Blog Post #48, April 7, 2009

Coach Hank: Part I
Hank and Coach Wooden: Practice Organization and Reducing Wasted Practice Time

Category: Practice

Hank was an assistant high school basketball coach that inherited the head coaching job by default; the incumbent left the program. Like most new coaches, he borrowed the system of the teacher he learned from, and picked up a few new plays and drills from various sources along the way. After a very disappointing first season, Hank was extremely discouraged and, when he surmised the future, felt almost hopeless. The way Hank saw it, he had two choices: either choose a different career path, or learn how to coach basketball. One of his players helped him make the decision.

During that year, and after a practice session, one of his seniors, Brandon, approached Hank and told him, “Coach, you know a lot about the many drills you use, but they don’t seem to connect with each other.” Hank understood why Brandon would be the one player to be candid; he had his sights set on becoming an engineer and was already thinking like one. To engineers, all components of a structure functionally connect to each other and to the integrity of the whole. Brandon saw the practice drills as good in themselves but there was no synergy.  In other words, when practice was over, no part of the offense or defense had been built. Hank viewed Brandon’s words as constructive. When he combined what his senior said with other advice he was receiving, he took the challenge. Coach Hank was enrolling in Coaching 101.  

Where to start was the big question; there was so much to work on. A professor friend urged Hank to look into research on coaching. He did. In his search, he ran across an article written by Ronald Gallimore and Ronald Tharp. The article addressed the results of a study the authors conducted on John Wooden’s teaching by recording what he said to his players during a number of UCLA practice sessions, and performing analysis. 

Hank contacted Gallimore who led him to John Wooden. He didn’t waste time, called the retired coach, and arranged a personal visit to his home in the Los Angeles area. For two days, he picked the mind of the great teacher and learned many things. He may have been looking for tactical information such as Xs and Os, but Coach Wooden kept directing the conversation to practice organization and teaching methodology. He told Hank that if he were to organize his practices for maximum productivity, he would be well down the road to success. From that Hank concluded, if he was going to turn the program around, it would begin with organizing and executing the practice plan.  

 When he returned home, he immediately began taking the details Coach Wooden had given him about practice organization, efficiency, and productivity, and applied them to his own program, his own team, and his own players. The temptation was to begin by revising drills. But Hank stayed true to what Coach Wooden had stressed and, keeping in mind what Brandon told him, started tinkering with practice plans so that all drills were relevant to the goal of that particular practice session, and arranged them systematically.

With that behind him, he began finding ways to increase productivity by reducing wasted time. Following are the four things Hank did, that, in his opinion, saved the most time and, thereby, increased achievement.  

1. Writing Down the Practice Plan and Sticking With It
In the past, Hank wrote down his practice plan, but didn’t always adhere to the schedule. For example, if a drill was going badly, he sometimes extended it. Consequently, the time allotted for some of the other drills was reduced or practice often concluded later than the players were told. When returning from Los Angeles, Hank planned his practice carefully, giving each activity an exact duration. The goal was to stick with the schedule no matter what. Any changes that needed to be made were written down during practice and implemented the next day, not that day.

2. Transitions Between Drills: Changing Practice Jerseys
Like John Wooden, Hank broke down the offense and defense into parts and that meant competition. For example, first, the offensive play was presented as a whole but then taught, beginning with two-on-two, then three-on-three, then four-on-four, and finally five-on-five. To distinguish one small group from another, players wore colored shirts. Hank quickly discovered, when transitioning from one activity to another, it took valuable time to announce which players were wearing what colors. But he solved the problem by listing the groups on the locker room board before practice began. Consequently, each player knew what color he was wearing for any particular drill. For example, John would go from white, to red, to blue, to white.

At first, transitions from drill to drill were slow as would be expected. To speed things up, Hank would inform the slowest group exactly how long it took them to change jerseys. “That took you guys fifteen seconds.” He would even start the drill before the players finished changing their shirts. They got the message; Coach Hank would not tolerate wasted time. Gradually, transitions became smoother and quicker. 

3. Transitions Between Drills: Preparation
To trim even more fat off transitions, the equipment needed for the next activity was positioned well before the previous one was finished. To accomplish this, he wrote out his practice plan, minute by minute, and went over the plan with his managers and assistant coaches. Every coach and manager received a copy of the schedule which made it possible for them to prepare for the next drill.

4. Ten-Second Corrections
In Hank’s opinion, the fourth change he made was “the genius of it all.” Note, he wasn’t referring to his own genius; this was something he picked up from Wooden. Before he met Coach, when correcting a player, Hank would spend a great deal of time. What Wooden told him was, corrections should be no more than ten seconds if possible, the player should be addressed by first name, nothing should be mentioned that would discourage the player, and the correction should be packed with practical information the player needs to make the change.  “Kyle. Make your cut at the right time. It was a little early. Wait a second and see what happens. Try it again.”

Hank is quick to say, he didn’t perform any of the four changes perfectly right away. He tried, but all change takes time.  Gradually, however, it all came together, and here’s proof.

Remember Brandon, the player that told Hank his drills weren’t connected? Well, a few years after he graduated from high school, Bandon called Hank and asked if he could come back and participate in a practice. He said he missed basketball. Hank agreed but warned him practice planning was based on twelve players, not thirteen. As it happened, one player was hurt and Brandon participated in the entire practice. After it was over, he approached Hank and said, “Coach, if we would have practiced like that when I played here, we would have been a much better team.”

For Hank that didn’t mean he had failed before; it meant he was on the right track.

In just a few years, Hank turned his program from losing to a regional power. Stay tuned for the next big step in his journey.