December 17th, 2012 | Uncategorized
Going into my last coaching session before my Christmas break, I was excited to see my players, and was filled with a lot of energy. But within the first couple minutes into the session, that excitement and energy quickly changed to frustration and disappointment. I was extremely disappointed that one of the players (“Laura”) was not putting in the effort. One thing that I heard from all my coaches throughout my basketball career is that, I’ll coach everything except for effort. If you cant put in the effort and determination yourself, then there isn’t much I can do for you. And that was the problem with Laura. For some reason, she was just walking around the court, not playing defense and simply not putting in any effort to try and better herself as a basketball player. That frustrated me a lot, because its hard for me to try and help someone who seems to not want to get better on her own. Personally I have always been someone who’s needed to put in extra effort to become a better basketball player and it has benefitted me. So, it hurts to see someone who has the ability to be very talented but doesn’t seem to have the work ethic to try and get better.
I asked Laura if someone was forcing her to be there at training. She responded by saying no, and that she loves basketball and she wanted to be there herself. Then I responded well that great that you love basketball and that you want to be here, but while your here, I need you to promise that you will put in the effort, because it doesn’t matter if you are the most talented player or not, if I feel as if you don’t put in the effort to trying to get better as a basketball player, it is going to be hard for me to help you. I told Laura, with pure sincerity that I don’t want to be wasting anyones time if they see what Im doing as a coach for them as unhelpful. But if you are going to be at training, effort is something that I am not going to coach. I will teach you all the tools, x’s and o’s to making you a better basketball player, but the effort has got to come on your own. Lastly, I mentioned to Laura that if you truly love basketball as much as say you do, the effort you can bring to training should not be such a burden to yourself if you enjoy what your doing. It was then that I believe that it began to sink in with her. I’m hoping that after Christmas break, what I said to Laura really settles in and changes her approach to training session regarding her effort. I only want to see her along with the other players get better while putting in their maximum effort!
Well thank you for reading my blog this week, I hope everyone has a great Christmas vacation! Take care everyone!
