Basketball Program Beliefs

Every year high school basketball coaches step down or are non-renewed, basically fired, and new coaches are hired.  If you are a coach and are looking to get hired for a head coaching position, you have to apply and interview and if lucky get hired to be a new head coach.  Usually this means you are being promoted within the school coaching ranks as a JV coach to a varsity coach or you are going into a brand new school. 

Either way as a new coach you need to start to establish a program culture immediately.  Some new coaches are lucky enough that they are stepping into an already established program culture that is very good.  Most new coaches are stepping into a situation where the program is not doing well.  The job at hand is to try and bring a new sense of culture into the building as quickly as possible to get the players to “buy in” to the new system.  How do you do that?

For me I have two program lists that are put up in the locker room and are handed out to the players and parents every year.  The first list is the “I Believe” list.  This list details the belief system within the new program and culture I am bringing into the school.  These are the fundamental concepts I want to establish early in my time and continue to keep throughout my time as head coach.  They are not lofty goals but a set of principals each coach and player needs to follow and strive for.  The 10 beliefs are…

1) Hard Work

2) Maximum Effort

3) Toughness

4) Sacrificing

5) Team First

6) Self-Control

7) Loyalty

8) Being a Leader

9) Myself

10) My School

Every player can achieve these 10 things and the more players that are working towards each of these beliefs, the more success your team will have. 

So breaking down the list we have,

1) Hard Work and 2) Maximum Effort and 3) Toughness

These first 3 beliefs speak to how the team is going to operate.  We, coaches and players, are going to work hard to achieve a high level of success.  We are going to give every bit of effort we can possibly give.  And we are going to be mentally and physically tough.  Working hard and giving maximum effort speaks to the desire needed to be a good team.  These first two beliefs are telling the players that the coaches are setting a level of expectation in giving every bit of energy and effort towards the betterment of the team.  Every team should have these two beliefs central to their team philosophies. 

The third item is toughness.  I am talking about both mental and physical toughness.  Mental toughness is coming to a problem or obstacle and working on how to overcome the problem or obstacle.  With the amount of instant feedback that today’s youth are exposed to and the desire of adults to not let kids fail, mental toughness is harder to achieve. 

Look at college athletics and the transfer portal.  If a player does not get playing time then most of them enter the portal and go to another school.  The years of outworking and moving up the depth chart are gone.  Now kids get beat and they choose to go to another school instead of trying to win the position over the current starter.  This is the type of mental toughness I am talking about.  I want my players to fail and work harder to overcome rather then choose a different path to take. 

Physical toughness is also included in this.  I want to have teams that play a physical brand of basketball.  I want my teams to be a physical defensive team.  And an offensive team that sets good legal hard screens and battles for every offensive rebound.  I want to put pressure on our opponents through our physicality and hope we can wear teams out mentally.  If we can break the spirits of our opponent with our physical toughness then they will start to make mental errors which can lead to 4^th quarter comebacks or extending leads late in games.  Good 4^th quarter teams are usually the toughest mentally.  So this is a belief I have in my list.

4) Sacrificing and 5) Team First and 6) Self Control

The first two beliefs in this set speak to putting the team above the player.  Individual players and thinkers destroy teams faster than anything else.  Every player should have a role on the team and every player should fulfill their role.  However, every player should also realize that they need their teammates to fulfill their roles as well.  And sometimes players are not happy with their role.  This unhappiness can lead to locker room issues.  Having each and every player sacrifice and put the team first creates a team working together rather than a bunch of individuals playing as a team.  The first type of team is dangerous.  The 2^nd type of team is very beatable.  Players need to play for something bigger than themselves.

I attach self-control into the sacrificing and team first mini block.  Self-control is having players be disciplined on and off the court.  On the court this could mean the 4^th or 5^th scorer passes up a good shot in order to make an extra pass to the 1^st or 2^nd scorer.  This extra pass may give the team a better chance of scoring.  That is having a player being disciplined and sacrificing their personal stats for the betterment of the entire team. 

Self-control is also about off the court situations.  Players having self-control will hopefully keep them away from trouble scenarios.  For instance, a classmate is throwing a party and everybody is going to be there.  Self-control is about the players individually making a decision not to attend because it could lead to problems for the team.  Each player having that discipline brings the entire team a higher level of achievement.

7) Loyalty and 8) Being a Leader

Loyalty is the bridge between putting the team first and being a leader.  To me this means each player is going to keep from putting teammates down or being disrespectful.  This is not talking bad about a teammate.  Not putting negative things on social media about their teammates.  Not all teams are going to have all players like each other.  Sometimes teammates do not get along.  That is fine.  I hope that’s not the case but it does happen.  But those bad feelings need to be kept to the individual and not spread out to other people.  That is the loyalty every team needs to have.  Regardless of personal feelings, the people in the locker room are going to defend every other person in the locker room.   

These two qualities together are about following when a player needs to follow and leading when a player needs to leads.  Teams will naturally have a player leader.  That player has to lead.  If the natural player leader does not lead then the entire team suffers. 

Likewise certain players will take a leadership role.  These players are the ones who get the offense in the right spots or moves the defensive assignments during subbing.  They are the “coaches” on the floor.  However, if an opponent subs in and I as a coach wanted a certain player to guard that opposing player then defensive assignments need to switch during the exchange.  If one player steps up to make that switch to what we want then every other player on the floor needs to follow those directions.  If not then a defensive breakdown happens and usually an easy basket for our opponent. Being a team leader is about leading when needed and being able to follow when those situations occur as well.  

9) Myself and 10) My School

These last two are, for me, about having a positive mindset.  Every player should have a positive mindset about their own abilities.  And every player should be proud about their school.  Their needs to be a sense of pride among every player on the team.  The thought of we are the best school around, we have the best kids at our school, and we have the best team can elevate the success of the team. 

Some people do not like this thinking because they perceive it as being brash or cocky.  Well when I look at the best players in any sport, they have this same mentality.  The best teams have an edge to them as well.  Why do people hate the Yankees or the Lakers?  Because their teams and players walk around as if they are better than everybody else.  They have pride in being on that team.  I do not have any issue with this thinking as long as the work and effort are still there.  If the work or effort decline because we are better than everybody else then that leads to problems and being unsuccessful.  If the effort and work are still there and the players and team is working hard then I want my teams and players walking around with a little bit of cockiness and attitude. 

These beliefs are one of the first things I put in front of my players each and every year.  My programs are built on these 10 foundations.  When these 10 foundations are being met then the team can be successful.  If these 10 foundations are lacking then the team will probably underachieve.  Players who work hard, put the team first, are good teammates and believe in themselves and the team can and will produce overachievers.  The list of these 10 beliefs are about trying to overachieve rather than underachieve.  I hope this may help some of you out there.