Part 3 - Build A Program That Shines For Years To Come

   Editor's Note: In the final part of this series below, below Jeff Huber covers the the remaining 3 of 7 questions that you should ask yourself when coaching a team or building your program...  Also, if you missed part 1 and part 2, you can read it here: [Are You Coaching a Team or Leading a Program - 7 Questions To Ask Yourself To Find Out](   5 - Are you seeing your team for what it is?   Teams can largely be categorized into two baskets - competitive and developmental. While your goal is to get your program to the point where it’s competitive every year, you might not be there yet.  If your team is in the competitive basket, winning becomes of utmost importance.   You should be doing everything you can to give your team the best chance to win each game. If you only play five players, so be it. If you run more junk defenses to throw off your opponent, so be it.  If your team is developmental, that does not mean winning doesn’t matter. Of course it does! What it does mean is that other factors should be considered.  If you have a developmental team, are there young players you have who would benefit from more experience? Are they comparable to the older players playing in front of them?   If so, consider giving your young players more time.   This is a hard choice for a coach to make. In the short term, it can lead to pain. The older player (and his family) might be upset. However, in the long run, this decision can help your program. You are developing players who will remain in the program, and you will reap those benefits in years to come.  If your team is developmental, spend your time implementing the system you will rely on once they are competitive.   If you are playing a team far superior, don’t coach to minimize the margin. If you can win the game through a tactic, go for it.   If not, use the concepts you want to develop.   For example, if you are a fast breaking team playing a better opponent, resist the urge to walk the ball up. That’s not who you want to be. Who cares if you lose by 18 or by 30?   6 - Do you involve your alumni?   It’s easy to think of program building in terms of younger players in our program. But almost as important is your effort to keep your alumni involved.  Even if you are a new coach at a school, reach out to former players. Here are some ideas to engage alums:  * Create an email list  Work with your administration to create a list of basketball alumni with emails. If you don’t have a list of former players already, you may have to go through yearbooks. While this takes more time, it’s worth it! This allows you to communicate with former players easily.  * Send a regular alumni newsletter  Keep former players in the loop of what’s going on in the program. Alumni who no longer live in the area really appreciate this.   * Host an alumni game  Former players love coming back and playing. Some coaches have them play their current varsity team. I prefer to have alumni play against each other.  If you get enough players to come back, have a couple games and split them by eras. * Recognize alumni at games: Have an alumni recognition night. Invite former players and admit them for free. Bring them out at halftime to be recognized.  Do this with great teams from the past as well on important anniversaries of their accomplishments. For instance, 10 years after winning a conference championship, invite those players back to be recognized.  When you do these game day events, have your alumni come into the locker room. This connects them to the current team.  * Recognize your alumni on social media  For the past couple years, I have sent out an alumni profile google form. It has about ten questions, some related to their playing career and some related to their current situation.    Every month I try to post one and share it on social media and with our current players.           This takes very little time and is fun for the alumni who participate.  * Use alumni as mentors and guest speakers  This is a little more involved. If you have alumni who are around a lot and show an interest in your program, consider pairing them up with players to mentor.  You might pair players and alumni based on career interests, their backgrounds, or other criteria you think would make them a good fit.  The alumni can then develop a relationship with the current players and help guide them as they become adults. Your players will benefit and you’d be amazed how much your alumni will be grateful to be asked.  For those alums who want to help in a less involved way, asking them to come back and address the team can be powerful. If they can tie their message into a story from their playing days, even better!   When you do this, your alumni get to share a character building message and your players get to hear a similar message from someone other than you!  I admire the programs where former players want to come back. That says a lot about their experience and you as a coach.   One thing I enjoy is seeing players who played for me years ago who still refer to me as ‘coach’.   That title is an honor. One way you can earn it is by remembering to make your former players part of your program.   7 - Do you have a mission statement that you use to make decisions?   Of all the questions in this article, this may be the most important. It’s also probably the easiest to overlook.    Creating a mission statement is a must. That statement will vary for every coach. Your mission statement should define the type of program you want to be.   At Elyria Catholic, our mission statement reads “To sustain a championship caliber team through hard work, enthusiasm, accountability, respect and teamwork. Through these core values we will represent the Elyria Catholic community with class and pride reflective of the school’s values and athletic success.”  Yours will be different.   The first important step is to have one. To create it, set aside some quiet time to reflect on what you’d like your program to be. Then whittle that down to a sentence that captures the main idea.  Having a mission statement is great, but too many people create one and then it’s never seen again. Don’t do that. Keep it front and center.   The best way to do that is to use it as the criteria for decisions you make for your basketball program. Whenever you are faced with tough decisions, look at it through the prism of your mission statement.   If it aligns with the statement, it’s good for your program. If it doesn’t, it’s probably not. For example, say one of your best players violates one of your team standards in a serious way.   If you enforce consequences for that violation, perhaps sitting that player from part or all of a game, that upholds the standard and furthers your mission. If you don’t make the player accountable, you might have a better chance of winning that game, but you’ve compromised your mission, and thus your program.   I have found using a mission statement to guide decisions to be freeing. It removes a lot of the gray area. It doesn’t necessarily make it easier to enforce the right decision, but it makes the right decision much clearer. And that right decision is the one that protects your program.  Final Thoughts - Build A Program That Shines For Years To Come  Coaching is hard. We all have experienced the highs and lows that come with the profession. One goal we all share is to create more of those highs and less of the lows.  Putting your program first gives you the best opportunity to do that. It gives you the chance to be one of those programs that people look at with respect. Players come and go. Some of your coaches will come and go.   But by making the core philosophies of your program your North Star, you can build a program that shines for years to come!    All the best,  Jeff Huber Breakthrough Basketball  This email was sent to {EMAIL} because you indicated that you'd like to receive emails and updates from Breakthrough Basketball on 2016-12-16 05:42:39. If you don't want to receive such emails in the future, please [Change Your Email Preferences]( or [Unsubscribe All]( Copyright © Breakthrough Basketball, LLC. All rights reserved. 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