Quote:
Originally posted by JCrow
Bebanovich,
Unfortunately, due to certain character defects in my personality that the medications, professionals and my wife have been unable to correct.....I can be sarcastic and a-holey. It's easy being a Knight of the Keyboard. I'm working on it.
The very fact that you are out there working with kids makes you a good guy. None of us are perfect. Trust me, I appreciate the difficulty in Coaching. And I'll admit it...I HATE LOSING.
It's just that I don't see the subject of pre-calculated verbage in terms of increasing the satisfaction of winning.
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Unfortunately, due to my character defects, I am unable to acknowledge any character defects. But that Knight of the Keyboard thing sounds like one I might look into if I decide to acquire any character defects. It must be difficult to type with all the chainmail on.
I think I have left the impression that I create a Bill Walsh-type script and I have the first 15 complaints/compliments written out on a laminated sheet of paper. I was really sharing my ideas that have evolved mainly over my last 3 years of coaching, about being selective and trying to support our particular system.
Let me try to give an example from last year as briefly as I can (which, as we've seen isn't very brief - but that's not a character flaw, just a charming quirk) . . . we currently use a Grinnell-type system based on pressing constantly, subbing a fresh 5 approximately every minute, running like crazy, trading layups for steal-attempts or 3's depending on who you ask and wearing out the opponent. That's a bad summary but useful for the example.
We played a team with horrible sportsmanship and their fans (even the parents) started to feed off of it. My kids were getting irritated and the crew (obviously inexperienced) were clearly nervous. Their solution? One official blew the whistle and admonished my boys to slow down. Did I hear it right? I turned to one of my bench guys and asked, "did he just warn us to slow down?"
The first reaction that went through my head was to yell, "where in the rule book do I find the speed limit" but it feels like I would be throwing an anvil to a drowning crew. That is calculating, I guess, but the fact that I filter out my first emotional reaction doesn't make it cynical to my way of thinking. I'm pissed but I don't know what to do. A little later, a player for the other team flings a ball in anger and it hits one of my kids. No 'T' but a warning. I got nothing, "A warning?! That can't be a warning, you have to T that!"
I now have 2 things on my agenda - protecting our pace and helping keep a lid on this thing, but I don't really know exactly what I'm going to do about it. The other team's bench has been joining the fans in yelling during our freethrows and I get an idea. The opponent with the horrible sportsmanship is a very devout Christian school (that has since started cleaning up its act after multiple complaints in all sports). Our center shoots the first of two freethrows and, sure enough, their bench yells on the release. I jump off the bench and take two steps on the court (very secure that if hucking a ball in anger and hitting an opponent is not a T then I can take a little stroll) and yell pretty loudly, "their fans can be as un-Christian as they want to be, but their bench cannot yell and disrupt our freethrows. It's un-sportsmanlike and it needs to be a T." I saw their coach immediately talking to his players and their fans rode me for a while but they actually were shamed into showing a little more class. At the next break I told me kids to ignore the ref's warning and run like hell, which they did. My perspective was that the opposing players and fans were the problem and not the pace, but I know that when we are running like crazy and subbing every minute we can contribute to a feeling of chaos to anyone who hasn't experienced it before. To our players and fans it's familiar and comfortable. I just wanted to shift the focus off my kids so we could press and run. I also thought I could help control the opposing bench and maybe the fans.
I did have an agenda and I did calculate somewhat but I'm not following a script. With our system my number one priority is always pace and I just don't want to be asking, working, praying, etc for calls that do anything to slow the game and let the opponent (especially the big guys) rest. In terms of rules of thumb for deciding what to say and when - I once heard that only air-traffic controllers make more decisions in a day than teachers so I don't think I know how NOT to form a sentence on-the-fly anymore without taking at least 3 factors into account. My first year of teaching, it took me about 30 seconds to utter each sentence because I had to make sure my brain had filtered out all of the cussing and inappropriate humor.
Thanks for another thoughtful exchange. Are we due for a sarcastic one next time?
P.S. Probably a good post to mention that the level of officiating jumped back up this year. A neighboring athletic director told me that the officials' organization described here was meeting resistance from schools when they tried to negotiate big all-sport contracts and that competition was moving in. He thinks they are responding to market pressure. Second or third-hand info, for what it's worth.
[Edited by bebanovich on Feb 10th, 2006 at 04:24 PM]