Our high school recently hired a new boys varsity basketball coach. The position was sought after by many coaches from around the area. The job has been awarded to a man who pledged to build a program and who said he would, in addition to helping the boys improve their basketball shooting and overall basketball training, have the boys play hard all the time. When I first listened to him say those words I took it at face value and thought to myself that the statement was a good one to make because we are in a small school district and the best way to increase our winning percentage is to take the same group of kids and increase the level of effort being given. I did not have an idea of what methods the new coach would put in place to draw out the effort, he said he would and he seemed very confident in his ability to do so.

I had thought the teams I coached put in good effort. We dove on deflected basketballs almost every opportunity, took a charge when the opportunity presented itself and got beat in game situations only a few times per game by not getting back to play defense. I was curious about what the new coach’s [spin]definition of playing hard was, because I was not sure what I was going to be able to do to turn it up a notch or two. In the back of my mind I was [spin]hoping he would see my kids play and say to me afterwards that they were already playing hard. I was wrong.

Our new varsity coach let the kids know the second they stepped into the gym that it was no longer acceptable to play the game at anything less than full speed. He let them know that if they were not in condition to play at full speed they should go home and get into condition and come back to try again. He began to point out specific instances where players did not hustle up and down the floor, where they missed help assignments on defense, where they did not get back in time to prevent an easy layup in transition, he brought up every time a player did not take a charge, and he constantly implored the players to play at full speed. His comments were consistent and became such an expectation with our players boiling up to the point that he yelled at them, which also shook some of them up.

A funny thing began to happen as the month of June went on and our scheduled summer sessions came to a close, the kids began to get it. They began to realize that he was not going to accept half an effort, they figured out that he was going to individually bring it to their attention each time he saw them not giving the effort he was looking for, and it changed the makeup of the team.

My basketball coaching most significant takeaway for this coming season after having spent 5 weeks with the new coach – do not accept anything less than 100% effort, ever. I re-learned something that I have known for years as well, that the coach sets the expectations for the way the team plays and if he sticks to it and gets his players to believe in it they will follow him. That is why coaches like Rick Pitino and Bob Huggins are successful year after year, they have a demanding style and they relentlessly force their teams to play that style. I am looking forward to a whole new level of effort this year from my team. It should be a great season.