Great Expectations

October 13th, 2019

Process

Mental representations

Improvement

Mastery

Purposeful practice

Feedback

Creative tension

Communication

 We want the best for our players. We want them to succeed not only in basketball but in life. The opportunity our program presents them is contingent on two factors – our efforts and theirs. On our end we have to keep it interesting and challenging. On their end they have to be clear about what they really want and contribute an effort and focus that matches their intentions.

As coaches we have to be their mirror. We have to help them see what we see and what they may not want to look at. We have to help them see when they are on target, when they are stuck, or if their level of commitment will not get them what they say they want. We know that some players don’t really want what they say they want. They want to please their parents or coaches – but they don’t really care enough to put in the consistent effort it takes to be exceptional players. We’ve seen kids who come to the gym, not so much for basketball, but maybe looking for some structure, maybe needing basic support, maybe to be a part of something or maybe just wanting to be seen and heard. We try to maintain an environment that can respond to it all. A good number of the older kids help us with that by recognizing the younger players each night before we start.

It can be hard for coaches to decode it all. If we assume that the player really does want what they say they want it’s our job to make sure they have the information they need to take the next step in their development. And it’s our job to remind them, to push them forward, when their effort is not consistent with their stated goals. 

Since kids tend to see things as “you either like me or you don’t” the push can create tension. Taking in critical feedback can be hard on kids. Unfortunately when you are dealing with performance development and the purposeful, deliberate practice required to excel, there is no other way. If we, as coaches, want to be true to our program purpose and the commitment the program makes to kids who want to improve, we have to be comfortable with this tension. We know that there are a couple of ways the players can relieve the tension. This tension can be either emotional tension – the feeling like “I have so far to go, I’m not sure if I want to work this hard”, or creative tension – when we attack the skill gap with energy, enthusiasm and focus. Emotional tension tends to push us towards a half-hearted effort, maintaining the status quo, tempted to lower the goal. Creative tension is driving us towards our goal. In The Fifth Discipline Peter Senge explains it this way. He describes a rubber band, under tension, stretched between two hands, one above the other – tight enough that you could pluck it like a guitar string. The top hand represents the player’s vision or goal - becoming a exceptional player. The bottom hand represents where the player is now in terms of ability. In between is the gap – the difference between where they are and where they want to be. Closing the gap is hard – it’s the stuff we haven’t yet mastered. It’s uncomfortable there. There is tension there.         

To reduce the tension you can lower your goals, bringing the top hand down towards the bottom hand. You can also reduce the tension by striving to meet your goals, bringing your bottom hand up towards the top hand. Years of research on human performance tells us the only path to exceptional play and ability is working, with purpose, to close the gap and move towards the goal.

High expectations are necessary, but they can’t be too high. They have to be doable – achievable. We can’t set the players up to fail. If we put too much tension on the rubber band it can break.

The way out of the “discomfort zone” and towards your goal is purposeful, deliberate practice. This is serious stuff for most middle school players. Our expectations are modified here. We expect a focused effort while with us but we realize they are still experimenting with multiple sports, other interests and may not be ready for the intensity of deliberate practice. Once in high school the stakes are higher. There’s a relatively small window of opportunity for these players. To be successful at this level you have to embrace the work. You have accept the risk of failure and recognize that failing can be learning. You have to work hard with the end in mind.

The path to progress follows a pattern. At first we may experience rapid progress. After a while we’ll hit the wall, or the Dip, as Seth Godin calls it. We’ll get stuck. This can be frustrating and can last for a long time. If we have the discipline to stay with our purposeful, deliberate practice we’ll eventually break through to new and rapid progress again. And the pattern continues.

Player development happens over time. You can’t throw a little fairy dust at the player and “poof” – they are good. They have to earn it.

It’s not easy. The focused work (purposeful and deliberate practice) is what separates the exceptional athletes from the OK athletes. They accept the fact that it will take time. They can see the slow but steady improvements. They can look ahead towards their goal and delay their need for immediate payoffs.   

Andres Ericsson, who has studied this stuff for more than 30 years, describes the core components of purposeful practice as –

SPECIFIC GOALS - Know what you don’t know. Choose an area for development. For example, the follow through on your shot. 

INTENSE FOCUS - Practice with purpose, focused without distraction until you master the skill. Through purposeful practice you will begin visualizing the correct way to perform the skill (mental

representations).

IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK - From a coach; or self- correction - it can be simple and direct- either you made the shot or you didn’t.

FREQUENT DISCOMFORT - Constantly being pushed out of the comfort zone. Operating on the edge of your ability. Frequently making mistakes.

Purposeful practice can force us to develop what psychologists call mental representations. There are a bunch of psychobabble definitions of mental representations but the simplest one I could find comes from Audioenglsih.org. “Mental representations are a presentation to the mind in the form of an idea or image”. Here’s an example. Your mind's representation of a cheeseburger codes information about the burger’s shape, size and maybe even its color or taste. A picture of it would be a representation of the real thing. The picture would also display the burger’s shape, size and coloring but you would not be able to smell or taste it. It's our mind's picture of the real thing.

In the end the difference between novices and experts is the mental representations. As we focus and struggle to learn how to do a task properly the mind will eventually come up with new and creative ways to perform the task. The new idea helps the player break through the obstacle to progress. We learn how to visualize the performance. In time this allows us to self-correct. The ability to self-correct accelerates learning – the player doesn’t have to rely solely on feedback from a coach. They can build on a number of repetitions, done right or corrected. Developing basic mental representations is the turning point for younger players. In the process of improvement they will eventually hit another limit, struggle to get past it and enhance their mental representations. This is where potential players start to become players.

There may be times when your daughter comes home and reports that practice was not fun. They may say that we were hard on them. They may be right. To develop good players we have to maintain high expectations and standards. It can be hard – on the players and on us. These are all great kids. They want to succeed. They can take the feedback personally. But we know they won’t improve if we don’t push them when needed. That push will be towards the expectations – expectations that we know they can meet.

Bob Peterman