Being selfish. It is a fine line as a coach. We teach our kids to be selfish in positive ways. Do what you can do successfully, selfishly to help the team. I know, I kinda twist it at the end, but if we have a kid who can score the basketball, we want him to shoot it...a lot. If he can't score and he shoots it a lot, it's a bad selfishness.
But I am not talking about playing. Selfishness, a bad selfishness, shows its ugly head off the court more than on. If you are partying and participating in negative actions that could harm the team either by your poor play or being suspended is a bad selfish. If you are not keeping up with your academics, of course getting help when needed or at least asking for help, to remain a member of the team, you are selfish. If you are hanging out with the wrong people casting negative thoughts and words to be said about you bringing a negative image to the program, you are selfish.
To be part of a team, you must remove the negative selfishness and thrive on the positive side. It is hard enough for a 41 year old man to do so, it is harder for a young man to do so. Peer pressure is strong and if you are not a leader, it is easy to succumb to your own selfish behaviors. You want your entire team to be a group of leaders, but a team full of leaders has no one to follow which can harm on the court cohesiveness.
Yep, you are getting it. Coaching isn't that easy and much of what we deal with deals with a lot of psychological stuff. I teach psychology so I get it and I do tell the kids that psychology is everything...so is mental toughness which so few possess and is our job to develop.
