Coach Yourself Not Your Players
Lee Taft 
Coach You, Not Them!
What!! What do you mean coach you and not them?
Hold on, I mean, don’t coach like another coach, not your players.
How often have you listened to a coach at a clinic talk about how they use their defensive, offensive, press break, or pressing system with such great success?
We all have listened to coaches introduce their systems, and it made us so excited to implement them with our athletes.
Then What Happens?
You take all this new information home and try to implement it with your team. It looks pretty good, but then problems arise, and you don’t have answers for it!
Coach you! Coach what you know best.
Your system may not be as “great” as another coach, but at least you know your system inside and out.
The ability to make quick and accurate adjustments is what’s most important. If you can regress, progress, adapt and adopt your system to help your players succeed, that’s the most important thing.
Who cares what Kentucky, South Carolina, UConn, or UCLA are doing? If you don’t understand it inside and out, it doesn’t help you!
Coaching isn’t about this offense versus that offense or this defense versus that defense. It’s about how your players understand and can perform it. It’s about how your players can understand the multiple layers of your system and execute it at a high level.
Some teams are still running offensive systems from the ’70s and kicking butt! Their players understand it so well and have impeccable timing and chemistry.
Attend Clinics
Go to clinics and learn! However, take what is helpful to your program and leave the rest behind.
When I put the CBSS Level 1 course together, I did it with every coach in mind. I don’t care if you coach youth basketball, high school, college, or professional the language and techniques fit everyone’s system.
Categories: art of coaching, coaching systems