Blog Posting #79, September 23, 2009

Coach Hank Part VI, A Question That Turned a Program Around

A discouraged High School Basketball coach, Hank Bias was on a mission to find the answers that would turn his program around. But Hank was not content to pick up information from coaches around the area; he wanted to pick the brains of the best. Whenever he learned something, and it worked, he added it to his system. The result was a hodgepodge, eclectic, type of system where the components were good, but unconnected.

When Hank began to learn from Coach Wooden, a series of events took place:
1. October 2003: Hank visits Coach Wooden and learns about practice planning, practice efficiency, and pedagogy.
2. 2003-2004 season: Hank implements what he learns, and his practices become well planned and very efficient. Hank improves as a skilled teacher. But, he is still using the eclectic system of offense and defense.
3. Spring 2004: Hank visits Coach Wooden for the second time and learns the offense (and the rest for that matter) is a system. In other words, the plays work best when they are pieces (options) of a system. 
4. Summer 2004: Swen Nater runs a clinic and shows Hank the offensive system, particularly how pressure releases are options the defense gives the offense.

During the summer of 2004, not long after Swen Nater’s visit, Hank asks his assistant coach a candid question that was to turn the program in the winning direction. He said, “This stuff works. Can you give me one good reason why we shouldn’t use Coach Wooden’s entire system, not just a few plays? In other words, why reinvent the wheel?” It was a rhetorical question.

In his research up to that point, Coach Bias had read many basketball books, including John Wooden’s Practical Modern Basketball. In fact, he had read that book three times, cover to cover. That meant, Hank Bias was very familiar with the entire system, including the High-Post Offense, half-court defense, and the famous 2-2-1 full-court press. This was good news. He already knew the system he was going to install. What he had to do, before the first practice session, was to put that system into practice plans and get ready to teach it.

One thing he liked about the UCLA offensive system was it was flexible and adjustable. Beginning with the basic player positioning, he used plays that fit his personnel. What he liked about the full-court press was, it was also adjustable. Hank’s players were not as athletic as some teams in the area so he used the press more as a means of slowing down the opponent, studying their idiosyncrasies, and picking when to trap and attack.

The following season (2004-2005), opposing coaches were incredulous and surprised to see Hank adopted, what many called, an “old school” system, particularly the High-Post Offense and the full-court press. Even skeptics close to the Firebird Basketball Program, thought Hank went a little overboard with this “Coach Wooden” thing, and some even doubted the whole story of the visit to California and the long talk at Coach Wooden’s condo. But Coach Bias ignored the disbelievers. In his mind, he had found buried treasure. That season the win/loss record began to improve.

The following season, the Firebirds won their division. After graduation, Andy, McCrosen, one of Coach Hank’s players, looked back on what happened and wrote, 
 
“Strictly basketball wise the philosophy of our program changed. We went from a hold it up top team to a team that pushed the ball every possession and pressed, we played to win not to keep it close. Practices went from long grueling 3-3:30 hour sessions to 2 hours on the dot full of work with no wasted time. Everyone stayed focused and involved the entire time. Before with the long practices there would be down time and lulls throughout practice where it would be easy to lose focus not get better. However, with the 2 hour practices, I can say that I got better each and every day. And of course we switched to the UCLA offense which made us virtually unstoppable on offense. Teams had no idea and for the most part still have no clue on how to guard it. Perhaps the biggest clue to it working was that every team in the area now runs UCLA sets.”

A local observer who witnessed the transformation seconded McCrosen’s words and testified, after the UCLA system was installed and practiced, the players and coaches seemed to be on the same page and that the team quickly became one of Southwest Ohio’s top programs.

Conclusion
The lesson to be learned is: The purpose of research is to arrive at the truth.

During Coach Wooden’s career, he dedicated each off season to researching a particular facet of basketball. For example, one summer was completely dedicated to rebounding and another to free throws. The research project began with sending questionnaires to coach that were successful in that particular part of the game. While waiting for the completed questionnaires, he read every periodical and book on the subject. He also interviewed locals that he considered experts. At the end of the off season, when all the data was collected, Coach Wooden analyzed the data and drew conclusions. Once those conclusions were written down, he knew he had arrived at the truth. He never had to look back.

In a real sense, Coach Bias did the same thing Coach Wooden did. He was doing research in order to arrive at the truth. Coach Hank was looking for a system. In doing so, he collected data from respected sources (respected coaches) and, by putting them to the test, began to collect data. Some things worked well and some not so well. However, when he found Coach Wooden’s system and began to try pieces of it, he saw they worked. That led to the question that changed everything. He found the system he was looking for—one that was complete and adjustable to all personnel and situations. To the delight of Coach Bias, and especially his players, he no longer needed to change offenses and defenses mid-season. Now he was prepared to make changes and adjustments within the system he had, when he needed to.