Lessons from Camp: Do Your Ball-Handling Drills, Even the Boring Ones

To stay compliant with NCAA rules, the UNI basketball staff was required to show some of the drills they put their players through at the beginning of their camp to all the teams that were in attendance. While there's a lot of rules and practices from the NCAA that I think are ridiculous, I liked this one. While it's simply another hoop for UNI to go through before cashing the $450 check from each team in attendance, it was an opportunity for players and coaches alike to see what type of drills Division I basketball players use to play at that level.

The answer was a bit surprising, but it shouldn't have been. They showed us several ball-handling drills. These are not only the same or similar to the drills we have our high school athletes do, but they were also quite similar to what we have our youth players do as well. Basic, boring ball-handling drills.

As a coach, it was satisfying. First, it meant we were doing the right things. Second, it showed our players that it is actually that simple. They can't become Division I athletes without extended time working on fundamentals. Though many of them may believe they have become too advanced for something so simple as these elementary drills, reality has it that they will never be too advanced for them. Steady, focused work on fundamentals builds complete players.

It builds complete people too. No matter your profession or skill of choice, there is something simple and monotonous and probably mundane that you can be doing to improve. You want to lose weight? Work out, eat better, and maybe do something like writing down what you eat. You want to write? Get down on paper a thousand words a day. Read poetry. Publish something. Want a good bean crop? Walk beans (or do whatever is now done for that - it's clear based on my last post that I have no idea).

As a Christian, I can't afford to avoid the fundamentals either. I have not "arrived," nor will I ever arrive at a place in my faith where the spiritual disciplines are no longer necessary. Regular prayer, fasting, Bible-reading, tithing, etc. will never stop making me better. Conferences and speakers and Lent seasons and other "events" are nice and flashy and feel good; however, they will probably never produce the same consistency of results as those plain old-fashioned Biblical ball-handling drills.

***The June basketball camp season has come to a close, and this post will bring to an end my series on "Lessons from Camp." I hope you've enjoyed these posts as much as I have. I appreciate any feedback you have.

I'm Not a Farmer, But. . .

I am the son of a farmer. My father's father farmed as well, as did my mother's father. I grew up in a farm family and spent many weekends and summers working livestock, baling hay, and learning to swear effectively. Despite all of this, I am not a farmer. Not even close. I teach in a classroom and gym. I blog. I read a lot and collect graduate degrees in my spare time. I'm pretty sure I would struggle to even drive a tractor at this point in my life.

I suppose there's a certain degree of guilt for not becoming a farmer. The farm that my grandfather and father farmed has no heir, and my father's firstborn son did not follow in his footsteps. Although he'd never say it, I've got to believe there's some disappointment for Dad that I never even showed the slightest hint of being interested in taking my life in that direction. But it was just never for me.

I worked hard during my youth on the farm, but I didn't learn a whole lot. I have no idea what a good corn price is. Or cattle price. I grew up with several toy tractors and implements, but I'm not sure to this day that I could say what each of them does. I don't know how to fix anything and can't name 80% of tools. I hear people talking about bushels and acres and how good the crops are testing, and I just avoid eye contact because I simply have no clue. And I probably never will.

That doesn't mean I wasn't listening and watching all those days on the farm. I was. And I learned something very valuable from my father, the farmer.

Something I do know about farming is that it's high risk, and many of the risks are completely out of a farmer's control. I've seen machinery break down, livestock die, markets crash, and severe weather decimate the crops in the ground. A lot can go wrong, and usually does. Because of this, farmers have somewhat of a stereotype of never being happy and complaining a lot. That's all right - so do teachers. However, through all of these ups and downs, day in and day out, I saw an uncanny stoicism in my father that I will spend the rest of my life trying to emulate.

When I think about all the difficult days my father has seen, both on the farm and off it, I can barely remember a time when he completely lost his cool. I have seen my father, perhaps better than anyone else I know, take challenging times and shoulder them without shouting or complaining or falling into a "Woe is me!" bad mood that others must simply deal with. He seems to just understand that bad things happen, often through no fault and no logical reason. And he's had to have been hurt and upset and downright angry at times because of some of these tough times. All I've ever seen from him, though, is him getting back to work. He believes in hard work and God, and that has seen him through many trials and tribulations.

I am not a farmer, and I don't want to be one. But there is one farmer that I want to be like. Through the storms that I cannot control and the unexpected bad news that I cannot fathom, I hope I learn to be like my dad.

Lessons from Camp: Use the Off-Season

I wrote yesterday about teaching about mistakes at the UNI team camp, and how the message to my JV group at the beginning of Day 2 was that they shouldn't make Day 1 mistakes again. Learn and get better.

At the end of Day 2, I had another message concerning their weaknesses. Weaknesses, to me, are different than mistakes. Mistakes are faulty decisions; weaknesses are faulty skills. I told our group that after six games in two days, they had ample opportunity to see where they were weak in their basketball skills. There were plays that each of them were unable to make time and time again because of their weaknesses.

I then told them that the middle of June is a great time to display weaknesses. It's the off-season, the games don't count, and they now have five months to strengthen those weak areas. Because of these six games, they knew what to work on during the summer. I told them that if they want to be effective, if they want to be on the court and have success in the season, they must attack those weaknesses in the time before the season starts.

This is not earth-shattering coaching advice. I would venture to say that most coaches touched on this with their players at the end of that camp. What is earth-shattering, though, is that this advice isn't often heeded in daily life.

There is no real off-season for life. We're always living it, and our mistakes and weaknesses always matter. However, there are certainly times that are much more intense than others. Tragedies and severe hardships shake up our worlds and force us into times of profound stress. On the other side of the coin, there are unexpected times of great opportunity that rattle the foundations of our lives as well. And then there are days like yesterday for me when my daughter asked about whether or not Jesus was God or God's Son.

These are the "game days" of life. We may go months or even years at a time without a "game day" experience. Then one (or many) will come flooding in. The disadvantage here compared to basketball is that players and coaches can clearly see the season and it's game schedule on the calendar. The game days of life almost always come unannounced.

The teaching point is clearly transferable, though. It's too late on game day to prepare. You've either addressed your weaknesses during the offseason, or you've chosen to ignore them. This choice will almost certainly determine whether you are a successful and effective player during your "games." You will either be ready for them, or you will be sitting hopelessly on the bench, wishing you were a stronger player.

Lessons from Camp: Make New Mistakes

At the UNI team camp last weekend, I was primarily responsible for our JV group, which was a group of incoming sophomores and juniors. I enjoyed coaching that group, as they were very teachable and seemed eager to learn.

The schedule at the UNI team camp is that teams play three games on Saturday and three on Sunday. On Saturday I did a lot of individual teaching. Younger players need experience and teaching, and they got both. Summer is great time to get that experience, as it's a low pressure opportunity to point out mistakes or ways that players could have done something better.

At the beginning of Sunday, I told the players that the theme for the day was simple - make new mistakes, not old ones. Whatever they had learned about the decisions they made on the court the day before, they should apply it on day two. I encouraged them to make a thousand new mistakes on Sunday, as that would be a thousand new opportunities to learn. However, they shouldn't make old mistakes again. You can't grow if you never change.

It's pretty easy to tell which players will be effective for us in the future and which ones probably won't be. The effective ones didn't make Day 1 mistakes on Day 2. They learned, they adapted, they improved. They weren't perfect, but they were better. And others wallowed in the same errors. They'll probably make the same ones in November and December as well.

It's not any different in life: don't make the same mistake over and over again. The book of Proverbs from King Solomon has a great quote for this - "Like a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly" (26:11). That's quite graphic, but it's with that amount of filth and disgust that I've found myself making the same mistakes twice. How many times have I strayed in my temperamental prayer life? Or let my anger or pride dominate? Or simply spoken too freely, which almost always results in negative consequences for myself and for those who hear me? As I type these words and recall my frequent revisits to my folly, I cringe and feel filthy. Like that dog.

Don't make Day 1 mistakes on Day 2. One thing this does require is a coach. We have to have someone in our lives to point out the folly, to show us our mistakes. I know my players didn't know what they were doing were mistakes. How could they? Only experience and a teacher could help them. They wanted to get better, so they listened. I wanted them to get better, so I taught. And here's what's missing in most of our lives. We have to be willing to listen to those pointing out our mistakes, and we've got to have someone in our lives strong enough to be willing to point them out.

I'll make new mistakes today. Probably hundreds of them. But I desperately want to avoid the dog vomit. I've been there before.

Lessons from Camp: The Word of the Day is "Adversity"

During the week-long camp we run here in Mason City for kids in our program from elementary through high school, one of the activities we do at the end of each day is putting the kids on a team and playing 5-on-5. After an hour and a half of drills and skills work, the kids are eager to play the game of basketball (though often not using the skills we tried to teach them just minutes prior). We keep score and have the teams' records posted all week. Inevitably, the officiating is questioned.

By mid-week, our head coach had heard enough complaining about the officiating, particularly from the elementary kids. On Wednesday when the elementary session was beginning, Coach began by saying, "Guys, the word of the day today is 'adversity.' Does anyone know what that word means?" The 3rd through 5th grade crowd had a lot of guesses, but none were quite sure. As an English teacher, I felt quite good; we were emphasizing vocabulary skills and basketball together.

Coach told them that adversity was when things don't go your way, and sometimes you have to work hard to overcome that. Then he asked if anyone could think of any examples of adversity. One kid's hand shot up excitedly. He definitely knew adversity, he said: the air conditioner at his daycare was broken, so he was really, really hot yesterday. He definitely knew what we were talking about.

Eventually, after many other excited examples from the crowd, Coach brought it back to officiating. He let them know that they could plan on a lot of calls not going their way, and they should overcome that adversity by not complaining and just playing basketball. Basically, they should plan on not always getting their way, and they should plan their response when it happens.

At the end of the week we also attended a team camp at UNI with our high school players. Officiating at summer camps is notoriously awful. Those guys simply don't want to blow the whistle because every time they do, the game takes longer. At the end of one of our games, one of our younger players got pushed with two hands as he was taking a shot and didn't get a call. He got up angrily and shouted, "Where's the foul?!"

After the game I talked to him:

Was that the first time you got screwed by a call today?

- No.

Will you get screwed over again today?

- Yeah, probably.

Have you fouled kids today and not gotten called for it?

- Yep.

Then I told him that I was glad he was competitive and that frustration was a natural response. However, when you complain like that, you make yourself look childish, not competitive. I should know - I spent many years in my youth glaring at officials in basketball games and dusting off my knees to protest low strike calls in baseball. It was silly, pointless, and it made me look like a crybaby. I told our player to look like a competitor, not a whiner.

And there's the lesson all of us can use: quit whining and get to work. Misery may love company, and whining might acquire one a lot of attention; however, it's bad attention. In one of the most blessed countries in the world, we perhaps complain the most (to equal our sense of entitlement). The youth at our basketball camps are not out of the ordinary; instead, they are a reflection of our culture and all that it's taught them.

So the word of the day is adversity. Learn to expect it, and plan your response when it does come. If you or I don't, we're not convincing anyone that we've been cheated; we're just setting ourselves up to look like whiners.

Lessons from Camp: Get in the Gap

I apologize for the 2 week hiatus - June is basketball camp month, and I've pretty much not been home for the last several days.

Having said that, it was a good week of camp in many ways. It's a good time to teach the game to players at all levels, and many lessons were presented. As I look back upon the week, I see that many of these lessons are transferable to life in general. So for the next several posts, I will discuss the top lessons from basketball camp. Today's post will focus on the phrase, "Get in the gap."

Our defensive philosophy that we spent time teaching last week asks for defenders who are one pass away to "get in the gap." Basically, if the man I'm guarding doesn't have the ball, it's my job to get in the gap between the person with the ball and my man so that the man with the ball can't drive to the basket, even if he gets by the man who is supposed to be guarding him.

This idea asks a lot from our players, and it's a tough idea to buy into. We're asking them to not only be responsible for their defensive assignment, but someone else's also. If someone else gets beat, we make it our other players' jobs to fix that mistake. Therefore, they've got to avoid worrying so much about their own assignment that they fail to see the bigger picture of what's going on with their teammates.

We need more people willing to "get in the gap" in life. Good families do this for each other. So do good friends. But it's rare. Too often we're too worried about our own assignment, our own problems, our own personal success to see the bigger picture of what's going on with those who are right next to us. We want to guard our own man, not help with someone else's when they happen to be struggling.

It's easy to do that when it's convenient, whether we're talking about on the basketball court or in life. On the court, when someone is guarding a horrible player who has no chance of scoring, it's easy to help off of them because the individual assignment isn't as tough. In life, it's easy to help when we've got time in our schedule or money in our bank account. When we are facing no challenges of our own, we're more than willing to get in the gap.

But on the court we're looking for every possession players, players who do what we ask of them on every possession, whether it's easy or hard. That includes being in the gap. Whether there's a big crowd on game night or no crowd during a practice drill, we need guys to get in the gap.

Our families, our communities, and our churches need the same thing.