Summer is a time of year when vacations, camping, family time, and hobbies can take center stage. It is also a good time for basketball coaches to reinforce their own skills and venture into new areas of training. Here’s a look at some possibilities the motivated coach should consider.
The Motivated Coaches 10-Part Summer Checklist:
1. Prepare to spend time away from home with your family or loved ones. We can spend many hours, days and weeks working hard on our training, and it can be easy to overlook those closest to us.
2. Self-Care—Take an honest look at your personal life and use the summer to address those issues that need improvement. Consider your mental life, health and exercise, eating habits, use of alcohol or tobacco, self-improvement through reading, spirituality, or hobbies. Reflect on your purpose in life and why God put you on this earth. A great read is Rick Warren’s. Life with purpose.
3. Have dinner with your family every night. In the summer, this is a great goal, but we often find excuses to skip dinner. Why? Because we have developed the habit of wasting this quality time with our family and it becomes acceptable. Is it really acceptable?
4. Choose a basketball subject to study all summer. This is a great use of time and allows you to be open to a different way of teaching other than the game you want to learn more about. An example would be investigating a new zone defense, individual post work, or communication with players. I have done this and it really opens your eyes to what is out there as we tend to get caught up in our own philosophy and become inflexible.
5. Take your team on a day trip to experience something different. Work at a soup kitchen or clean up trash in a city park. These events can really help bring players and coaches together. Community service can really help people appreciate you more within your own city.
6. Call an older trainer you know and ask him a few questions. Veteran coaches are a great source of information and provide great perspective due to their well-earned coaching experiences. This is an area that is basically untapped. Some states have “mentoring” programs, but they are few and far between. Today, in almost every line of business, successful people have their own personal trainers. Do you have a mentor? Do you have the luxury of not having a mentor?
7. Take an inventory of drills and practices. Do you feel like you have too many exercises for the time you have? Sometimes the abundance of information and exercises seems comforting, but it can actually be a hindrance. By cleaning this area, you will feel more organized and focused on your training for the coming year.
8. Record and study NBA playoff games. Many things can be learned by watching the best players in the world. Steve Nash is a featured tape on call every night. Watch NBA players spread out, get rebounds and relieve pressure. There are multiple situations and late plays in every NBA game, especially in the playoffs, so take advantage of it.
9. Attend other sports games within your high school or college. Sometimes we feel that our sport is the only one that exists, but here we lose the train. Attend other games and show appreciation to others for coming to your games over the winter.
10. Read a novel. I know what you’re saying, “I haven’t read a novel since I was in high school.” See what I mean, it’s time. Pick up one of the hundreds of action-packed novels on the market. Go to your local bookstore and spend an hour looking at the novels available. My personal favorite is John Grisham. I hadn’t read a novel in years either until I read one of his books. It was so good I read all 18!
Life is much bigger than the sport we train. Use the summer to expand your horizons and open yourself up to the big, wide world out there. You’ll be surprised how much you’ve been missing.
