The Coaching Roller Coaster...

The picture is of my daughter exhausted after a basketball game. Probably from screaming and yelling for us, but then all the cart wheels she does on the court post game. That picture illustrates perfectly what I call the Roller Coaster. When coaching varsity basketball, you immediately enter the Roller Coaster. The highs and lows can be easily compared to that fun joy ride at the amusement park.

As you enter the ride, you are full of excitement wanting to feel the thrill of the climbing the hill and coming down quickly. The feeling in your stomach, the laughing, the emotional "high" that you get from riding,

However, at the bottom of the hill and sometimes even when going up, you feel nauseous. You want off this ride, and you will never ride again, you tell yourself.

With each new season, there is excitment and then when you win or lose, you enter the Roller Coaster. When you lose, you feel as if everything you do, all your hard work is for nothing. You often ask yourself "Why am I doing this?" "What am I doing wrong?", there is some self doubt. But when you win, you sometimes start to believe that you know everything there is about the game, you can become intoxicated with yourself. You can forget how hard it was to win.

The Roller Coaster is part of the job. It is what often times makes the ride enjoyable, or makes you miserable.

Why Do I Coach?

There has been a lot of talk lately about how long will I coach varsity basketball, as a head coach. I can honestly say that I don't know. I hope that Henryville will allow me to coach as long as I would want to, but I understand how this business works. After every season, I think and evaluate about what we/I went through and if it is worth it for one more year. When I say "we" I don't mean the team or the season, well, actually I do mean a "team"...my home team of Kristi, Brandon and Maddie. What did "we" go through, what did I miss and is it worth it...?

I figured that one day I would miss out on some things that my kids did as they grew up and developed, but never knew it would happen at such a young age...Maddie is 5. She is quite the gymnast and almost has a back handspring down...I haven't seen it because of basketball practice. For that, I feel guilty and I feel that I am missing something. Also, she had a Thanksgiving Feast at pre-school and because of practice, I chose not to go. She was the only child there who didn't have a parent attend even though it was optional. Because of that I made sure to take off for her Christmas party, but I was still able to make it back for practice.

I have always said that I wouldn't allow my selfish want to coach keep me from being with my family, and I will not. So, when the season is over, I measure what I have missed by what I am accomplishing as head coach. Am I helping others? Am I hurting my own family being gone? Am I making a difference? Do my kids enjoy it? Am I doing something now that I will regret some day because I missed out on that back handspring?

Will I coach next year? I do not know. I did not know after the first year and every year since. I love my family, and I don't want my job...any job to get in the way of having a healthy, happy family.

Social Networking and Henryville Basketball

I like to stay aware of some of the current trends with technology, and out of curiosity I composed a page on facebook. That curiosity flowed to twitter, and now Henryville Basketball is known internationally.

Starting with HickoryHusker.com, HHS had become more known statewide because of my membership there. I have developed friends who have become fans from all over the great state of Indiana.

When I started with twitter, I felt that it would be a good way to communicate with my players quicker. However, I started "following" basketball coaches and currently follow around 600 of them. They in turn, follow me. So Henryville Basketball started slowly to become nationally known. There are followers of us in Oregon, California, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Florida and others.

Then one day a man who would become a friend, Tane Spasev from Macedonia started to follow me on twitter. We became friends having basketball as a common bond. He and I became friends on facebook and I have now become friends on facebook with many international coaches. On last check, Henryville Basketball on facebook had 546 "fans" and they were from 9 different countries in the world. Macedonia, Serbia, Lithuania, Vietnam, Norway, Iceland, Spain, Cyprus, and China are just a few of the countries following us.

So, Henryville Basketball has gone international! Look for Henryville Basketball t-shirts to start popping up not only around Henryville, but the state of Indiana, around the country and around the world!!!!!

Fundraising...Necessary Evil

Some of the comments I have heard over the last week deserve some explanation. It might not be an explanation that some want to hear, but it is the reasons why we, the varsity basketball program, fundraise. I think sometimes that people see us in our uniforms, travels suits, team shoes, team shirts, hoodies and everything else and assume that the Athletic Department pays for everything for us...that is not true.

I want to take this time to thank our Athletic Director, Bill Niece, for what he does do for us. He takes care of us when it comes to game books for the program, new basketballs each season (which are not cheap), new uniforms every few years (which are not cheap), and paying for our transportation to away games (which is really not cheap). With that being said there are few sports who are self-sufficient in buying their uniforms and other equipment (baseball and softball, I believe are the only ones). The basketball programs, boys and girls, will bring in about 95% of the athletic budget during the course of a school year, but they do not get 95% of the revenue spent on them. Those two programs, 7-12, pay for many non-revenue sports and their transportations.

So, why do we fundraise? Because of the things I posted earlier, if we want to look nice and run a first class program, there are certain things I believe we must have. There are extras that Mr. Niece will not or cannot pay for, and we use the money for those items. We try to keep the prices down for our high school basketball players with some of the money. The money is spent on the student-athletes. Rarely, do we have very much money in our account. The money comes in, it is spent and we move on.

What costs do we keep down? To run a first class program, it probably would cost our basketball players $300-500 per year. We have kept that price down under $200 more often than not. The price they would pay is for travels suits, shoes, team t-shirts, and summer travel tournaments just to name a few things.

How do we fundraise? We run two camps that not only helps with the high school, but also helps to teach our younger players the game of basketball. They, too will someday be in high school. We have a FT-a-thon to help pay for shoes, we sell t-shirts making a very low profit from them. We are going to have Hornet Hysteria in a few days to help with some costs.

Where does the fundraising money go? We have used it to buy many things for the high school program, we have used it to donate to charities in the name of Henryville Basketball, we have donated money to other programs including the Band. That money that is raised by us is being used in positive manners.

As for the elementary program, the varsity boys' program runs it. We have some input to who coaches, we schedule the games, we work the games (book, gate worker, clock keeper, officials, supervision), and then we use that money to help with the elementary boys' program. Each game, roughly, we save $200 by working the games, and scheduling the games ourselves. Items we have bought for the elementary program (K-6) include smaller basketballs, new basketballs, nets, game books, score cards and when asked and if needed, we will buy their uniforms.

No one is getting rich off our fundraising projects, and we still don't do everything that I would like to do for the entire program due to lack of funds. It would be nice to have an alumnae donate large amounts of money each year, but it just doesn't happen. Instead of me going out and begging for money, we work for it. I think it is important, too to reward those who come up with the ideas, work to put the ideas to work, and then do the work.

Finally, let me close by saying "thank you" to everyone who has helped with the basketball program from the bottom to the top. Many do it for no pay which is in essence a donation. Thank you to all of the community members, teachers, players, former players and parents who do buy the shirts, come to the games, and donate money to help us run a first class program. We could not do it without you!

What do You Believe In?

I was thinking the other day and came up with a quote. I am pretty sure it has been around as I am not smart enough to think of this on my own. I came up with it after having a lengthy conversation with someone over the weekend.

Do your beliefs justify your behavior or does your behavior represent your beliefs?

What I mean by this is do you do some things that would be frowned upon by society or your mother, yet you tell some people that is okay because you believe it is okay to do those things. You represent yourself and if you aren't hurting anyone but yourself, then so be it. Unfortunately, when living for ourselves, we aren't hurting just ourselves. We may not see the ripples of our choices immediately, but they are there.

Or do your behaviors represent your beliefs? Probably constraining one's self, limiting what you do, and actually having some self-discipline is a hard thing to do. If you believe in "right" and you try to do what is "right", you will be attacked. Now I am not naieve to think that not everyone has done something in the past whether it be 20 years ago or one week ago of which they are not proud, and it doesn't represent their beliefs. Does that make them a hypocrite? I don't believe so, I think it makes them human.

However, if you continually use behavior contradictory of your beliefs then self-reflection and genuine honesty must occur. Trust me, I fall short often behaving congruent to what my beliefs are, but I continually strive to be better. Am I a failure? Am I a hypocrite? I think not, life is a continuous journey to be better.....but I may just be justifying my behavior with my beliefs.

6 Rules to Live By Because it is Respectful

(Pictured is Coach Herman Furnish, the winningest coach of all-time at HHS and who Furnish Gymnasium is named after)

1. If you use it, put it back where you found it or where it belongs. There may sometimes be nothing more frustrating then when you go to use something and it isn't there and you have to search for it.

2. If you break it, fix it or help pay to have it fixed...if not paying all of it. It is the right thing to do

3. If it is not yours, do not take it...that's called stealing. I know that sometimes that is hard for people to believe, but it is.

4. If you make a mess, clean it up...don't wait for someone else to do it. Because usually it is someone who either has too much to do already or it will be cleaned up by someone whose job it isn't to do so.

5. Look for things to be done to help out, don't always wait to be told. Be proactive in helping out. First, watch and see how things are accomplished, second, do it before it can be done by who usually does it. If they don't like it, they will tell you.

6. If you say it, mean it and follow through with it. Your word must be your bond. Don't say something just to be nice, say the truth or don't say anything at all. That doesn't mean to be rude, but be truthful.