Random Thoughts on Another Year

Technicals: I received two technicals this season. That is unbelievable to me. I am a coach that tries to talk with the officials, I rarely get upset with them and I try to treat them in a way I would want to be treated. I officiate a little bit myself, so I know how hard of a job it can be. So, I will tell you what I did this year to get the technicals that I received. I did not use profanity at any time. #1 vs. Borden this year, I believed that one of their players committed a foul at mid-court in front of the official. After watching on tape, I could see that I was right, however, what I didn't see was our guy nudge him first....definite foul on HHS. As I told the official right in front of me that there was a foul (I did it with a lot of emotion), he turned and with equal emotion said "on both of them". I responded with "then call it on both of them then"....again with probably too much force. I was t'd up. The second one came at the sectional final. I felt the game wasn't being called consistently which it probably was being done so. I don't think officials can decide a game, but.....anyway. Out of my frustration, a foul occurred right in front of me and the ball bounced my way. What I was thinking of doing would have gotten me t'd up immediately, but after thinking about it, I flipped it to another official. Then I let the official know what I thought, again, with no profanity. He was talking back and I told him to give me a T. The off official asked me if I really wanted one, I said yes, and turned to sit down and then I heard the whistle blow.

Winding down: When a season ends, other teams still are playing. I get inundated with coaches asking for copies of game tapes as they prepare for Regional. I do that, I stat the last few games and get the awards ready for awards night. Also, I then organize the players stats into the record book that I have accumulated through the years and built on from former coach Terry Rademacher. I will post these changes on our website if any are noticeable. Also, I love to go and watch games at this time of year. I will attend the 6th and 7th Region final in Louisville, I will attend the Regional at Seymour, the semi-state and State Finals, and I will go and watch one day of the Sweet 16 at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky. If we aren't playing, I love to watch games at this time of year. Finally, there are two coaching clinics/conventions that I will attend. Each Spring, the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association (the largest h.s. coaches association in the country) has their annual clinic at Lawrence North H.S. I will also attend the National Association of Basketball Coaches convention in Indianapolis which is held in conjunction with the Final Four in Indy.

Winding up: As everyone else turns to Spring sports and summer, I will begin almost immediately scheduling for Spring and summer. I will schedule some type of camp for our younger basketball players, and I will schedule where we will be going to play this summer. Already, I have tentatively scheduled trips for us at Purdue University, Indiana University, and Olney Central Jr. College in Illinois.

Odds and Ends: I will be heading to Europe this summer. After we finish with what we are doing, I will travel by plane (first time in my life) to Serbia to work a major camp there in Zlatibor. While there, I will visit with my friend Tane Spasev in his home country of Macedonia. I will also speak at another basketball camp at Lake Ohnid, Macedonia. I look forward to the experience because that is what life is about. Risk, getting out of your comfort zone.....

Coaching in Indiana is so much more than just the season, it almost never stops. There is always something to do, and when I feel that I don't enjoy that, I will probably step down. As of now, if they want me back next year, I will be there. I have changed so much throughout life as we all do, but the changes the last two years have made me a much different person. Maybe not as good of a coach, but a better person.

Coaching Them All

In coaching at a small school, I must take into account all the kids who play in the program. We had 22, I believe, who started out this year, but ended up with 20 players. Of those 20, I have to provide a competitive atmosphere for our varsity and j.v. and I desire to have a third team so that our freshmen do not sit an entire year without play.

First, I do not cut if I can keep from it. I see no reason in cutting freshmen and older kids who have stayed with the program, deserve the loyalty to remain a part of the program if they desire. That is my belief and not shared by all, and I understand that. When a season begins, I have rarely had thoughts that "I won't play that kid even if he is on the team". I start out with the idea that everyone can earn playing time. Sometimes things occur like injuries, being sick, not being at school, and missing many practices can lead to someone not getting the playing time they thought they would get. It is in these situations that we get tied up as coaches because rarely do people know that goes on or does not go on at practice where playing time is earned. I can tell you as a coach and my staff that rarely what happens in basketball games decides playing time, but it is those 10+ hours per week where it is gained or lost....a total of 68 practices to date.

If I choose to cut someone it can have ramifications on the entire program. By keeping those who want to be part of the program, it allows for me to bump kids down giving younger kids playing time on another team.

As coaches, we deal with negative situations all too often. Each situation is different, but I try to be fair and have taken criticism in one situation all too often by someone who benefitted from a decision I made in the past. We as coaches put so much time in away from our families to be with other people's children that the players become like our own kids. Throw in my supportive wife who has spent many hours away from me for the same reason, or has cooked food for the players, decorated their lockers, decorated the locker room it doesn't sometimes make sense.....

I have recently been called ignorant, having double standards, having a big ego, incompetent, absolutely corrupt, wrong, a bad person, and an overall idiot. That is hard to take because they are things that I don't feel are true...except the big ego part. I don't care who you are, if you have any kind of feelings and are honest, it does affect you. If doesn't affect me as much, but it does my wife and my own parents. I know that it is part of the job, and I accept it as such.

I was told that when I was a parent, I would be a different coach by some upset parents in the past. They were right. I am more tolerant than I was in the past and treat my players the way I would want my children treated. I can promise also that the experiences I have had as a coach will make me a better, more supportive parent when my children participate, if they choose to participate in sports or anything else.

I want to thank everyone who supports the boys' basketball team, Henryville H.S., my family, the coaching staff and me. You make it worthwhile. We have ended another regular season and are headed into sectional play. One way or another the season will end shortly, and I hope the team knows that I care for each of them and that the seniors are welcome back as part of the program.....anytime.

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!