This. Is. A. Coaching. Masterclass…! Seriously. It’s rare to observe basketball practices that have been mindfully designed to integrate the mental, technical, physical, social and competive constraints in a way that reads like a book. This is why we (affectionately) call Mike MacKay: Yoda Master MacKay. In his day “job”, he’s the Women’s High Performance …
DISCLAIMER: This is not what you want to hear… It is, however, what you need to hear. Who am I kidding? It wasn’t what I wanted to hear (erm… accept) – either! We’re human. We make mistakes. We think A leads to B, so more A gets more B. Yet, A and B may have …
Separating fact from opinion is one of the hardest challenges coaches face. It’s human nature for perspective to be clouded. And, notions of effective coaching are not immune to the myths of success (e.g. falling prey to it’s always been done that way and struggling to distinguish between because of and in spite of.) “Stay down in your stance… Don’t cross your feet when …
There is an interesting story about how Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish artist, developed the ability to produce remarkable work in just minutes. As the story goes… Picasso was walking though the market one day when a woman spotted him. She stopped the artist, pulled out a piece of paper and said, “Mr. Picasso, I …
Really well articulated delineation by Lee Taft on the “anatomy of a skill versus a drill”… A SKILL is the area of athleticism or sport performance we want to enhance to improve the greater good of our performance. We want greater SKILL so we can perform at high levels. Our intentions as coaches should always be focused …
The Whistle and a Clipboard podcast was created to “provide a place for coaches to learn from one another.” With, I want to give a big shout out to Jason Oates for creating this platform for so many coaches to share their point of view and grow sport coaching – together! Highlights: In this interview, I discuss: …
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ve been blessed with a beautiful burden. Coaching is my opportunity to give back to – and thru – a game that’s given me so much. Awakening possibilities in others is my life’s blood. When John Leonzo contacted me to do an interview on decision training and …
I really had no intention of turning this video of Doc Rivers at Coaching U into a blog post. In fact, my plan was just to put it up on my Facebook page and call it a day. Yet, as I watched it again, I thought: “This is a keeper!” [Disclosure: I don’t know if …
Okay… Allow me to preface this post by saying that I’m not (yet!) masterful at applying this concept. Far from it, in fact. I am, though, stretching myself into new possibilities as a teacher-coach. Great coaching matters. That’s what this lab is all about: experimenting with excellence. We’re on this journey together. In my last post, …
Carol Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success speaks to what she calls a “fixed mind-set” versus a “growth mind-set”. Her work has been instrumental in outlining the transformational power that comes from changing how we – as coaches and athletes – think about failure. Watch this short video that shows the …