Day 46: What Came First...

Daily Blog Challenge Day 46/365

I recently had a conversation with a fellow basketball coach about my basketball philosophy and he stated that his philosophy is that you win at all costs.  He believes that if you instill a winning culture and expect sportsmanship and hard work, everything else will happen.  It sounded to me like the Chicken and the Egg Dilemma and it forced me to reconsider my philosophy.

At the moment I coach 6th grade basketball and help with high school softball.  At the 6th grade level, this is most often my players first experience with "real" basketball and my goal is to focus on fundamentals.  Often I think players (people in general) focus too much on having fun, which limits our desire to work hard.  In my opinion athletics and music are fun, but they are also a lot of work and sometimes in the midst of that work; things do not feel fun.  I tend to focus on players enjoying the game because I don't want them to quit.  I work in a small district and we need players.

Teams that win have a certain attitude, work ethic and skill set.  It is nearly impossible to win games (perform strongly) without concentrating on the fundamentals.  I am a big believer if focusing on the process instead of the outcome, but maybe I have been missing the point.  Maybe the mindset of winning instead of the mindset of "having fun" or just playing is a disservice to my players.  The mindset of winning forces us to focus on the details, work hard and play with dignity/pride.

The mind is a powerful tool that can hinder or improve performance.  The mindset of winning might be the thing I need to focus my players attention on the process.  We need to expect to win before we can act like winners.  In general need to expect to be great before we can be.  I thought I was helping my players last year by not putting pressure on them to win, but I am starting to believe that this might have been holding us back.  You must believe before you can be!

I would love to hear about your philosophies on the arts and athletics.