The purpose of feedback
A passing drill was posted recently with the description:
“Want to know why Kelvin Sampson is one of the greatest to ever coach the game? How they do anything is how they do EVERYTHING. One minute passing drill here and look at the intensity. The players know the standard bc it’s the standard in everything they do.”
First, I believe Sampson is one of the best coaches in college basketball. I skipped my last week of college to work his camp at the University of Oklahoma, and he was one of the nicer Division 1 coaches I met during my years working camps, and his camp was one of the best and most fun to work. I do not believe anything in this drill demonstrates his greatness.
Second, ignore the drill. The purpose was not explained on the small clip. I have no idea the goal, the purpose, time of year, etc. The drill is incidental for this article.
Finally, let’s discuss feedback. Clearly, this drill was about effort and speed, not actual passing skills, precision, or improvement. The clip did not show the initial instruction or demonstrations and the goal or purpose is undefined. The feedback may be appropriate for their specific purpose. However, the following is the feedback for 40 seconds of a passing drill. I missed a few things that maybe were background conversations and things such as players’ names and initials on occasions, but this is most of the feedback:
Get better. Get better. Let’s go.
Call names.
(whistle)
Start over. Bad pass.
Let’s go. Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!
Good! Good! Good! Good!
Good! Good! Good! Good! Good! Good!
Good! Good! Good! Good!
Good pass.
Give him a good pass.
Good pass! Good pass! Good pass! Good pass!
Good pass! Good pass! Good pass! Good pass!
Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick! Quick!
Now, there is nothing necessarily wrong with any of this, and I only use this example because it was posted publicly, praised as being excellent, and demonstrates feedback I have heard at many practices and training sessions.
Again, there may have been instructions and demonstrations prior to the drill; there may be summary feedback after the clip ends. There are a lot of unknowns. However, during the 40 seconds, there are only two instructions: “Call names,” and “Give him a good pass”.
Personally, I do not like calling names because names often are called late and used as an excuse for a bad pass. We had a possession this year when a young point guard threw a pass to a player who should have expected the pass, but was not looking. The point guard yelled her name after she let go of the ball. She tried to explain the mistake by saying she had called her teammate’s name. Throwing a pass to a player who is not looking, and then calling out a name does not absolve one’s poor initial decision. I understand the reasons coaches want players to call names, and it is a good tool at the beginning of a season or camp to learn teammates’ names, but I want players to make eye contact before a pass and read body language, not throw to a voice or call a player’s name with the ball in the air. I recognize I differ from the majority.
Within the context of the drill, what is a good pass? Potentially a good pass was explained prior to the video, but often coaches assume players understand good from bad. In the context of this drill, with no defense or decisions, nothing to read, what constitutes good? Hitting a teammate in his chest? The speed? The timing?
The remainder of the feedback is motivational/praise with the single critique: “Bad pass!” Again, why was it bad? It was difficult for me to differentiate quality in the drill. Possibly the instructions outlined the purpose, and the bad pass was self-evident; possibly the coach instructed the player when he was in line to explain the problem and discuss a solution. However, in many practices, this is left unsaid.
Players take a bad shot or commit a turnover, and a coach says, “bad shot” or “bad pass”. A few possessions later, another players takes a similar shot or commits a similar turnover. Now, the coach may see differences between the two, whether because a better shooter has more leeway to take more difficult shots or because the pass was the right decision but executed poorly or possibly the coach feels the pass receiver should have caught the pass. The coach is observing. The players, however, may not differentiate the two, and if one was deemed bad, the other was fine, or maybe even called good, what should the players think? Is the coach playing favorites? How do they know what is good or bad? Inconsistencies and favoritism are two of the quickest ways to lose players’ trust.
Of course, a coach does not want to stop a drill on every mistake because there may no longer be a drill; just a coach talking. There is a balance. The coach often understands the balance. The coach may have a plan. However, do the players understand the plan? Do they see the balance?
I have written that I try not to stop the action until the same mistake occurs three times; I want players to have a chance to figure out the drill or the action before intervening, unless it is clear nobody understood my instructions. On that third error, if I blow up at the player, or even criticize the player, he is thinking the player in front of him did the exact same thing; he is right. That was the second mistake. Why am I blowing up at the third mistake and not the second? Players are confused. I try to preface the feedback by saying something like, “Look, that is the third bad pass in the last five” before instructing or motivating, or “I just watched three players in a row do xyz. We need to do abc”. Now, players know I am not picking on a specific player, and I did not ignore other mistakes. It alerts the other players that they may not have done as well as they thought, even though I did not stop the action on their attempt.
Alternatively, rather than address the group, I may simply address the player individually in line. A Division 1 coach watched one of our practices, as he was recruiting our point guard. We played 2v2, and I stood at half-court next to the guard line. When I needed to give feedback, I talked to the player when she was at the end of the line. If I needed to say something to a post, I jogged down to the post line when the post was out of the drill. The actual drill rarely stopped, and I rarely, if ever, addressed the entire team, but each player received individual feedback on moves, decisions, shots, defense, etc. when needed.
I try to give as little feedback as possible, but as much as necessary.
The coach approached at a water break and asked if I always coached in that way. I shrugged, as I did not think of it as a coaching style. It is just what I did. After I reflected, I realized I did coach in this way for a large part of practices. I tend to be quieter and less involved than most coaches, especially considering I do not have four assistants instructing and motivating as I observe. My goal is for players to figure it out. I cannot stop the action every play in practice, then expect players to find solutions on their own during games. Players have to learn to play through mistakes, and teammates’ mistakes, without the coach telling them what to do next.
Years ago, a fairly well-known skills trainer hired me as a consultant to watch his workouts and meet with him later to discuss my thoughts. He wanted to improve. Among other things, I pointed out his feedback, which was almost exactly like the feedback in the video: General, positive, constant, loud. After watching a few workouts, I said I could record his feedback from a workout and play it in another workout, and nobody would know the difference. At that point, what’s the point of the feedback? It is just noise.
In the States, especially, coaches pride themselves on a loud gym: “A quiet gym, is a loser’s gym!” is a popular mantra. There is some truth to the statement, but the noise, especially from the coaches, should have a purpose.
Were all of the passes really good passes? Why were they good? Is the feedback helping any of the players learn or improve some aspect of the pass?
Is a constant stream of noise good? If coaches are yelling constantly, what happens to the players? Do they learn to talk louder or are they quiet because the coaches fill the gap?
I address this, especially with young assistants who played Division 1. They want noise. They try to fill in all the silence with something. Our job is not to make noise. The players need to fill the gap, not us. Our feedback should be brief and informational. Occasionally, we may need to add praise or motivate or celebrate a player or play, but we should spend more time observing and evaluating before speaking, rather than simply making noise.
I stress communication with players, not noise. Coaches always tell players to talk more, but communication requires talking and listening. It’s fairly easy to get everyone to make noise, but if nobody listens and uses the information, what’s the point? Some teams attempt to intimidate opponents simply by yelling a lot on the court; I imagine it works against some teams, but it is simply not a strategy I would associate with good coaching or feedback.
Once we move from talking to communicating, then we emphasize the value of the information. We want players to provide information when they communicate with each other. Again, there are times, especially at dead balls, for motivation, praise, cheering, and more, but most of the communication should center on sharing information. As a small example, instead of yelling “Screen”, we want information, usually the side and hopefully the coverage: “Joe, Joe, Joe, screen left, screen left, screen left, under under, under.” We use a name to get a player’s attention, call out the screen, followed by the direction and the coverage. We try to communicate in threes as a habit. That may be too long, but that’s our goal. Realistically it may be: “Joe. Screen. Screen left, under, under, under.”
Again, my point is not to criticize the specific drill, feedback, or coaches because I imagine they are achieving their goals in that situation. However, many practices and training sessions sound the same, even when the goals differ, whether implicitly or explicitly.
If players need a coach to yell the entire drill to go hard or focus, they probably do not value the drill, or the environment has created the expectation coaches will make noise. When players are engaged in the activity, their attention and effort follow. Rather than playing hard or making noise to avoid punishment, they play hard to get better or for themselves and their teammates. They naturally talk and communicate more because they are engaged. Rather than the coaches creating the noise and motivating throughout a drill with constant, general, loud feedback, create more engaging drills and set the expectation that the players create their own energy and motivation. Use the majority of the coach feedback to instruct. As John Wooden said, “I believe that [instructions] is the positive approach. I believe in the positive approach. Always have” (Gallimore & Tharp, 2004). Yelling general praise throughout practice is not necessarily a positive approach to coaching; helping players through informative feedback and instruction is a positive approach.
Gallimore, R. & Tharp, R. (2004). What a coach can teach a teacher, 1975-2004: Reflections and reanalysis of John Wooden’s teaching practices. The Sport Psychologist, 18(2), 119-37.