The Blog

Self-Accountability & Chasing Outcomes

Many of you may have watched Wofford vs. Kentucky this past Saturday and saw Fletcher Magee go 0-12 from the 3-pt line en route to a close six point loss for his Wofford team. Two days prior, Magee hit seven 3-pt shots and became the all-time leader for most 3-pointers made in NCAA history.

Magee said this after Wofford’s loss to Kentucky, “I just needed to hit a couple of shots. We had the momentum sometimes and I had a big shot and it ended up not going in, but I’ve got to own up to it and swallow it. I went in there, I prepared like I always prepared. I did everything I’ve always done. I shot them how I always shoot them. They just didn’t go in.”

In a time where his emotions were running wild, he was accountable to himself and his performance. No excuses, no bad-mouthing his coaches, teammates, or the opponent- he simply stated that he wasn’t his best on that day and that he would grow from the experience.

Outside of personal accountability, I thought it was also a great reminder to all of us that no matter what we do to prepare or how hard we work, sometimes we don’t always get a desired result or outcome. Does that mean we shouldn’t prepare as hard? Absolutely not. Does that mean that we shouldn’t care or be disappointed if we don’t get the result we desired? No. However, in our goal-obsessed society, we must remember that putting all of our mental effort into an outcome doesn’t ensure that it will come to life. We have to stop attaching ourselves to outcomes and instead turn our focus to daily commitments and who we are becoming along our journey. Outcomes can help us reflect and give us feedback, but we must remember that an outcome doesn’t always paint the whole picture and it’s certainly not an indicator of who we are.

Tom Izzo 

Anyone on social media has probably seen some sort of opinion on the Tom Izzo “incident” during Michigan State’s first round game against Bradley. To give a quick summary, Izzo approached one of his players at a timeout on the floor, pointing and screaming at him for what appeared to be a lack of effort. Other players nudged Izzo backwards and tried to calm him down. The player came back with his own emotion. It was a heated exchange between Izzo and his player. Shortly after the incident many people took to social media to say that Izzo had gone too far. Others argued that this was him simply holding his player accountable for his actions. They claimed it to be completely appropriate behavior and a part of coaching.

There’s no argument on whether or not Tom Izzo is or isn’t a terrific coach- he is. If I was asked to give a one word answer, “yes or no”, if I had a problem with how he reacted, I would say “no”. Do I think he could have approached the manner in a different way? Probably- but given the circumstances Izzo may have thought this was the best option at that time. I don’t know the context with this player and wasn’t in that particular situation. If I were to challenge something it would be that if we expect players to exercise emotional control, coaches must model that same behavior. However, even with that being said, Izzo has earned the respect of his current and past players and the only people who can truly judge the behavior are the people in the know- very few outside of that locker room are truly in the know. So to me, all of the arguments of whether it was right or wrong is something that the players and the coaches connected to the situation know best. The player accepted responsibility, which tells us a lot.

A bigger topic in all of this is that just because Tom Izzo employs these methods doesn’t mean they’re correct or effective in every situation. People have to understand context. Izzo has built rock solid relationships with his guys and they love him and understand his competitive nature. These are also young men playing on full scholarships. Youth coaches who think they can berate a potential emotionally fragile kid in an environment that is designed to be for fun and development are sorely mistaken. Other methods such as using the bench as a teacher, showing film, or an occasional raising of your voice in a practice setting may be more effective. Outside of that- it’s important to evaluate what type of mistake a player made. If it was a mental or conceptual mistake- try TEACHING and CLEARLY communicating the correction instead of screaming about it. This is an all too common problem in youth sports- screaming and berating conceptual mistakes without correction. In many cases, it’s to cover up the coaches lack of knowledge and ability to actually teach the game. Furthermore, youth coaches who yell and scream all the time because that’s what they perceive coaching to be are doing nothing but turning their players off to them. We need to learn to communicate before resorting to yelling and berating. You can have emotion, but if you’re emotional all the time AND you don’t actually teach and correct- you’re not coaching, you’re not leading, and you’re certainly not helping develop players. So for all of the people who claim that Izzo’s incident is “just coaching and holding someone accountable”- there may be some truth to that, but there is also a whole lot of context that we need and a whole lot more to consider.

Playing w/ a Lead: 

I struggle when I watch teams who get a lead early in the second half of a game start playing the clock instead of playing the game. They stop running their typical offense and go to a complete stall where their movements get slow or stagnant. The possessions generally result in forcing up a bad shot with three to five seconds left in the shot clock. It’s not to say that offenses can’t be patient and that they shouldn’t try to hunt a great shot on each possession, but I will never understand teams who are virtually stopping everything they do offensively just to run time off the clock. I do think in these situations that teams who are generally more deliberate have a slight advantage as they are more comfortable running their offense for twenty seconds on a possession, but nonetheless, I see teams of all different styles fall into this trap. The clock becomes their main focus instead of continuing to attack and add to their lead. In too many cases, the energy is sucked out of the players and the mindset turns from being the aggressors to playing not to lose.

I was recently listening to a podcast with the head coach of the Nevada Men’s Basketball team, Eric Musselman. At the time I am writing this, Nevada is 14-0 and ranked #6 in the country in the college basketball rankings. Coach Musselman and his team are starting to garner national attention and many experts believe they are a legitimate Final Four contender. However, Musselman’s coaching journey to this point was anything but smooth. As he told his story, my mind wandered to relatable experiences in my own life as well as situations that many athletes are currently experiencing or will experience in a season or career.

In 2007, Coach Musselman was fired from his second NBA head coaching gig after just one season. After not coaching for three years, he got back into coaching when a NBA D-League team hired him as their head coach. After a couple of good (and unglamorous) seasons in the D-League, he became a college assistant at two different schools before being hired by Nevada as their head coach. Along this journey, Musselman learned. He became a voracious reader and started his own blog on leadership to reflect on things he learned and experienced. When he was an assistant in college, he took notes on things he liked and didn’t like about the program he was a part of. He enhanced his already deep knowledge in player development, X’s and O’s, and scouting reports while learning about the process of recruiting. Musselman embraced his circumstances, learned whatever he could and become a star in whatever role he had. Years later, another opportunity finally came and as evident, he was prepared for it.

With the right approach, times of struggle and moments of uncertainty allow us to grow and learn about ourselves. We’ve all heard phrases or quotes like this before and as cliche as it is, it’s also true. 

As a coach, I’m pretty familiar with many of the situations and roles that players are in- I’ve been in most of them. There were times in my career as a player where I was the leader of a team, other times where I was the third or fourth option, a fringe player in the rotation, or a reserve who wasn’t in the rotation at all. Like anyone, I enjoyed being a leader and a go-to option on a team- and also like anyone, there were times I was really frustrated when I was on the back-end of a rotation or wasn’t even in the rotation. Each of those experiences were valuable to me, however, the moments of frustration and difficulty were the ones that really allowed me to grow as an individual- they forced me to practice persistence and resilience. I wasn’t always rewarded in the moment or in the short-term, but in the long-term it made me a better coach and positively contributed to my life in more ways than I probably realize. 

Our natural inclination as adults is to not allow kids to struggle. I see and hear different instances of this inclination frequently in athletics. Whether it’s adults playing the blame game and bashing coaches and teammates or even just endorsing a child’s complaints and agreeing with everything they say- we unknowingly take away valuable learning opportunities for the younger generation. Instead, we need to be encouraging them to be a star in whatever role they currently have. To embrace their circumstances and figure out how to make the absolute best of them. We need to guide and help them to take complete ownership of their situation. If it’s something they truly care about, they’ll learn to go the extra mile and put the extra effort forth to bridge the gap of where they are and where they want to be.

Challenging circumstances and moments don’t change for the better when we run from them. They won’t automatically change just by embracing them. Not everyone will turn into a star or end up in the national spotlight, but by attacking moments of challenge with persistence we will unquestionably grow as individuals and become a better version of ourselves.