Category: From the Bench »
Learning to lose with dignity
A universal truth in the world of coaching is that nobody like to lose. But how coaches handle losing says a lot about their program, their culture and their core philosophy. You hear the clichés all the time, but it’s not rare to see upsets in s...
What it means to be a coach
What does it mean to be a coach? How about a good coach for that matter? Coaching is different than any other teaching job. You often have time to build relationships with players that can be meaningful. Plus, you have to deal with hard losses that ...
Offseason is a time for professional development
If there’s one thing successful basketball coaches have in common, it’s their relentless pursuit of information. They’re at the clinics, they’re reading the books and they’re networking to build a library of basketball strategies they can e...
Eating right during the offseason
A decrease in activity level due to an injury or the offseason can cause an athlete to become concerned about weight gain or muscle loss. I receive numerous inquiries from athletes asking how much they should decrease their dietary intake to avoid t...
How to put on a summer basketball camp
When I became a head varsity coach, I strongly believed it was essential to organize and run a youth summer basketball camp at the high school. Prior to this time, there was not an organized youth basketball camp in the community. I was 40 years old...
How Central Missouri shocked the Goliath of DII women’s basketball
March 12, 2016, was the last time Ashland University had lost a game heading into this year’s NCAA Division II women’s national championship. Its 73 consecutive wins was the fourth-best streak of any division, and its 99 points per game was enoug...
Strength: Principles to training for explosive power
There are many parallels between life and training. One of the most fundamental principles in training for athletic performance is the concept of “supercompensation.” This is the process of transformation when you’re training the right way. Th...
Use technology to take you forward as a basketball coach
The offseason is a time for evaluation and correction. Whether you run a program that just won a championship or one that struggled to win a single game, it’s the one thing all teams have in common before next fall. Where you differ is how you go ...
