Planning to Win

By Mark Hamilton, Head Women’s Basketball Coach, Murray State College

The old adage "People do not plan to fail, but they often fail to plan" applies to all areas of life from business to family to, yes, coaching.  A good plan with realistic expectations will help keep things in perspective and every good coach will have one.  Following is a basic outline of the planning process that I apply and I hope it is helpful to someone else.

1.    Plan to win
2.    Prepare to win
3.    Practice to win
4.    Play to win

1.    Plan to win

1. Write down your basic philosophy of the game, but be prepared to adapt to the type of players you have.
2. Put together a playbook with a great variety of options.  For example, though we will only run 5 or 6 offenses in any given season, I have approximately 60 offensive sets in my playbook.
3. Evaluate your players and the quality of your schedule and set realistic, but challenging goals for the season.

2. Prepare to win

1. Study the game and learn as much as you can from people with experience.  This does not mean just people with winning records.  Their successes may have come so easy that you will be frustrated trying to apply their philosophy.
2. Always be aware that it's not what you could do, but what the players you have are capable of doing.
3. Not all athletes respond to the same techniques. 

3.    Practice to win

1. Have a plan for practice.  This will make practice more efficient with less wasted time.
2. Take every opportunity to reinforce the team concept.  If you will be creative you can do this will nearly every drill you have.  For example, when we shoot free throws the entire team runs for misses, not just the individual.  This illustrates that the whole team suffers when you miss a free throw, not just you.
3. Design all practice drills so that every player is active all of the time.  This is not as hard as it sounds.  Players standing around in practice breeds players standing around in a game.
4. Many players these days play on league teams that practice very little compared to how much they play.  They begin to think this is how the game is played.  Set practice goals and use them to increase competition in practice.  Note:  We spend approximately 20 hours practicing for every hour of game time.  You have a much greater opportunity to affect a person's life in practice than you do in games.

4.    Play to win

1. Have a good definition of the word "win".  The American Heritage Dictionary defines "win" as: to achieve success in an effort or venture.  This does not translate to a W or L on the scoreboard.  I have watched team records for several years now and have noticed that very consistently 57% of the teams in a league will have a "losing record".  This applies even to professional sports.  Look at your current NFL and NBA records.  At the risk of damaging your ego share this definition with your team.  You will be doing them a favor in life.
2. Like any good war general, understand the war(game) is made up of many battles(statistical areas).  Identify the key battles in any contest and reward success in these areas, not just in the win or loss of the game. 
3. Don't ever lose sight of the "big picture".  False rewards lead to false expectations.  Much like the parable of the fisherman, we must not feed our students fish, but teach them how to fish.  Be teaching them how to compete and accept losses with wins we are teaching them great lessons about life