We wish last year’s seniors, Alina, Ainsley and Lindsay the best of luck as they depart for college. We’ll miss their leadership, dedication and passion - for the team and the game itself. In the spring of 2021, when the team began off season workouts to prepare for the senior’s final season it looked like competing at a high level would be challenging for the 2021 team. We were undersized and lacked depth. In the spring games they showed they could compete with bigger teams. When the Fall League came around, with more competitive game experience and the support of several talented freshman, they surprised a number of people finishing with a 7-2 record. They followed that up with an outstanding high school season finishing with a county best 18-8 record. Ainsley was named Hunterdon County Player of the Year (the 6^th Voorhees player to be so honored in the past 8 years). Alina was a finalist for player of the year and Lindsay was the tone setter, giving maximum effort and playing intense defense from the opening tap to the final buzzer. Last year’s team confirmed the notion that teams are about the sum of their complementary skills. Everyone on the roster contributed, in some way, to the team’s success.

This year’s team has its own challenges to meet. With the injuries to Maya and Ali, each talented in their own rite, it looked like a difficult road ahead. But, like last year, this team has come together with a good showing in the Holy Family Tournament and the summer league. A number of players raised their game (towards their potential) and it made a difference. They showed that this can still be a good year for Voorhees girls’ basketball.

The Fall League is the next step towards getting ready for the season. It provides an opportunity to try out the new skills you have been working on and to improve team chemistry. Once again there is talent in the freshman class providing competition in practice and depth for the years ahead.

Since we run the same offense and out of bounds plays as the school teams it also gives you a chance to learn and execute in advance of the season. This can give Coach Collins more time to work on other things in the early weeks following the tryouts.

There is still time remaining in the off season to work on your skills. Improving your performance is usually a matter of committing to learning a new skill. To get to where that skill can be executed in game situations the performance of the skill has to become a habit.

Habits start with repetition. At first it does not have to be perfect execution of the skill. You just need to get the repetitions.

The initial work takes effort. But as you perform your reps the unconscious mind takes over and the performance of the skill becomes automatic. The process is called automaticity, the ability to perform without thinking. Muscle memory is a form of automaticity.

Most human behavior involves a feedback loop – we try something, we fail, we learn and we try again, utilizing the learning. As we get our reps we discard the non-productive actions and the productive actions get reinforced. We are beginning to form a habit.

Dave Brailsford, a famous British cycling coach, developed a strategy for performance improvement that he called “the aggregation of marginal gains” – looking for a small margin of improvement in everything you do. Referring to Brailsford’s strategy, James Clear, author of Atomic Habits says, “if you can get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you are done.”

Hall of Fame basketball coach, Pat Riley used this same idea with the Los Angeles Lakers. It contributed to winning four NBA championships during his tenure with the Lakers. The system he developed was called the Career Best Effort program or CBE. Similar to Brailsford’s approach, the Lakers asked their players to “improve their output by 1% over the course of the season”.

One of our greatest challenges in developing habits is remaining aware of what we are doing – how are we performing the skill. Both Brailsford and Riley asked athletes to use refection to guide their improvement efforts. By reflecting on your performance, you become aware of mistakes or errors and can adjust to improve.

As coaches, our job is to share information about a particular skill and manage the player’s desire and motivation to improve. To keep motivation high we have to find tasks of “just manageable difficulty”.

James Clear refers to this as the “Goldilocks Rule” (not sure who coined the term). The rule says, “humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.” He adds that it is important to measure your progress to reinforce the benefits of your work.

As we get into the last stage of the off season we continue to operate based on certain assumptions. Our program is for players who are committed to becoming better players and teammates. We assume that by joining the program you are committed to those improvements and the work it takes to get there.

Improvement involves recognizing where you are as a player and where you want to be (the player you hope to become). You seldom close the gap in one big leap. It usually happens a little at a time. And while it’s not easy, it can be rewarding.

Let’s use the time remaining to be the best players and the best team we can be when the tryouts roll around. Get in your reps, work on the edge of your current abilities, reflect on your efforts, learn, measure your progress, and improve 1% every day.

Thanks again to Dan O’ Sullivan who helped us out for many years during Kayla and Ainsley’s time at Voorhees. You will be missed.

Bob Peterman