Our high school recently hired a new boys varsity basketball coach. The coaching job is a great one and many coaches wanted it from around the area. The job was eventually given 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 tactics he would use to get them to play harder, he said he would and he seemed very confident in his ability to do so.

I had believed that my teams had played hard. We dove on loose balls most of the time 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 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 hoping he would see my kids play and say to me afterwards that they were already playing hard. I was wrong.

Our new high school basketball coach told the players 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 good enough shape to play the game fast they should go home and get into condition and come back to try again. He began to point out each time that individual players did nor sprint 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 constant and sometimes resulted in his frustration with our players boiling up to the point that he yelled at them, which also shook some of them up.

A great shift began to occur as the month of June went on and our scheduled summer sessions came to a close, the kids began to get it. They started to understand that he was not going to accept half an effort, they figured out that he was going to call them out 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 Tom Izzo and Lute Olsen 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.