The Art of Coaching

In middle school I played with a really good team. However, we had a coach that didn’t quite match with our skill level even for middle school standards.

As games would start he would shake nervously on the bench, gnawing his nails and rocking bad and forth much to our

Good Coach

amusement. We then, like clockwork, due to our towering frontline, win the opening jump ball and more times than not we’d score the first basket of the game within the opening 30 seconds. As the ball was going through the hoop, our coach would jump up from his chair and race furiously over to the scorer’s table and demand a timeout without fail. The referees would furrow their brows in confusion, blow the whistle and we’d race over to the bench.

‘Fellas,’ he’s say with calculated timing. ‘Here is the situation. We scored first, so we are leading this game.’ He’d pause for affect, and look around the bench as if he was delivering the halftime speech in Hoosiers.

‘If we don’t let them score the rest of the game, we win. Gameover.’ We’d look up at the scoreboard. Score: 2-0, 9 minutes 39 seconds left in the first quarter.

We’d play the rest of the game, the final score would be something like 55-42. He would then give us some rousing,

Bad Coach

nonsensical speech about what this win meant for our development as men, or for world hunger or something else that was always completely lost on our 13 year brains.

Nevertheless, we’d suit up the next week against another overmatched opponent. The ball would be thrown up, we’d race down and score, then inevitably, we’d turn around and hear, ‘Timeout, timeout…TIMEOUT!!’