University of Wisconsin-Stout Coaching Philosophy
Set your goals at a State Championship all the time. Talk about it with your kids. Set your sights at the top. Conference Championships are fine but only a step to the ultimate prize.
Don’t talk about winning games in your program. Talk about execution and dedication. Talk about responsibility and reliability. Talk about family and friendship and effort. Always preach the bigger picture. Let the fans worry about winning and losing.
Make your program the most important program in the state, in the country, in the world. Believe it because it is, especially to you. Don’t let anyone talk you out of it.
Don’t criticize other coaches or other programs or other teams, especially those that are successful. Don’t let your kids criticize. Criticism is a direct reflection of you. You will always lose in the end. The late President Richard Nixon wrote, “When you are successful, others will hate you, but those that hate you will never win, unless you hate them.”
Don’t complain about what you don’t have. No one likes to listen to a complainer or whiner. Recognize what you don’t have and build it. There is nothing you can’t accomplish.
Don’t be a phony. Always examine your honesty and integrity. You will always be judged by those. You don’t have to be right all of the time, so don’t have to be RIGHT all of the time. In our program we always tell our players, “Being right is just not good enough.”
Take the word NEVER out of your vocabulary. NEVER SAY NEVER. “That player will never play for me. We will never be as good as that team.” The word never will NEVER help! I told several people in 1984 that I would NEVER coach at Mount Senario College. I coached Mount Senario for 11 years.
Study successful programs. Explore the rules and regulations and find out what you have to do to get to the next level. How can you stretch your situation? In the WIAC, we have the best DIII league in the country. Studying for me will be easy.
Don’t dwell on the past. Three National Championships-Six National Final Four…who cares, who really cares? Our people are no different than your people. What have you done for me lately? What are you going to do for me today? Sad but True. Recognize it, open your eyes and get after it. One or two losing seasons—fired, removed, replaced. Happens all the time. A lot of coaches are eager to take your place.
Approach your basketball coaching like a business. Promotion, Marketing, Media, Money. Teach the kids a business like approach and their education will be outstanding.
Drop the Student-Athlete label and tell your school you just have students—PERIOD. It is that label that causes all of the problems. You have the greatest classroom in the school-so teach and get rid of labels that place the athlete above the school setting.
Tell your team that no matter what the Athletic Code says, if they get caught drinking, they are off the team. You don’t want a player that puts drinking ahead of the team…on the team. Guess what—you won’t lose any more players from drinking violations. Try it!
The game is not about X’s and O’s. That is 15% of the process. 85% of the process is working and dealing with emotions and problems and people. I stay calm in a game because the game is gravy. After dealing with academics, social, physical and emotional injuries, practice schedules, travel, flight and meal plans, media, marketing, and finances, parent, boosters, fans and administrators, egos, premadonas, and attitudes—the GAME—WHAT INCREDIBLE FUN!
Life is not fair…the sooner you understand that and teach your team, you and your team will no longer need to worry about what is fair and what is not. Life gets a whole lot easier.
Teach Intensity over Technique Process over Content.
Don’t give ultimatums to your team. Ultimatums are a signal of losing control. Don’t paint yourself into the corner and when you don’t follow through with what you want to do, you lose all credibility.
If you want to do something, do it right or don’t do it at all. Weight training, keeping notebooks, etc. If I know that I will do a poor job of doing something specific, we just won’t do it. I am constantly researching a way to make our desires simply intensive.
Happiness is where you are at. People asked me why I stayed at Mount Senario for so long. I was always looking but my happiness was up to me. Don’t depend on anyone else.
You cannot create doubt in your players. You need to create confidence and lack of fear. That is why you must build and not destroy. Any doubts in their minds will turn into insurmountable walls to climb during stress and pressure points in a game.
The difference between winning and losing is a width of a whisker or less. Even when you win by 20 or lose by 20, there was a moment in the game where it could have gone either way. Work hard for those whiskers.
Quit taking yourself so seriously. Drop the EGO. You will find the sport a lot more fun and fellow coaches great guys if you get realistic. Stop thinking basketball is the absolute end of the world. It is merely a by-product of building young men and women and THAT is exciting. Melt all those trophies down and make something neat out of them.
Mike Krzyzewski writes that rules are made by people so people don’t have to make decisions. That couldn’t be more true. Really examine your team rules!!!