Lessons Learned from Basketball

I don't play basketball. Growing up in Indiana I know it is shocking. I tried it. It didn't work. I wasn't any good. I understood a little to get by. However, I do love coaching and with all my fears and self-consciousness at the begining that I had seemed to have disappeared. In fact, I have never imagined myself doing what I do. So because I am new at this game like most of my girls, I am learning a whole lot. Here are some things I hope will help you in life or in your next basketball game, at least.



1. Practice, practice, practice. During the first few practice, I thought I was going to loose my mind. The girls wanted nothing to do with practicing but wanted to goof off and talk about boys. So like any other natural coach, I made them run. And we ran some more. I unlocked a secret. You can't talk when you are out of breath. They started listening to the other coach and me. We ran drills over and over. They were bored and tired of it but when game time came, practice showed. From girls not being able to dribble and run at the same time and shooting 1 out of 10 shots to girls who make lay-ups everytime and charge down the court with the ball.

2. Don't cry when you loose. This lesson was learned early and I was quite unprepared for it. We lost our first games and only tied 4-4 our second game. The tears ran down red angry cheeks. I got the cold shoulder and the ride home was fairly quiet. After a talk with the coach and a good night's rest, the girls came back more eager to practice. It was as if a fire of passion had been lit inside them after loosing. For this reaction, I admire my team. I hope that a fire ignites inside me after a failure or setback.

3. Don't be overcome with anger. I quickly learned about fouling. It's not good. In one game I had never seen so many foul shots. My girls are......well let's say they are.....well a little aggressive. We haven't really had the problem of being afraid of the ball. My team has absolutely no problem holding onto the ball while they are thrown into someone or onto the ground and even still will only relinquish it when they hear the whistle.

4. If you wear glasses, don't forget them! One game, our start shooter was missing all her shots. I was baffled as to what was going on. Then all of a sudden a realized she didn't have her glasses on! She wasn't even seeing the basket! She just sent the ball up with a prayer.


5. Don't give up before the game starts. The looks on the girls faces said it all. "I'm done." The thing is, as an adult and as a coach I could see something they couldn't see past. They couldn't see pass the image of the girls. The image of the girls being from a rough area and being aggressive. As a coach, when I saw the other team play they weren't that good. I had to get the girls to trust that I could see something they couldn't. Besides, I think our girls were more aggresive.

6. Get along with others. This has been a hard one the whole season. The kids struggle with getting along. It seems like such a simple little thing we should have learned a long time ago but I see some adults struggling with this. I mean, does it really matter the #34 took #16's glitter pencil in math class today?


7. Don't blame anyone but you for your game. As a coach, I admit that after loosing I would start to make excuses. The ref made bad calls, the other team had 6th graders, or we don't have a good gym to practice. But when it comes down to it, you are the only one who can take responsibility to do better and I learned to set an example for the girls. Despite the other team, the gym, or the ref...we play are best. End of story.

9. Express your encouragement for your team. It still baffles me that the girls still haven't understood that being on the court is different than sitting on the bench. The girls would yell at the girls playing because they thought they could do better. So I put the bench girls in, and they didn't do any better. Simple things like giving a high five to their team member when they come off the court had to be taught.

10. You can't play both sides. With as little as I know about basketball, I do know that there is defense and offense and one team can't play both. However, the girls didn't seem to know which one they were on most of the time and so we ended up with one girl taking the ball down and the rest of the team "defending her" so naturally we didn't score a lot of points those first few games. It looked like half rugby and half basketball. The other team didn't even have to scrape a knee, we had 'em covered!

11. Know where you are going. As with any first time player, it's inevitable that you are going to shoot the basketball into the wrong hoop. And we had one girl do just that. The only thing that makes it better is when the other team does the same thing.

12. And finally, when in doubt, ask the boys basketball coach. I asked him a lot of questions. He sometimes was helpful and sometimes he didn't know either......we learned A LOT about our communication issues....that we have them!