Coaching Youth Hoops (Youth Basketball Coach)
Ep 363 What Is the Biggest Character Lesson You Are Trying to Teach Your Players This Season?
CoachingYouthHoops.com: The one stop shop for youth basketball coaches. Practice plans with life lessons built right in. If we don't have it, you don't need it, or we'll make it. HeySai.com: Text based assistant that takes the administrative pain out of youth sports. One place for all your kids' teams, updates by text, no app to install. Versions coming for parents and for coaches. Get on the wait list, launching this fall. (Say it "Hey Sammy," spelled H E Y S A I.) Coaching Youth Hoops on Facebook: Search Groups for Coaching Youth Hoops. This week's topic came straight out of the group. Ask your question and if we see it come up more than once, we build a resource for it. Another question pulled from the Coaching Youth Hoops Facebook group: what is the biggest character lesson you are trying to teach your players this season? Coach Collins and Coach Bill make the case that the life lessons taught through sports matter more than the sport itself, and that the whole thing falls apart if you don't connect the dots for the kids. They cover failure as a teacher, being on time as a stand in for responsibility, leaving the gym better than you found it, getting along with teammates you would never choose as friends, and why a difficult coach can be one of the more useful things that happens to a young athlete. They also give coaches a practical season planning move: pick the three or four character lessons you intend to teach, then leave room for the ones the season hands you. Coach Collins is direct about it: one of the reasons he coached as long as he did is that the life lessons taught through sports are more important than the sport. That belief has to come first, because everything else in this episode follows from it. This is the phrase both coaches keep returning to. Kids do not automatically translate a tough practice, a benching, or a bad loss into a lesson about life. Somebody has to say it out loud and draw the line for them. Sports were built for character development, but the development only happens if the connection gets made. Coach Collins uses his own son. He wanted to play college basketball, tried out more than once, came close, and did not make it. He almost certainly learned more from not making the team than he would have riding the bench on it. He went on to start a couple of businesses and travel abroad instead. Coach Collins adds his own first business failed badly and taught him plenty. Athletes rarely see this while it is happening. That is exactly why a coach or parent has to name it. If you are a parent listening and your kid has a coach who is hard to deal with, that is a life lesson sitting right in front of you. Your child will have teachers, bosses, and coworkers like that. The move is to walk them through how to handle it, not to pull them off the team and blame the coach. Abuse is a different conversation entirely, and that line does not move. Kids who miss the game winning shot carry the whole loss home with them. Point out the ten missed layups earlier in the game that would have put the team out of reach. Nobody loses a game by themselves and nobody wins one by themselves. It was Coach Collins's pet peeve, but the actual lesson was responsibility. Waking yourself up. Managing your own schedule. Being someone the group can count on. Older athletes can carry the full weight of that one. Younger kids get a scaled down version. Coach Collins points to the World Cup and the Japanese teams cleaning their locker rooms after matches. That lesson works at any age and any level. Pick up the Gatorade bottles. Pick up the towels. Coach Bill does it with grade school kids and cleans the bench even when the trash was there before they arrived. When a player says "it's not mine," the answer is that it does not matter. Coach Collins walks his dogs through the park, sees a piece of trash, picks it up, and finds a can. Same principle, no scoreboard attached. Coach Collins tells his players straight: you are going to work with people you do not like, that is the world. Not everyone he worked with was a friend and some he did not care for much at all, but he still had to be part of a team. And there are surely people who feel the same way about him. That is fine. You still have to get along on the court, because you are going to have to get along in life. Coach Bill's season planning approach has two halves. First, decide what is in the box before the season starts. How to win. How to lose. How to work with others. How to talk to an adult. Ignoring the refs. Pick three or four and commit to them. Second, be ready for the ones you did not plan. Something will happen on the team that hands you a character lesson you never scheduled. Anticipate that it is coming so you are prepared to use it instead of letting it pass. Coach Bill lays out for parents up front what he is going to teach and what he believes in. Knock on wood, nobody has ever come back with "we don't believe in being nice to people." Saying it out loud costs you nothing and buys you support all season. And on the objection that character is not a coach's place: yes it is. It takes a village, and you are in the village. Write down the three or four character lessons you want your team to leave with this season. Put them somewhere you will see them weekly. Add one line to your practice plan template for the life lesson attached to that practice. Send parents a short note before the season describing what you plan to teach beyond basketball. Build the cleanup habit in from day one. Bench, floor, bottles, towels, every practice and every game. The next time something hard happens on your team, a loss, a conflict, a benching, stop and connect the dot out loud instead of letting the moment pass. Talk to your players about failure before they fail, so they have a frame ready when it happens. "The life lessons that can be taught through sports are more important than the sports." Coach Collins Episode SummaryTimestampsTimeTopic00:00Mickey on the Apple Watch, and why 12:40 on a Friday works now00:47Sponsors: CoachingYouthHoops.com and the Facebook group01:36New product announcement: HeySai.com, launching this fall02:35Today's topic and the exact question from the group02:52"Ignore the refs and play the game"03:09Why Coach Collins coached so long: the life lessons outrank the sport03:36Failure teaches more than acceptance, using his son as the example04:11First business failed, and what it taught04:30Connecting the dots is the whole job05:00Having a bad coach is a life lesson too05:20Be a family, win and lose as one05:49Being on time was never about the clock06:21Japan cleaning the locker room, and leaving it better than you found it06:42Cleaning the bench even when the mess wasn't yours07:12Getting along with people you don't get along with08:09Plan three or four lessons, then prepare for what comes up09:21These lessons are more important than the X's and O's09:36Tell the parents up front what you believe in10:04Where to find moreKey Takeaways1. The life lessons are the reason to coach2. Connect the dots or the lesson never lands3. Failure teaches more than success4. A difficult coach is practice for a difficult world5. Win and lose as one6. Being on time is never about being on time7. Leave it better than you found it8. Learn to work with people you do not like9. Plan three or four lessons, then leave room for the rest10. Tell the parents what you believe inCoach's Action ItemsQuote of the Episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
