Change and Teaching the Game
"He who rejects change is the architect of decay." - Harold Wilson
How much are you willing to change as a coach? A lot of coaches get stuck in a certain way of doing things, it’s what they know, and they just continue to do it. When things aren’t working, the adjustment is to work harder and do it better. Put in more time and figure it out.
In the business world you’ll hear the phrase “adapt or die.” You had better stay up with the current climate, the changes being made and adjust your approach accordingly. Most businesses are in an incredibly competitive environment where customers have a lot of options. If you don’t continue to provide the best product and customer experience, somebody else will. As coaches we work in a similar environment - high pressure, a lot of options for our players and a changing landscape within and around the game - remember when 7 foot post players had to be the first pick in the draft? But a lot of coaches aren’t really on board with innovation and change. In my first 9 years as a head coach we went to 8 NCAA Tournaments, and I realized each year we had to adapt and adjust, regardless of how good we were, to stay on top.
One reason why I think many of us are resistant to change is the business itself. Think about how we learn in the coaching business. We try as hard as we can to get on staff somewhere, and that’s how we learn. There aren’t nearly as many instructional camps to work as their used to be, where the best players used to go and play for the best coaches. I learned how to coach at Morgan Wootten’s basketball camp outside of DC, and all of his former coaches came back and served as commissioners. I watched a bunch of different coaches teach the game. When you go to college camps or showcase camps and work these days, the emphasis isn’t really on instruction. You can certainly learn from the staff at the camp, but you don’t really get to see accomplished coaches teaching the game in different ways. The emphasis is on keeping the kids happy so they’ll come back, or playing games in front of coaches at a showcase camp.
We learn to teach the game, therefore, with a very narrow lens. We really only see the staff that we are working for “teach” the game, and when you move on, that is what you know. There isn’t a lot of diversity in what you see being taught to players. You can learn by going to clinics, and through scouting opponents in your current job, but in neither situation are you watching the game being taught. You might love the way another team you are scouting plays offensively, but by watching film you aren’t learning how to teach it.
What does this create? I think it creates a lot of coaches who are creatures of habit. You learn one way to teach things, and that is how you operate. I know as a head coach there were times I wanted to change, but it was in an area I wasn’t comfortable teaching, because I had never done it before, nor had I seen it taught before. As we continued to have success year after year I did find ways to adapt by studying the game, picking the brains of other coaches I respected, and coming up with a way to teach what I had learned. But that last part is the most important - to be able to adapt and change, you can’t just learn the material, you have to figure out how to teach it.
As a coach coming up, diversify your experiences as much as you can. Learn to teach from different people. Take different jobs and move around as an assistant. Try and get to camps where you know the coaches are teaching the game. The more you can mix up your experience, the better you will be down the road as a coach, and the more you will be willing to change and adapt to stay on top.