This started as a post about playing hoops here in China... and something went hinky... I left the post as it was... The next one will be about hoops in China.
Fresh off my Intercultural Training, and being the newly culturally sensitive guy I am, let me be sure to start with a disclaimer that any references to Chinese people playing basketball are specific only to the people with which I have played to this point, and is in no way meant to be a blanket statement on the skill or playing style of all Chinese pick up basketball players... Legal disclaimer out of the way, here we go....
I no longer have a complex about the fact that Stephanie's blog is better than mine... I have simply accepted this as fact... A fact I continue to bring up every so often... but really, I am over it! She has better material, and was a Communications major in college for goodness sake! So I am left to babble on with little skill and poor material - neither being any fault of my own! :)
So as many of you know, I am a bit of a gym rat. I fell in love with basketball in the driveway of my grandparents house on the farm in Zanesville, Ohio. There was an old hoop in the driveway that was well under 10' tall. I actually credit my jump shot to that hoop being too low. It allowed me to grow up with proper form, not having to always heave the ball up to a 10' tall hoop. I took that love of hoops to Wyoming, where I played my first organized basketball in both a YMCA league and at Holy Name Elementary School. Then onto Sacred Heart and St. Mary's in Medford, Oregon (which included a great layup at the wrong basket), finishing up my organized 'career' (if you can really call it that) at Linfield College in McMinville, Oregon.
At the conclusion of my second year of playing Junior Varsity basketball for the Wildcats, I knew that I was not destined to see much playing time beyond that. The 'formula' (if you will) that got me through high school basketball didn't translate to the college game. I always showed up to practice on day 1 out of shape in high school... This was OK since our high school coach had to run off about 1/2 the guys who came out for the team anyway - so the first few weeks were nothing but a track meet... and then every drill we ran was full out full court... so within a month, you were well into 'basketball shape'.
I showed up to my freshman year of college basketball and weighed in on day 1 at 220 pounds. This was after playing at about 195 pounds (on a 6 foot frame) my senior year in high school. I didn't play much that summer after I graduated high school and showed up at college with very little in the way of good eating habits or exercise habits. I could eat whatever I wanted in high school - I played multiple sports year round, and that was my exercise routine. Freshman year of college I discovered a few new things... Beer being the primary downfall of my 'playing shape'. What little discipline I had was used up studying (although my mom might question the discipline that delivered a lowly 2.86 GPA my first semester).
And in college, the expectation is that you show up basically in shape. Practice time is spent on offensive and defensive schemes, plays, repetition of new skills being drilled into players. There was little time or energy for 'getting players into shape' that had not bothered to take care of themselves. I might have been able to change the course of my basketball direction had I made a commitment right then to being more disciplined... Unfortunately, I did not... Fraternity, girls, studies (not in that order mom, really) were distractions I let get in the way.
Anyhow, I knew after my second season with the 'Cats that if I was kept in the program, it would likely be either as a Junior on the JV team, or as the last guy off the bench on the Varsity - only likely to see playing time as a part of the 20-20 team (up 20 or down 20). And although I still hesitate to admit it, there was always the chance that I got cut altogether.
I walked into Larry Doty's office after my second season finished up and ate my pride and told him that I didn't want to take up a roster spot from someone who might help the program more. I know I was coachable, good attitude, always in the right place at the right time, but I knew my athletic limitations, and I was making the decision to hang up my sneakers. I was asking for an opportunity to stay involved with the program. I set my sights low and asked if I could manage the team or keep stats, anything he needed help with really. What happened next shocked me really... And set me on the course for 2 of the most enjoyable years of my life to that point.
Larry said that he had a coach leaving the staff. And that if I was willing to, he would ask the athletic director to extend me a contract as a paid coach for the college. I was floored. I loved the game, I loved the program, I loved the college, and now I had a chance to coach? I can't tell you how excited I was.
Now remember, Linfield is a Division III program at a 1500 student liberal arts college in McMinnville, OR. So it's not like I was a GA (Grad Assistant) at Duke. And the money was next to nothing... seriously next to nothing. But it was a contract with the college, it was the chance to learn more about the game I loved, and as it turned out... it was a chance for me to discover my passion.
My first season on staff my role was primarily dedicated to 2 things. First and foremost recruiting - which the entire staff took part in. We divvied up the local kids we wanted to recruit and a couple of nights a week, off we went to see high school basketball games and talk to kids and parents afterwards. I enjoyed this quite a bit. I got to learn how to evaluate talent. How to look at how a kid played, what his strengths and weaknesses were, how he carried himself on the floor (with his team mates, against the competition and with the officials). Then I would talk to the parents and the kids about the school and the program and occasionally give tours of the facilities and the campus.
The other responsibility I had was scouting upcoming opponents. I spent a lot of other time in the gyms of other opponents sitting high up in the bleachers writing down tendencies of individual players (must force left - has no left hand; must not lose him in transition - finishes well at the basket; can help of this guy on defense, can't hit water falling out of a boat), as well as documenting specific plays (out of bounds plays and set offensive plays). My job was to take this information and put together a skeleton of a game plan for Dotes to review before he made final decisions on game plans consulting with the coaches on staff. The way I saw it my job - which I took very seriously - was to put they guys on the floor in the best position to be competitive - to prepare them to compete. Execution was up to them (thank goodness given my lack of vertical leap and lateral speed), but I could do my part by trying to insure they knew what to expect. I ended up doing most of the scouting since many of the games we needed to scout were on the same night the varsity was playing, so I would be working while they were playing.
My last responsibility that first season was as assistant coach for the junior varsity team. I was assisting Jeff Autencio, and assisting meant everything from insuring that the pre-game meals were arranged, to insuring the vans were ready for road trips, to occasionally putting the gear on and practicing with the team when we were short handed players... whatever Jeff needed, I did... and I was happy to do so. I was loving it.
At the end of the first season, I was exhausted. I had been to probably 100 high school and/or college games, assisted in 20+ JV games, assisted in a handful of varsity games, reviewed game film of opponents and our players, and all for a few bucks.... but I was hooked. I loved every minute of it.
Now I can't end the description of the first season without giving proper recognition to my wife. She and I had just started dating that year. I can't tell you the number of 'dates' we had on Friday or Saturday nights that involved us going to see a high school basketball game in Salem, or Dayton, or Sherwood, where she had to sit around afterwards alone while I went to talk to an athlete or his parents. Or going to Willamette to scout the team on Friday night that we were going to play on Saturday. Hot dog dinners with popcorn side dishes, and a Twix for dessert. All the time I am scribbling furiously in a notepad and explaining to her this would all work much easier if we just talked during timeouts and half time. I look back at it and can't believe she still married me!
I learned the most from this coaching experience at Linfield in my second and last year on staff. Larry felt comfortable enough to trust me with the Junior Varsity team on my own... I was a head coach for the first time, and in only my second year of coaching. I reality, what happened was that he really needed Jeff's attention and focus on the varsity squad. With the teaching, coaching, scouting and recruiting that Larry still did, plus his own kids sporting events, he needed a full time assistant coach at the varsity level... There were only 3 full time coaches - Larry, Jeff and I. So Larry and Jeff focused on the varsity team, and I had my first team.
I won't bore you with the details of that entire season - although I remember them like yesterday, these 10 years later. I will just summarize a few things I remember learning that have stuck with me, and that I use today as a leader (program manager, manager) at Intel.
First, I love coaching. I love being responsible for putting people in a position to be successful. Whether that's on the basketball court, or in the confines of my business group at Intel. The methodology - what I do to try to put them in a position to be successful is slightly different, but also slightly the same. One thing that is different is the motivational time frame. In basketball, I was motivating kids in short bursts - 2 to 3 hour practices, and 40 minute games. In the corporate world, I am motivating people over longer periods of time - the 9+ months to deliver a project like the one I am on now, or the 13 weeks it took us to deliver motherboards when I was managing a validation team. What's similar is my responsibilities as a coach or leader: Making sure there is a clear plan (game plan in hoops, project plan in a program, group objectives in managing a team), making sure people understand and can get behind that plan, recognizing good performance and rewarding that, recognizing bad performance and correcting that, and insuring that there is a process for documenting and focusing on delivering improvement season over season or product generation over product generation.
One of my good friends once told me when I was struggling at Intel in my first management job, "you are never as good a manager as you think you are, and you are never as bad a manager as you think you are". I think that he was right. I think back to coaching at Linfield that second year, and I remember 2 things really vividly - 2 pieces of feedback that I had to take and make changes to my coaching style immediately.
One was when I took the Junior Varsity team to an away game at a community college in Washington. These guys were big. And athletic. Many of them went to a JuCo for 2 years to address grade issues or discipline issues to get themselves in a position to play DI or DII basketball. These guys were manhandling us. They were bigger than my kids, more aggressive than my kids and more physical than my kids. I thought we were getting beat up pretty badly and the refs were letting it happen. I was all over them. Every trip up and down the floor was another missed call I could be pissed about and let loose with a smart assed remark. To their credit, not only did they not give me a technical, one of them gave me a piece of advice. He said 'hey coach, why don't you spend more time coaching your kids and less time yelling at me'. I had let myself get wrapped up in the officiating of the game, thinking that I was defending my kids - protecting my kids. What I was really doing was abandoning them. They were getting killed physically, and I was abandoning them emotionally, since all of my emotion was directed at the officials. We lost that game badly - but I learned a lesson. One I try to use to this day - control what I can control, stay focused on that. Acknowledge what I can't control, but when I realize it really can't be impacted, it is indeed immovable, forget about it, and figure out the next plan or strategy.
The second thing I learned was via a kid to a parent through my wife. We were at a road game. We played OK, and won a tight game. I talked to the kids after the game (can't remember a thing I said), and released them to talk to parents and friends, shower and meet for the ride back to school in an hour. Steph was in the stands as one of the kids was having a conversation with their parent. The parent was congratulating them on a good game, and asking them more specifically about some comment they made (that Steph did not hear). The kid explained that the win was great, but they weren't having a lot of fun. That coach was always real serious and more or less a slave driver. OUCH.
Looking back now, with the advantage of a decade more experience, up to that point, I think he was right. I was still only 21 or 22 years old and fairly immature. As far as I was concerned, these guys were talented, and they had a chance to win most of the games they played in. And foolishly, I assumed that 'fun' was dictated almost completely be whether you won or lost. I made a real effort at that point to lighten and loosen up and try to let these guys have fun, but keep a certain amount of pressure on them to continue to improve and stay focused. This was not, afterall, the NBA, or an NCAA DI Conference, or even the varsity team... This was what amounted to a DIII developmental league!
This is also something I took with me to leading and managing at Intel... It can't all be about accomplishing 'deliverables' or 'milestones' or 'tasks'. Some people inherently feel success and enjoyment from that (see: my wife), but some people have to enjoy how they got there. Especially in the pressure cooker that is sports, or a high pressure corporate environment - slave driver managers turn their team over for the sake of accomplishing short term deliverables... we see it all the time. They are effective at getting short term results, but not efficient or effective over the long term. Many people probably read this and said 'duh, people need to enjoy their work, you idiot', but I had to learn that that hard way... I had to learn that my idea of fun was different than theirs - and to keep them motivated, I had to learn how their fun and my job could co-exist.
That team that was my JV squad ended up winning a conference championship a couple of years later, once I was on to working in 'corporate America'. Who knows what, if any, impact I had on their development and their eventually reaching that goal. Like I said, they were a talented bunch of kids. What I do know, is that I probably wasn't as good a coach as I thought I was, but I probably wasn't as bad either... much like today.
Anyhow, this post was a complete indulgence on my part... nothing to do with China afterall... I got started on hoops, and my experience, and could not get off of it... if you made it this far, my apologies... I'll really post about playing basketball in China in the next one... I promise!
Cheers,
Joe
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