Why We Play High School Athletics

I got this from someone a few years back, but it was "Why we play college athletics". I changed a few things so that it would make more sense to the people that I coached in high school.

Why we play high school athletics....It's not about getting a scholarship, getting drafted, or making Sports Center. It's a deep need in us that comes from the heart. We need to practice, to play, to lift, to hustle, to sweat. We do it all for our teammates and for the student in our Biology class that we don't even know.

We don't practice with a future major league first baseman; we practice with a future athletic trainer. We don't lift weights with a future Olympic wrestler; we lift with a future doctor. We don't run with a future NCAA champion; we run with a future lawyer. It's a bigger part of us than our friends and family can understand. Sometimes we play for 2,000 fans; sometimes for 200. But we still play hard.

You cheer for us because you know us. You know more than just our names. Like all of you, we are students first. We don't sign autographs. But we do sign college applications, ACT exams, and tests in all of our classes. When we miss a shot, or strike out, we don't let down an entire state. We only let own our teammates, coaches, and fans. But the hurt is still the same. We train hard, lift, throw, run, shoot, dribble, and run some more, and in the morning we go to class. And in that class we are nothing more than students.

It's about pride in ourselves, in our school. It's about our love and passion for the game. And when it's over, when we walk off that court or field for the last time, our hearts crumble. Those tears are real. But deep down inside, we are very proud of ourselves. We will forever be what few can claim....high school athletes.

Author unknown

I never understand when a student-athlete in high school decides not to play a sport they love or are good at. They probably only have 1 four year window in which it really matters. Very few are going to go on and play in college at any sport, but while in high school they hire officials, they have concessions, people pay admission, the band plays, cheerleaders cheer, students act wild and yet some students are willing to give that up for a job or girlfriend/boyfriend.

I know that a high percentage if not 100% of the students who have quit a sport that they were good at have regretted it. Some have verbally expressed, and others haven't, but you can tell from their demeanor and that they are at every single game how they feel.

I tell our high school athletes each year with the changing culture of our society that they are more and more special. They work hard, they have someone yelling at them and demanding they give up their time and self for the good of the group. That just does not happen much in today's individualistic society especially if you aren't a starter and maybe don't get to play much.

But being part of a team, giving of yourself for the sake of your friends and school makes you special.  Unfortunately athletes become more special each year, not because of a greater effort given by them, but by the acceptance of mediocrity as being special by society.

11 Principles of a Good Parent

I ran across this on HickoryHusker.com, and hope to employ it if my children decide to participate in athletics. It is a good guideline, but I don't know if you can ever have a "set in stone" set of guidelines to raising a child.

Here it is:

1. Make tough decisions: Give your children roots, a stable place for them to be, and you can't always be the popular parent. Sometimes your kids have to hate you because they are hedonistic, selfish individuals who are learning to not be.

2. Get kids out of activities: One per semester. Children should have varied interests, but kids today participate in too many things. Everything is organized, give them time to be kids and meet up with the kids in the neighborhood to play games.

3. Raise your own children: Be there for them. Attend their athletic functions, their band shows, their spelling bees. Even if they don't want you around, be there. They may never want to share their lives with you, but ask and be there. Raise your child.

4. Realize that people are more important than things: Spend time with your kids even if it means you work less and can't afford a new car, big screen t.v., or an i-phone. Your relationship with your kids will last a lot longer than things. And all that time you worked, can never be replaced with time missed with your children.

5. Discipline your children with love: Again, sometimes you are going to be hated by your children, it is a part of growing up. Discipline them, but never allow them to have to guess if you love them or not.

6. Take your children to your place of worship: There is a world out there ready to instill their values on your children. Give your children good values so when they encounter that world, they have something stable to fall back on.

7. Have dinner together as a family: It shows that it is important to be together as a family. It sort of forces you to be in one place and communication can begin and flourish. You will find out a lot more over a meal, then walking into their room and asking "What's up?".

8. Realize your kids don't necessarily need what you didn't have: We all are guilty of spoiling our children. We need to realize that by giving our children too many things, we are not teaching them that people are more important than stuff.

9. Turn off your television: This is one of the things that is instilling the worlds values on your children. The things you don't blatantly see, are the things you should be worried about. Kids are like sponges picking up many things that we don't see because we are older. If you can't turn off the t.v. on a regular basis, at least do it at supper time.

10. Walk it! Don't talk it!: You can talk to your children and instill your values, but if you tell them one thing and do the opposite, you can forget it. If you tell them not to smoke and you do, they will. If you tell them not to sleep around, and you have a different boyfriend/girlfriend every 2-3 weeks, they will, too. You must walk the walk and it may be the hardest thing to do on the list.

11. You can't run your life on feelings: The sign of a mature emotional person is someone who is under control most of the time. It is all right to be extremely happy, it is okay to cry, it is okay to be mad, but if you are hitting all these emotions on a regular basis (daily) expect to be unhappy. Also, expect to teach your children that is acceptable behavior imprisoning them to a life of emotional unhappiness.

I believe that these are great guidelines to being a good parent. Also, making you a relatively happy person. It may be something that helps you, it may not, but it is something that I will work towards on a daily basis to try be the best parent I can be.

Ten Rules to Live and Play By

I haven't given this out to the players in awhile, but will do so again this year. I stole some of these from Pat Summitt's Defnite Dozen from her book, Reach the Summitt. Coach Summitt is the all time winningest coach in college basketball, mens or womens.

I believe that these 10 things will help you to be successful in life as well as on the basketball court.

1. Respect: You must respect yourself which believe it or not, some players/people do not do. Whether it be that you are consistently making bad decisions in life or on the court, it can be because of a lack of self-respect. Respect others also. Most people in life have dealt with enough garbage and deserve some semblance of respect. On the basketball court, respect your opponent. We say often, respect everyone, fear no one.

2. Take responsibility: In my opinion, one of the worst things about our society today, and it seeps onto the court, is a lack of taking responsibility for yourself. It is always someone elses fault, or some unforeseen mystical force kept you from doing what needed to be done. It is better to say "my bad" and move on. But also take responsibility for others. If you are in a class, don't let your teammates or friends act in a way that is detrimental to the class, take responsibility for the group.

3. Develop and Demontrate Loyalty: Don't let the winds of popularity decide who is your friend. And on the court, all of your teammates are working and having the same high expectations thrust on them as is being expected of you....be a loyal teammate. Integrity above all else.

4. Discipline yourself and others will not have to: Do what you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do it and you will have very few problems on the court or in life.

5. Establish good habits: Get up early, be on time, word hard, work smart. Eat right, hang out with positive people, and get up and do it again each and every day. It is much easier to say than to do.

6. Put the team before yourself: In the summer, I understand that the self/family will sometimes come before the team, but if you play sports or work a job somewhere, often the team will come before you. You may have to give up some things that you enjoy doing during a season for the good of the team, we do it all the time as coaches.

7. Compete: Be persistent every day, all the time; never give up every day, all the time; and in all things, make the other team earn its victory. Do not just give up, go through the motions and lose. Scratch, claw, and fight!!!

8. Communicate: Probably one of the most important items on this list for a team and in any relationship is communication. Talk, if you are confused, ask questions until everything is perfectly clear. This will keep problems from occurring. If you get burned, get it in writing the next time, an email will suffice.

9. Accept change: Most people like how things are going if it is being semi-successful or comfortable for them. Accept change, accept losing playing time, or a starting position if it can help the team. Sometimes others do not display loyalty, and you must accept it because you will eventually get some type of reward. It may not be immediate, but it may be something that you have learned that will help you in dealing with another aspect of your life.

10. Handle success and failure the same: I believe that if you win, celebrate, have fun then move on to the next competition. If you fail, it is okay to be down, but never give up. Competitors do not see failure as the end all, but as a way to learn something or the beginning of something else. In the end, handle both, though, the same....with class. Win and shake hands and do not rub it in, and when you lose muster up your strength, shake hands, congratulate the victor and head to the locker room but do it with class.

You can't score, if you don't shoot!

At HHS, we also have 10 basic rules on offense. As with defense, they are rules that we look at often, redefine, and hopefully make better. Below are the 10 items, I think that are important to be a good individual offensive player as well as a good offensive team.

As in defense, we want our players to communicate, communicate, communicate. It never amazes me that kids who want to talk during school all day, want to enter the gym where we want them talking and won't.

1. Off the catch, triple threat: When we catch the pass, we want to go immediately into the triple threat position. That way you are prepared to be a threat offensively. It doesn't necessarily mean shooting, but driving and drawing two defenders and passing to the open man. Now sometimes we want to catch and rip immediately if the defense overplays the pass because the defense is at a disadvantage and scrambling.

2. Off the bounce, chin it: When picking up the basketball from the dribble, we want our players to chin the basketball. The defense through the years has been allowed to get away with more pushing, shoving, and slapping, fouling in general, and we want our guys to be strong with the ball. When working on this, I will tell them often to "check the air pressure" so that they think to be strong.

3. Without the ball, always put pressure on the defense: As an offensive player, we do not want to allow our defensive player be able to relax or take their mind off us. We want our players ready to make a cut, a backdoor cut, or a seal in the post if their defensive player falls asleep. Even if we run a set, I want the other guys not involved ready to be offensive. I will often say during practice "don't let the set keep us from scoring" because someone hasn't taken advantage of their defensive players lack of awareness.

4. Use your arms and body to get open: We try to teach our guys to be physical on both ends of the floor, but on the offensive end of the floor, if they will take advantage of a little arm bar push or dragging their man into a screen they can be more successful. But not only can they be physical with their defensive player, but I also want them to use their teammates. I want them to push and shove the screener in places to help bump their defensive player.

5. When the shot goes up, rebound. *Shooting % increases with each additional shot*: Never concede that a shot is going in, never, never, never. Also, pay attention to the coaches and live action to see where rebounds come off during action. Offensive rebounds can be a back breaker to other teams.

6. Minimize turnovers: The fewer TO's you have the more opportunities you have to shoot which increases your chance of scoring.

7. Take good shots: This is an individual thing. What is a good shot for one player, may not be a good shot for another player. However, if you have a good shot for you, our players must feel comfortable to shoot at any time....again, if it is a good shot for them. This is something that some people don't understand because one player may have the green light to shoot an off balance shot with 2 players on them, and another may not because it's a good shot for one player and not another.

8. Pass up a good shot to get a great shot: This is one of the hardest things for kids to understand. But it is something that can increase shooting %. This usually happens on a ball reversal or a drive and kick where someone passes up a good shot to get a wide open shot. Wide open shots for guys that can hit it are great shots.

9. Be unselfish, and it will come back to you: Kind of a Zen way of thinking, but most scorers from jr. high want to shoot, or pass it and get it right back. We try to teach our guys that the best way to get open for a great shot is to pass it and get away from the ball. By doing so, they create space and gives their defensive player a better chance of making a mistake. The game is full of hundreds of passes that lead to nothing other than maybe getting you or a teammate open in the future.

10. Throw the ball inside. Open 3's on reversals and inside out: Even if your post players aren't that great at scoring, you have to throw it inside so they can pass it back out. It is almost always going to happen, but some perimeter defensive player will help leaving somebody open, weakside will come to the help side even more leaving the opposite elbow open, or a pass out could lead to another pass to a wide open shot (see #9). Also, any perimeter who can hit a 3 point shot, if the ball is reversed quickly and they are open, have the green light to shoot.

If your posts can score, it makes your perimeter players even more dangerously open.

Defense! (clap, clap) Defense! (clap, clap) Defense!

At Henryville, we have 10 Basic Rules of Defense that we try to follow and incorporate in our daily practice plans. They are 10 rules that can make you a tough team to score against. But before you do anything on this list, the coach must pass onto the team how important being a good defensive team/player is to your successes. Probably an 11th rule should be added on both offense and defense and that is communication. Talk to each other.

1. No middle: We do not want the ball driven to the lane. Most kids will drive to the lane to score, if we can keep that from happening, we feel we can stop individual offense.

2. Jump to ball 1/2 step, then drop to defend drive: Kids have gotten so much better at penetration and we want to stop dribble drives. In fact, because of personnel, we do not teach to deny one pass away. For two reasons, 1. we find that getting back doored happens, creating offense, but 2. because the person is so good at penetration, if we deny, we don't help as well.

3. Close out with hands high: Depnding on how good the shooter is will decide for us through scouting if we want to close out tight, or shallow. But it is imperative to get your hands up, both of them. Stutter stepping while closing out to take away penetration. Now with that said, if we believe the player cannot shoot, we may not raise our hands giving them the shot.

4. Don't get screened: Screening and using screens has deteriorated, so we feel we should never get screened. If you are physical with your offensive player, they will not use the screen correctly, but also, if your teammates help you, screening won't happen because.....

5. Extend screens/ Bump cutters: By being a good teammate, you should help your teammate on defense by stepping out and extending screens. But if you are not going to do that, bump cutters. When an offensive player comes into your area, move into their path, bumping them or taking them off their line.

6. Go with the butt: Again, on a ball side screen we want to slip through the screen, but if you cannot, stay right behind your man. If you do that, you cannot be screened!

7. Affect shots, no standing 3's: No matter where someone shoots, affect their shot. Wall up in the post, hand up on 15 footers, yell, throw hands up, rotate, switch, do whatever you have to, to affect shots.

8. Take the charge: Be a good teammate and help, and when you do, take a charge. Then all other teammates should help that person up because of such unselfish behavior.

9. Look to help out: Depending on whom you are guarding, look to help out. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

10. Block out, or arm bar: Block out in the paint, and hold them, keep the offense from getting second shots. On the perimeter, we teach to arm bar, then roll to block out.

What? Where? When? How? Why?

With today's modern technology, the average fan shouldn't be out of the loop when it comes to Henryville basketball. We have a website at leaguelineup.com/henryvillebasketball, you can follow me on Twitter at CoachHunterHHS, I send out a news letter once a week during the school year (email me at phunter@henryville.wclark.k12.in.us if you want on the list), and you can access the schedule as soon as it is on Harrell's website at

indianahsbasketball.homestead.com/boys.html.

If you have made it to this blog site, you can access all of the above, except the news letter, from here. Hopefully, this clears up any questions that may arise at anytime pertaining to Henryville Basketball. Please contact me at the above email if you have any questions in the future.