anything to do with us winning the next point. So once you can kind of get to that point that you can go back later and talk about things you don't have to fix everything real time because it's not going to help them win the next point. "

"If you were to use for example, like an American baseball pitcher or any golfer, you look at that situation when they're getting ready to pitch and no one says anything to them. When someone's getting ready to hit a golf ball, they're going to go to their backswing, the whole crowd, they put signs up that say quiet, be quiet. And it's a technique sport, right so they don't want that. But in volleyball, even though it's a highly highly technical sport and techniques work, we tend to constantly coach about their last play and their technique, but then ask them to be really dialed in and focus on the next point. I don't think that the athletes over time can mentally do that very well. So the idea is to try to be so good in training that we can truly allow them to be as freed up as possible on the court to make the proper reads during the game. But more importantly than how, and this is probably the most vital part, is in between the points as they prep for the next point, is their total focus on just winning the next point there."

Coach and Communication Specialist Betsy Butterick was on a recent podcast talking about one of the most frustrating elements of being an athlete; the inconsistent coach. In interviewing an athlete, Butterick continued...

"She was like, I'm just ready for the season to be done which was very different than how she felt during basketball. I'm like, Well, why what's going on? And she said, I'm just tired of my coach's inconsistencies. And when I started asking more questions about that, she's like, some days, he shows up hot and he's mad when we start practice, and it's a long day. And then he comes back the next day and wants to be everybody's best friend. He just doesn't have a consistency in how he shows up. And that really makes it tough for the players because they don't know what to expect. And they're not really sure how to interact with him, depending on the mood he might be in or frustrated from the last game. And so it just makes that environment very difficult for them. I think that's true for parents and administrators as well, like the biggest headaches come from coaches, that are just not consistent with how they enforce policies or how they communicate. That you can be going on Friday and play on Saturday, JP is going on Friday but doesn't play till the following Wednesday, with no explanation. And so you know, those inconsistencies just produce headache after headache after headache, and they frustrate everybody around the coach. And I think something related to that maybe is just, for lack of a better word, is hypocrisy."
This inconsistency can be the death knell to a culture and can lost your athletes trust and focus quickly. Butterick's point that it is not just an athlete that suffers but Parents and other coaches as well. Consistency is a must in leading a program.
Finally, from another future Hall of Fame Coach, Nebraska's John Cook talks about how his newfound love of riding and roping has translated into him being a better coach for his players.
"When I'm roping on horses, I'm not thinking about any of that stuff. I'm thinking about staying on the horse, doing my job on something that's very fast, but I'm also learning. I'm learning a ton from these cowboys. You might think this is nuts, but I wish I could write a book on this. Now I've got the chapters in my head. But what I've learned from the cowboys and how they work with horses is made me a better coach because especially when you're riding a horse, you're trying to get that horse to trust you. You're trying to get them to do what you want him to do, but you can't talk to him. That's one of the things I see with young coaches. They all want to talk all the time. When you go watch these young coaches, they all stop every two minutes. They've got to talk, talk, talk. It's what I see in club practices, because they have to show everybody how much they know. Horses can't talk. So you have to get them to feel and trust and understand what you want and so it's now how I look at coaching. And as I'm riding horses, I got to get these players to trust and feel what they need to do and the cowboys have really really helped me with this."
It's an exemplary trait for a successful coach to always be looking for another edge. Using riding and roping, Cook reexamines how he relates to his athletes to get the best out of them. 
What can we do in our lives and hobbies to elicit a better coach inside all of us?

Replantear....

Reframing is a strategy that people can use, either on their own or in therapy, to help adjust their mindset. 

Seems simple enough. Find the positive in the negative. See the light instead of the dark, OR find the things to DO in the dark that you can't do in the light.

We, as coaches, can use this to our advanteage and disadvantage throughout a season. But working with coaches this week, a familiar pattern emerges from the summer camp season.

A coach will talk about their team with a fixture on the work ahead. "They can't pass,", "She is too slow," "They have a low volleyball I.Q.,"  "She isn't a leader," "They are too short to block," "She has a slow armswing," "She is late to everything," and on and on it goes.

So reframing the questions at hand coach, how about asking the following:

What CAN they do? What are their strentghs? Why are they at camp on the top court? What do you see in them that put them here?

We tend to spend so much time on what we want and can't have instead of what we do have in front of us. Coach, can we limit the bad passers in serve recieve with a creative rotation? Can we put the setter in a position where she can get to the ball quicker? Can we help this player grow as a leader? Can we play more in practice to help the team's volleyball I.Q?

The culture of the team isn't what you are looking for. They can get cranky with each other, they snipe and judge and can be inhospitable to one another. 

But coach, what IS good about the culture? They seem to work hard together, they love to compete. They enjoy being pushed out of their comfort zones. Can we focus on these traits and work with the others as the season progresses? 

We are surrounded by negatives all day. The news, social media, politics, sports, entertainment. It's hard to find positivity in our culture these days. It certainly isn't at one's fingertips BUT we do appreciate it. Who remembers during COVID when the Office star John Krasinski put together positive posts and stories once a week called, "Some Good News." just to offset the constant barrage of negativity streaming through our lives at that time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5pgG1M_h_U With over 19 million viewers on a YouTube post, it was clear then, as it is today, we need positivity and reframing in our lives now more than ever.

"I can't believe she just let's balls drop in front of her," "None of you talk," "We are doing lines if you make one more mistake," "We are running a lap for each missed serve this tournament." 

Coach, none of your players are trying to lose on purpose, trying to screw up, trying to make you mad or look bad. Chances are YOU are the culprit of these mistakes and misinformation. You haven't coached them well enough yet. See the mistakes for what they are. A chance to make a young person feel good about themselves, to help them succeed on THEIR terms, to help them become better players and part of a bigger mission: the team. Reframe your frustration into learning opportunties for your players AND yourself.

Reframing is a life tool, an educational tool, a coaching tool. It costs nothing but a little time, a mindset change and some patience. Give your athletes opportunities, not punsihments. See the positives and highlight them and work to repair or minimize the negatives. Find what each player can BRING to your program instead of constantly reminding yourself what they can't do for you and the team.

They are worth the time. And so are you, Coach.

Five for the 4th

We present another installment of five quotes in which smart and accomplished people give us new ideas and thoughts about life and how we can apply those to our coaching minds.

"I've been in the presence of so many people from whom through osmosis and watching them work. I have learned things about physical comedy, about the nuances of comedy, about the fullness of comedy, but there's always room to learn more. And for me that is an incredibly joyful adventure."

Comedian and actress Susie Essman gives us another example of the process. Her time in the comedy clubs of the Northeast to her hilarious role as Susie Green on the long-running sitcom, "Curb your Enthusiasm." Her joy of the journey kept her head above water during the lean years and the rejections and helped her secure a sitcom for which she has enjoyed for the last 24 years.

"Guess what the number one predictory variable is for mental toughness? When I'm interviewing coaches, scouts, fighter pilot trainers;  guess what they think? The predictor is what they look for. Yeah, like one of the first things that they look for because actually the majority of people who need people to have some level of mental toughness, don't believe they can grow it in people.  Because of this one predictor variable. Humility."

Brene' Brown discussed this idea of humilty being a difference maker in mental toughness. As coaches, we work to instill the quality into our athletes, but are we just as good modeling humilty for them? As coaches, athletes and even parents and fans, the idea of humility is swimming upstream against the raging stream of youth sports. Social media, awards and rewards, recognition and on it goes. Humility is a strength to be worked out each day, especially with those we coach.

"We use language everyday. Whether we use it by speaking or writing or signing. And we do it without thinking about it. Sometimes we think about the words we're going to say and they just tumble out of our mouths, or we make these incredibly sophisticated, meaningful utterances, without any upfront planning at all, without the awareness about the amazing blend of brain processes and bodily processes that it takes just to make one word, let alone combine them into making phrases. And when I said something, the remarkable thing is that the listener can understand it, and words are just puffs of air that is received and then translate back into brainwaves and that activates their brains. So this is such a remarkable, complex, sophisticated process that we use just without thinking about it every day of our lives for everything. Whether it's for social relationships, for our work, for talking about what we're gonna do or reflect about the past expressing emotions. So it goes right to the heart of everything we do." 

Author of "The Language Puzzle,"  Steven Mithen talks about, well...talking. His point of how amazing the idea of language has evolved and continues to affect nearly everything in our lives leads us, as coaches, to honor this miracle and use it effectively, positively and sparingly.

"The very first slide I offer says, research your own experience, absorb what is useful, discard what is not and add what is uniquely your own. This is the journey that we all should be on."

Shawn Myszka is a Ecologoical Dynamics proponent who has started his own company, Emergence, to help coaches and players train more effectively and efficiently. His quote is one that every coach should take to heart. Not everything is for everybody, not every player, sport or movement is the same and we, as coaches, need to meet players and teams where they are and take them to the next level. The tools we use are valuable but there can be many options. As a Coach, research, absorb, discard and add.

Finally from leadership and culture guru Jennifer Garvey Berger who succinctly puts our coaching goal in front of us:  "Create the conditions for good things to happen."  

This is a great one to end on. It's simplicity is brilliant, it's impact neverending. 

Dear Coach...They Deserve Better!

Dear Coach. Yes, you, the assistant Coach in Enumclaw, Washington. The one who got a call from the head coach less than an hour before the start of practice last week that he couldn’t come that night and you to run practice. You, the coach that was running the last practice for this exceptional 17’s team before it headed to Las Vegas for Nationals three days later. The Coach that decided the best idea for practice that night was for this 17’s team to run 16 sets of lines. SIXTEEN sets of lines. Obviously, running these lines would put these 17-year-olds in penultimate shape for the tournament ahead. Now, after these 16 sets of lines, this team would run anaerobic circles around their opponents.

Seemingly, it never occurred to this coach that maybe playing was a better option than running. It would be a bit of a surprise if this group of 17’s didn’t already know how to run and sprint. Having played volleyball for years, it’s hard to imagine that this team didn’t possess the skills to sprint after a ball, transition quickly off the net or approach for an attack. Obviously, this coach knows his players better than I, but his default was in fact, running. Coach, your athletes deserve so much better from you.

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/to-the-coach-who-ruined-the-game-for-me

Dear Coach, the one who coaches a co-op team from Lidgerwood and Wyndmere athletes in North Dakota. The one who has several exceptional athletes: a 5-10 setter with butter for hands, a strong quick middle, a legit outside hitter and a feisty libero who vacuums the back court. Yes, Coach, you! The one who does the same thing at practice every day: twenty minutes of passing on their knees, serve receive drills, hitting lines and finishes- if there is time left- with some 6 v 6.

Coach, we understand that you are also teaching history and have a family of your own. But accepting the job of a high school volleyball coach and the stipend that comes with it also requires you to put some thought into the athletes you are coaching. It requires you to learn about the practices of coaching and teaching, to not grab your drills from a book on coaching volleyball from the 1980’s. It should require you to listen to your athletes, let them have a voice in practice. Let them help you. Some play for club coaches and have other ideas for training. Being a good coach, the one who isn’t getting beat by smaller, less athletic programs who train for the game they will play, means you have to sometimes put your ego aside and understand that you don’t know what you don’t know. Your athletes deserve better!

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/to-the-coach-that-killed-my-passion

Dear Coach, the one in Hettinger, North Dakota. The coach that has been gifted one of the best setters in the state, who can do everything on the court including being a great leader and teammate but is sentenced to the coach that does the absolute least amount she can throughout the year. The coach who offers no extra playing opportunities, who gives little if any feedback and just finds a drill online, runs it and moves to the next with no thought or inspiration put into it. The coach that seems to her players to just be collecting a paycheck and skating through the lives of her athletes untouched by them or her circumstances. Dear Coach, your amazing setter and her teammates deserve so much more from you.

Volleyball can be a sport of passion, of excitement. It can light the night sky and give goosebumps to the dead. The energy, the twitterpation, the climb from the depths of average to the thin mountainous Everest air of extreme accomplishment can be had in just one play, one set, one match…one season.

Or it can be mundane, passionless and energy draining. It can be lowly and ordinary, vapid and a wasteland of athleticism.

To these coaches and the ones that fall into these categories, your athletes deserve so much more.

Five More Quotes....

From the "people WAY smarter than me" drawer, here are another five quotes which might disrupt your thoughts and ideas. 

"And it begs the question what do we as coaches today see as disrespectful? What do athletes see as disrespectful? You know, inconsistency and I wholeheartedly agree. Consistency and personality; having that personal integrity is paramount to not only earning respect but also maintaining an element of psychological safety. And yet we also know as coaches, part of our responsibility is to kill it (win) or make adjustments on the fly and sometimes we don't get the chance to explain what can be perceived as a lack of integrity or inconsistency or something that's disrespectful. So how do we navigate this as coaches? What is it that we need to do in order to maintain respect, but also do the job we're tasked to do in a way that feels like it's taking into account what is respectful for the situation?"

Coaching advocate J.P Nerbun explored this question on his podcast, "Coaching Culture." It begs the question of how Coaches must navigate being human in emotional situations and how to earn respect in a generation that isn't easily giving it.

On the same podcast, Nerbun's cohost Nate Sanderson talked about a story where respect was given for the wrong reason.

"I remember JP we had a consultant on from the NFL world here a few years ago. He was talking about trying to bring a different approach to practice and I think he was going to the Dallas Cowboys to watch practices and gave some suggestions to the coaching staff and they blew him off and ridiculed him for his ideas. He pushed back with science and research and rational thinking, and the coach pulled out of his pocket his NFC Championship ring and just threw it on the table and said, "when you get one of these let's come back and have a conversation." If you're reverting back to your record or your results, your conference championships, if that's what you're relying on in order to earn the respect of players or your coaches on your staff or the parents in your program, there's more to it than that. That does demonstrate credibility, but it says nothing to the agency of those that help you get there."

Jaime Morrison, who has coached with the USA Women's National Team, the Netherlands Olympic program and currently overseeing the Texas A&M program in College Station. Here, on the Coach Your Brains Out podcast with host John Mayer, Morrison is talking about how his coaching mentality has morphed over the last few quads.

"My biggest thing is just making sure that we're flexible. I think that we're able to be flexible in some of the things that we're talking about and also that we're curious constantly. I became a huge Ted Lasso fan and watching that dart scene where he's like, be curious, not judgemental is 100% where I've gone through to all of this. And I was talking to Keegan Cook about this, early in my career when somebody did something that I disagreed with I was like, that's silly. And now in my career at this point, I'm like, I want to know why they're doing it and understanding that there's probably some sort of reason behind it, where I'm like, that makes absolute sense. I'm going to look at the foundational principles that caused that person to do that. And that might influence mine, or I might take piece of it, not all of it, and make it my own in some way, shape or form. So I just think we should be looking for reasons to go do things and influencing our first principles, but we should be holding on to them for the long term."
"One of the things I was proud of, and it's something LeBron had said, a successful career is you maximizing your career. You maximize the skills you have and the natural talent you have. And I looked back at my career and I felt like I maximized what I was given. I have the negative wingspan. Relative to other NBA players, I'm not that athletic. Like through all these things, I had to figure out a way to maximize my career. And I said this to you, and  I'm going to say this on air. I feel like the mark of a good coach, at any level, particularly in the NBA, is that he maximizes his players. He maximizes the group. And I feel like you've done that. And as has been said to me, all of this s*** is more art than science."
Former NBA player J.J. Redick has a conversation on his "Old Man and the Three" podcast with the NBA's Orlando Magic Head Coach Jamahl Mosely about how success in the NBA is measured. Below is Mosely's reply.

"The truth is the truth, right there. He is absolutely right on that one. He's spot on with that one. I can't describe it... how to say enough that you just want the best for these guys. You want them to be as successful as they can be because everybody can't be LeBron. Everybody can't be a Luka. Everybody can't be a Joel Embiid. But in your role, what are you going to do to establish who you are in the NBA. Can you be the best version of that? That's it. I think asking how do you find that is also knowing how you fit with that particular team, where you are and find that role for that moment."
Finally, the last word from one of our favorites. University of Arkansas Head Women's Volleyball Coach Jason Watson is talking about how he's changed his preseason routines to adopt a more player centered and science based training.

"We start in August and the traditional way is we'd go back to camp and get our fundamentals lined up and then we'd ease into systems and stuff like that. We don't do any of that any more. The first day of practice, we play."
We will continue to listen for those golden nuggets of coaching wisdom and if you have any you would like to share, please do. In the meantime, with summer approaching, enjoy your down time, embrace discomfort and new ideas and do something you have never done before.

A Year and Patience...

The difference a year makes.

One year ago, the Minnesota Timberwolves NBA franchise made the playoffs. The last game of the season, this happened:

A player that they had traded for the off season before threw a punch at a teammate. He was suspended for the first game of their playoff series.

As you kept watching, one of their young and upcoming stars punched a wall in anger of being tossed from the game and broke his hand.

Another of their young stars broke his wrist a few weeks before.

The young Wolves, still figuring out how to play with each other and showing immature behavior and poor decision making, were punked by the Denver Nuggets in just five games and the winners went on to their first NBA Championship a month later.

After the series, the Coach of the T-Wolves, Chris Finch said, "“Way more physical than we were. They played with more speed, more force, they kicked our butt in every category that you can possibly imagine.”

One year and a month to the day, Minnesota beat the defending NBA Champs in Denver last night in a game 7 that saw them trail by as many as 20 points in the third quarter. 

Is it miraculouos? Not at all. 

It's patience.

Young players need patience, teams need time to find their groove. Teams need to learn how to play with each other, against other teams. They need to learn tendencies and the behavior of their teammates.

However, we are an impatient society.

We want to lose weight NOW. We want to feel better NOW. We want to win NOW! We don't accept the time that goes into these goals, time and effort and growth.

Social Media, the barrage of national media criticism and pundits looking to prove themselves to be the smartest in the room bounced back and forth between who would win the series after Minnesota won the first two games and Denver the next two. In between all the noise, the team stayed focused. They beat Denver by 45 points in game 6!

For Minnesota, they will head to the NBA's Western Conference Finals, a place they haven't been in 20 years with a team who, a year after chaos and distrust, believes in each other and themselves. 

The difference a year, AND PATIENCE, makes!

"You're doing fine..."

Dear Coach,

You're fine just the way you are! 

Everyone has blow ups with their athletes and parents. 
Sure, it's tough to lose close matches, to struggle with practices, to get the best out of your kids.

That's THEIR fault, not yours. You just keep doing what you're doing. You can't help it if they don't pay attention. You can't help it if their parents are psycho. That's on them. You're doing fine.

Don't listen to all the blather about evidence based coaching methods, you are doing fine! All that science stuff gets in the way of hitting lines and serving practice. You know what you're doing, everything is fine coach!

How you coached this year is great. Don't worry about changing the way you coach. Volleyball is volleyball, nothing changes. Just keep doing it like you have been all these years.

You are doing just fine!

Sincerely,

Every Coach That Plays Against You