Basketball Purgatory

As I stated in my first update, I am coaching the Freshman team at my former high school. I was reluctant at first to take the position, because coming from coaching college athletes ranging from 19 to 25 years of age, makes for a difficult transition to coaching kids who can’t even drive to and from practice.

Coaching the JV team at Virginia Tech had its advantages and disadvantages. One of the big advantages was that I got to coach kids who were good athletes and skilled enough fundamentally that I could get them to fly around and make plays without having to coach them up a whole lot. While at the same time, they were not athletic enough to be D1 caliber and have the attitudes that typically come with that talent. We had a good mix of talent and great attitudes, and when that happens the sky is the limit.

On the flip side of that, since they weren’t on scholarship, it meant that they came to VT not for basketball but for academics and other attractions of the university. Some of them already belonged to fraternities and school clubs that ate up a large chunk of their time. Others were in majors (such as engineering) that had curriculums that demanded a lot of time be spent studying. Then, you obviously have the social life of college students. These were all obstacles that I had to work around every single day. In the time I spent at Virginia Tech as the coach, we NEVER had every single player in the same practice at the same time…not once! Some practices were spent going over 5-on-0 offense because we only had 6 players in practice.

Coaching that team was a great experience. It challenged me to be creative and come up with ways to get the ball in the hands of our playmakers and put the others in position to make plays and help us win. Probably the greatest part of it was that I was coaching a good number of my close friends. Playing on the team in the 3 years prior to my taking over allowed me to build relationships with a lot of the guys on the team, which made for an easy transition to being the man in charge.

We were successful, but certainly not as successful as we could have been. We had the talent, size and athleticism to be one of the top teams in the nation, when it comes to JV programs. I guess relatively we were among the top teams, but we could have removed all doubt by having more of a commitment. I don’t blame many of them, because like I said, they did not come to VT because they wanted to play basketball, so I always took a back seat. We had a 2-year win-loss record of 43-12. We got to play great programs such as Hargrave Military Academy, Fork Union Military Academy, The Patterson School and Laurinburg Prep. We were able to play against many athletes who went on to get division 1 scholarships from basketball powerhouses, some players who transferred from small colleges and everyone in-between.

So that brings me to now, and the team I’m coaching at my old high school. At the beginning of the year we coached both the JV and Freshmen together, because the football players were still in the playoffs and could not be with us. We had some kids who were pretty good and it looked like we might be pretty successful. However, once the football team was knocked out of the playoffs, the JV took those who were our best players and moved them up to play with the JV. What we were left with is a mix of players who could be pretty good down the road if they kept working and listened to what we were telling them. The problem though, is that it wasn’t “down the road.” It was 2009 and they are what they are and its something we have to work with.

They moved our practices to a nearby Elementary School. We were practicing on a court that had no 3-point line. On top of that, every day at 3:45 the third grade class of the school came into the gym and got on stage to practice their Christmas play. If you’ve never tried to explain press offense while 18 children are butchering “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” then you’ve never known frustration. I remember thinking that this HAS to be the lowest point of my career. If I get any lower than this I may have to find another profession. This is basketball purgatory. We aren't low enough to be in Basketball Hell (rec-league for children or middle school girls...only kidding...ish), but we're certainly not alive or in Heaven.

To add to those problems, we found out that none of the schools in Southwest Virginia even have Freshmen teams, so our entire schedule consists of Tennessee schools, many of which have enrollments of 1,500-2,000 kids. Gate City has an enrollment of somewhere between 500-600. I’ll admit, after losing our first 2 games by a combined 70 points I was a little frustrated and thought for sure we would not win a single game all year. We were on the road to our third game. I had already marked up the game as a loss. We were playing in a 9,000-seat arena that hosts the Arby’s Classic, against another school with a large enrollment.

Then the kids on our team really surprised me. All those practices where it seemed as though they weren’t listening; all the times we played poorly and didn’t compete; those instances seemed like a distant memory watching these kids compete and execute against a much larger team. We jumped out to an early lead, and going into halftime our talking point was to control the things we can control (which is ALWAYS a talking point).

When I talk about “things we can control,” I am talking about those things that cannot be dictated by any outside forces. For instance, we alone control our attitude. You make a conscious choice every day to have a good or bad attitude. These kids could choose to listen, or they could choose to think we’re full of it and do it their own way. Then in-game situations like boxing out on rebounds, turning the ball over and playing sound defense are all things we can control every possession of every game. We cannot control if our shots will fall, we cannot control the refs, we cannot control what sets the other team will run. I am a firm believer that if you do control the facets of the game that you are able to, then you will be successful.

If we take care of the ball, play sound defense, box out and limit them to (maximum) one shot per possession we were going to win this game. Fortunately, we took care of business and got our first win of the season. I’m not sure I’ve been more proud of a group of kids in my admittedly short basketball career. No one gave them a chance. I didn’t give them much of a chance and I was their coach! It was at that point that I realized that I’m not the only one teaching about the game of basketball. It seems as though these kids are teaching me a thing or two along the way as well. I won’t count us out again. The resiliency of these kids is amazing. I may be a teacher, but I’m still learning, and it will be a long process.