I volunteered to help coach local youth teams at a public elementary school.  The teams constists of both boys and girls and range in grades k-5.  It’s interesting here: Basketball is not business–you know, sweat, tears, gut-wrenching hard work.  Basketball is for FUN.  None of the kids have the “basketball could pay for college” seed planted in their minds.  Basketball is a social-event, a break, a recess, where the court is the playground.  Coaches are conditioned to accept that each kid might be in their own little world, doing their own thing.  I caught a 10-year-old boy spinning in circles while we went over a zone defense drill.  One coach smiled and asked him to stop spinning…the disciplinarian in me was appaulled; it was then that I reminded myself that I am a volunteer and this is not my team. 

Competitiveness is lacking here.  The thrill of beating your own self is a non-existent concept.  The thrill of beating an opponent, however, is a concept well understood by kids their age.  Everyone wants to  be a winner, right? And if you’re team puts more points on the board you win.  Here it doesn’t matter how you put those point on the board.  You can travel before a shot, shoot with two hands, and flock to the basketball like fish to food.  Unfortunately, it’s the thrill of beating their own selves that I long to foster in youth; if they learn that, they are well on their way to becoming the very best they can be–fixated in a cycle of continuous improvement, and taught never to settle for mediocrity.  I feel a little out-of-place here.  I’m trying to remember the last time I showed up on the basketball court just to goof off.  I’m having problems remembering the last time I felt that way, but the same words keep resounding in my head:  “This is not my team.  This is NOT my team.  THIS IS NOT MY TEAM!”

And the highlight of the practice session was a little girl named Kylea.  Her honesty was commendable.  She told me, “Coach B, I do not run that fast.”  My response was, “That’s okay.  Will you try your best?”  Nodding her head she proceeded to try to turn the dribbler and tripped over her Chuck Taylors landing flat on the linoleum floor.  I held out my hand to help her up and said, “I like your hustle.  Be careful–the floor is slick”.  She fell again seconds later and her father sprang from his spectator seat as her tears began to roll.  He rushed to her only to say, “I told you to put your basketball shoes on, but you know more than me.”  I glanced at  her low-cut Chuck Taylors, thinking silently to myself: those are basketball shoes, just old school ones.  Crying, Kylea stated that she wants to go home.  Her dad told her she wasn’t going home.  I told her she was a soldier to get back up and try again; and I wanted to hug her dad for not letting her call it quits for the evening.  She learned 3 valuable lessons tonight: 1) 21st century basketball shoes serve you better in practice, than in your closet.   2) Just try your best 3) If you fall, you’d better get up because quitting is not an option.  After practice Kylea came up to me and thanked me for coming to practice today.  As a coach, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a player saying this to me after practice, but I appreciated the sentiment.

I learned valuable lessons today also: 1) Let basketball just be pure fun–it’s okay  2) You can still teach tough lessons in a fun environment.  3) This is not my team.  4) I miss the drive of the players on my team; you could look at one of them and tell they wanted to PR that day  5) A little change is still good. Change is still constant. 6) This is not my team 7) This is not my team This is NOT my team.