A college coach and I were chatting recently about team culture. She’s been a coach for a number of years, mainly in an assistant role with a variety of head coaches. During our discussion, she compared/contrasted two coaches for whom she worked. She enjoyed both, but the experiences felt different. One example she cited was team…
Building Your Coaching Staff Chemistry #1 – Characteristics of a Good Coach
Do you have great chemistry on your coaching staff? Do you have positive, working relationships with everyone? How about your overall athletic department? Do all the coaches in the entire program work together in a spirit of collegiality, selflessness, and servant-leadership? Is everyone on the same page trying to help all kids in all programs have…
Putting Positive Coaching Into Practice
I’ve wanted to be a basketball coach since I was eight years old. While my peers were dreaming of playing in the NBA, I had my sights set on being the guy in a suit pacing up and down the sidelines. I traded in my playing shoes for a whistle and a clipboard early on…
Building a Championship Mindset
I’m a new contributor to Team FastModel, yet for those of you who are familiar with my way of thinking is that I prefer to teach in bullet points. This post covers a number of items essential to Building a Championship Mindset. Enjoy! Building a Championship Mindset Your success in a learning environment depends, like a…
Why Do We Coach?
I had the honor of attending the Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement a few years ago as a guest of inductee Coach George Raveling. If you’ve watched this or other inductions, you know that every inductee mentions the importance of a coach in their past. Think about that. The best of the best – the…
FastDraw: The Ultimate PROGRAM Tool
Tips and creative uses for FastDraw as a program tool for developing top-to-bottom program alignment. In many hours of counseling basketball coaches, a common struggle I hear is lack of program alignment. There are many factors that may inhibit this from situation to situation, but it often is the fault of the head coach for not having…
Two Keys to Building a Program
A year ago, I took a new job at a new school. This was different from any other job. The school would open for the first time in August of 2016. This was building from the ground up. All coaches talk about building a program but this situation was truly “Building a Program.” I encountered…
Playing Time Ideas Part 2 – Playing Time Philosophies
This is post #2 in a series on one of the biggest issues, if not THE biggest issue, that team sport coaches will deal with during their years as a coach – playing time. Today’s post is about the concept of establishing a playing time philosophy for your program/team. You may be wondering, “Why do…
Playing Time Ideas for Coaches – Part 1
This is the first post in a series on one of the biggest issues, if not THE biggest issue, that team sport coaches will deal with during their years as a coach. The issue, of course, is playing time. Today’s post is a short overview of the situation, and then the rest of the posts…
Self Scout – Asking Tough Questions
Self Scout: Tough questions to ask of yourself, your coaching staff and your process before heading into next season. If you are reading this at or near the date of publication, my hope is that the following questions do not have to be answered for a few more weeks! If your season is over and…