College coaches such as Rick Pitino and Penny Hardaway recently added to the litany of coaches questioning their players’ desire to win. The complaints are not new. Every generation, it seems, believes it cared more than the next.
“The real pattern isn't any big cultural shift. It's a more venerable algorithm: How middle-aged folks freak out over niggling cultural differences between themselves and twenty-somethings,” wrote Clive Thompson in Wired Magazine (2014).
We blame social media and AAU, but the arguments predate either. I sat in my boss’ office in 2002 and listened to her complain that nobody cared as much as she did. I imagine she did care more about each game than the players. She was trying to secure a full-time, tenured, six-figure per year position. Is there a better job? She did not have a family, and was not from the area. She had plenty of time to watch more film and dwell on every mistake. She chose to make basketball her life.
The players finished our 5 P.M. home games and hurried home to eat and study. They had papers for English 101 due at 9:00 A.M. the next morning or biology exams for which they needed to study. They played hard. They dove on the floor. They cared about winning and making the playoffs, but they were student-athletes without full scholarships. Basketball was a part of their lives, and an important part, but once the game ended, they shifted to the next thing, whether finding dinner, getting to the bus, or studying for an exam. They did not have the luxury of ruminating over a game for 24-48 hours.
Coaches choose coaching. NCAA Division 1 jobs require Bachelor’s degrees, at minimum, as do most college coaching jobs of any kind. The coaches could find other jobs using their degrees, but they choose to coach. Coaches often assume the identify of a coach. Coaching is more than a job.
That investment skews perspective. Coaches take losses personally; I often cannot sleep after games, but especially after losses, as I replay the game and my decisions in my head. Coaches often feel judged because we coach in the fish bowl, as I heard Ray Lokar call it.
Few college players and below have made such a conscious decision. Many still play for some combination of having outlier height, being naturally good at basketball, liking to be part of a team, needing to pay for school, and other similar reasons that have little to do with winning games or loving the sport. However, just because they have not consciously committed to the sport does not mean they do not care about winning or do not play hard.
I coached a junior-varsity high school girls’ team at an academic-oriented high school. Most of their parents were doctors or tech workers, and they viewed top 10 public universities as their backup schools. None aspired to play college basketball. I imagine none ever played outside of team practices and games.
These girls ran through walls. They dove for loose balls. They ignored the athletic trainer insisting they must sit out after an ankle sprain. I could not ask for much more on the court.
Nobody spoke about games once they ended. They talked about boys, gossiped, or whatever on shorter drives, and worked on their homework on longer drives. They were one hundred percent engaged on the court, but moved on to the next thing once the game ended.
I was initially taken aback. I remember forcing myself to cry after we lost our first game in 8th grade because I thought that was the reaction the coaches wanted to see. Immediately moving on and gossiping or doing homework seemed insulting.
I realized the girls’ behaviors were far healthier than mine. Why make myself miserable, disrupting my eating and sleeping, because we lost a game? The girls had other things important to them. Did I? Does that say more about them or about me?
They taught me an important lesson about the proper perspective. Compete like crazy on the floor, but once the game is finished, it is gone. There is no changing the result after the fact. Learn from the mistakes for the next game, but do not allow the one game to ruin the preparation for the next practice or game.
Coaches make sacrifices to coach, and some angst stems from a perception that players moving on after a game demonstrates a lack of appreciation for these sacrifices. Instead, it is simply two different life stages.
I have watched coaches walk into locker rooms and throw stuff in the direction of players, break clipboards, prohibit post-game meals, take away practice gear, bring players back onto the court to run, and more. Is that how to show one cares? Do these behaviors improve future performance or simply allow the coaches to blow off steam at the players’ expense?
How do players demonstrate they care about winning? Should they walk into locker rooms and throw stuff, break stuff, voluntarily not eat, and more? What behaviors do coaches want to see?
Many problems arise because of a mismatch expectations. A coach’s definition of playing hard differs from the players’. Is that the players’ fault? Has the coach clearly explained his or her expectations? Has the coach defined playing hard? Is this something emphasized every day or only commented on after a loss?
College coaches also underestimate the environment. How does finals week or midterms affect performance? Do we want players to flip a switch and go from student to a killer on the court? Yes. We want players to compartmentalize their lives, but the reality is college players are not professionals. We may treat them like professionals, but they have classes to attend and pass, community service and other obligations, possibly live in a dorm, lift weights whenever it fits the strength and conditioning staff’s schedule, and more. We want student-athletes and professional athletes at the same time, and this often leads to problems.
No player wants to play poorly. Nobody wants to make mistakes. Occasionally, players have not learned the proper behaviors, or the behaviors their coach desires. Sometimes, the environment and requirements outside the court affect performance on the court. Often, players just have a lot going on in their lives, and basketball is one thing, not everything. As long as they give the attention, concentration, and intensity needed on the court, we should worry less about their behaviors off the court in terms of evaluating how much they care about winning. Players want to win. But, as we tell them repeatedly, there is more to life than a single game. It is the coaches who forget this lesson they often preach.
That's an excellent post about perspective. The chatting on the bus home about relationships, movies, homework or music is a much better one than being interrogated by your parent (Wade Gilbert calls them the Volvo Caucus).
Personally, I have much better perspective competing as a Masters weightlifter than I did as a karateka, twenty years ago, thanks to my family. They simply don't care! When I walk in the house, it's dad coming home, not a (sort-of) athlete.
I like it much better. I try to keep the same when I give my kids lifts to their events/ training.
Excellent article