Control, Culture and Contrast
It’s 5:33 in the morning and I have just got out of bed — I’ve just had the worst nights sleep since I stopped playing basketball. Last night I cancelled practice for my University team as we have 2 guys playing a mid week National League game and other guys rolling the excuses out. Stories and questions run through my head riddling my brain and preventing any type of relaxation; is it me? What can I do? How can I get them to buy in? How do I control this?
“Control the controllable’s” is a phrase that is thrown around a lot and as a player I found this pretty simple; get to practice on time and work my ass off, all I had to worry about (especially on good teams) was myself, occasionally I would get frustrated with teammates not committing but it was always those teammates that seemed to fade away by the end of the season or the coaches responsibility. Now, however, as a coach I have a youth team and a University program that I head up on the side of my full time job. The amount of controllable’s in my charge has increased dramatically. There has been a correlation between increase in my controllable’s to the increase in my blood pressure, which may sound like a joke but it is actually true. I find myself trying to spin plates and developing into a control freak. I need to find a way to get the plates to spin themselves, each other or do I just need new plates?
I’m in a very interesting and contrasting situation where I’m coaching players who have just come out of academies or are coming out of their club’s U18 teams butI also have a few players who have been playing senior basketball and have returned to University to further their careers on my performance squad. I also have to manage a 2nd team who’s coach is having the same issues as myself. On the other side of the coin I’m coaching an U16 team who I was with last season and are mainly 13/14/15 year olds but does contain a couple of 16 year olds who are looking at entering that same academy system.
This has allowed me firstly to understand the importance of youth coaches and has given me the chance to understand what to prioritise as a youth coach regarding my players development. My frustrations with my university players aren’t completely their own fault, of course they have to take some ownership of their behaviour but ultimately their behaviour on the court is determined by the person who is in control of that environment……the coach.
Culture is another buzz word that is also being thrown around and is something that I value above all else. In order to establish this culture I did what I assume a lot of coaches do and that is read a few books and give a team presentation where we establish our core values, our expectations and valid reasons for missing practice, gym sessions and team events. Family issues, work commitments or classes as well as sickness were acceptable reasons to miss practice which was decided by the whole team. We had the guys sign a document to show that they are buying into the team……or did they? They definitely didn’t. We have 2 games left of the season and we have I’d say 3 guys who have been true to their word out of 12 players who signed at the start of the season or we just have a bunch of guys who have very wreak immune systems, terrible alarm clocks and dysfunctional families.
Last night I reflected in this practice and wondered if I should have done something else. I struggled with the question “How do you get them to buy into it?” and now I’m asking myself why do I have to GET them to buy into it? I shouldn’t have to. Why should I have to put a presentation together to tell them they have to attend practice? Or that they have to act a certain way, prioritise the team etc. Surely all those things are obvious?
My university team is currently 2nd from bottom in our league and we need to win all our remaining games and hope others lose to remain in our conference. My youth team are doing brilliantly, all the players are developing as individuals and they are also performing as a team, so much so that we are at the top of our league even though we don’t emphasise winning. I truly believe that the scoreboard takes care of itself, you get what you deserve so to speak.
The culture of my 2 teams is vastly different yet they both have the same coach who preaches the same things and even both teams mottos, values and play schemes are similar. So what is the X factor that makes their cultures so contrasting?
I usually write blog posts to reflect and develop my coaching practice, I have a number of drafts and unfinished ideas. This blog has allowed me to make sense of a couple things. Firstly, culture can only be moulded when the clay is malleable. In other words it’s easier to create a good culture in youth teams as they are more open to new ideas and see it as part of their development where as older players already have established norms and habits that are hard to break because they have been formed during these “malleable” years.
Secondly, culture cannot be forced it has to happen naturally. Culture is the collection of values,morals and beliefs shown by rituals, traditions and rites of passage. You can’t just make these things up on the spot and expect people who already have things established to buy into it. Whatever it is they are buying into it has to be something they agree with, are passionate about and will be able to commit to it over a long period of time.