Wednesday 11 January 2012

Coaching rant (a.k.a. This is what I did during school today)

I'm coaching the 'B' team for senior boys at Kits this year.  Last weekend, we had a tournament in Delta during which we had no more than 8 players for any single game.  In fact, two of the games were played with less than half of our squad.  Quite simply, unacceptable.  So I spent my day at school today writing what I wanted to say to them after today's practice, in between taking notes in class.  To their credit, they've had a meeting since then and have been much better this week, so kudos where it's due.  With their commitment improving, I felt it only necessary to paraphrase my message in a much more matter-of-fact way, instead of reprimanding.  So now I get home and realize I'm left with this writing, so may as well throw it up here:

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The Delview tournament, frankly, was an absolute low point, in my opinion.  So here's the deal: From hereon out, you guys will make a full commitment to the team; that means to yourselves, to your teammates, and to Olivier and myself.

We have practice roughly twice a week, with games once or twice as well.  That works out to a rough average of 6 hours per week; not a large chunk of your time.  You guys have the schedule of games, and can assume practices are Mondays and Wednesdays, so make sure you've freed up those times.

Olivier busts his ass to be here and to have a full practice plan ready to go.  And when only 6 players show up for practice, those drills that may need 8 are rendered useless; we can't run our sets on offense or defense, and it is overall, a lesson in extreme futility.

As for myself, I'm arranging my schedule as best I can to be here as much as possible, and believe me, it's tough to do.  This semester I'm doing a relatively light 3-course workload, but that still entails about 35 hours per week between classes and homework.  The schedule for my classes has been built around the fact that I'm here for practices and games.  On top of that, I work 23 hours a week, again, built around basketball's schedule.  I'm here because I have a tremendous, perhaps unnecessary, amount of pride for this school and for its basketball program.  So much so that I've kept my jersey from grade 8 and have no intentions of returning it.  So much so that when last year's Juniour girls team got me a 'Coaching Staff' jacket, I genuinely teared up.  So much so that I can sit here and score-keep, referee, or just watch a game, be it Bantam Girls or Senior Boys, and enjoy every minute of it.  It is a privilege to wear Blue Demons jerseys; treat it as such.

With that in mind, you guys are student-athletes, and you are all obligated to fulfill your academic responsibilities.  If I hear that any of you are falling behind due to negligence or absence, you will not play.  Take that seriously; I've personally seen guys lose out on scholarships because they were being, excuse my language, lazy fucks.  Conversely, you need to arrange your school schedules so that you can be here.  Do your homework either before or after; don't tell me you have too much work to attend practice.

I'm not interested in hearing excuses as to why you can't make it.  I know them all; remember, I'm only a year and a half removed from being a high school student myself.  Really, the only reasons for not being here are illness or injury; both of which Olivier or I need to know about in advance.  This extends outside of basketball guys, you really don't want to be the type of people who make excuses in life.  The only person I harbour feelings of actual hatred for is this type of person, but that's tangential to my point.

So to reiterate, get yourselves organized and prioritized, commit yourselves to your peers, and take some fucking pride in wearing gold and blue.

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Well, I just wanted to put that to use in some way, so there we are.  My rendition of this was far gentler than I had thought it would have to be, for which I am grateful.  It means they already know they fucked up, and are working on changing that.

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