Joe Paterno's Thoughts on Coaching/ Teaching

From Joe Paterno:

Basic Beliefs
1. The Coach is a Teacher, not a Strategist.
a. Coaching is one thing. It is creating in practice the situation the player will face in the game, and then repeating it until he can react by rote memory.

2. Have a directed work effort toward constructive things.

3. Performance is what counts.
a. Potential makes no difference.
b. Don't ever get sold on what defeats the teams you can beat anyway. Devote yourself only to those plays which will win the championship game for you.
c. Practice to beat great teams.

4. Consistency
a. Team that wins is the team that makes the fewest number of bad plays.
b. The best player is the player who makes the fewest bad individual plays.

Process Oriented Thinking & Fear--Vision

We continue to work daily on our Process oriented thinking. We truly believe that we must work just as hard, if not harder, developing our player's mental skills as their physical skills.

We have noticed the words,"fear, afraid, failure" etc come up in conversations. Afraid of failure, afraid of letting others down, etc. So how then, can we make a fear of failure work work as a strength.

Dr. Kevin Elko has the following suggestions:

Fear is an Acronym:
False Evidence Appearing Real

If you hold onto fear, then that worrisome, awful vision is clearly and consistently established in your mind and it will occur--because you have made it so.

A vision isn't a vision until it is tested. Make your vision last longer than your fear.

Do not surrender to the greatest temptation--Self pity. With self pity you are not thinking something is just hard but rather that something is too hard. It is beyond you; it is more than you can handle.

To accomplish the seemingly impossible:
1. Thinking it
2. Speaking it
3. Acting it

The Greatest Teachers/ Leaders

The Greatest Teachers

“The greatest teacher makes a few simple points. The powerful teacher leaves one or two fundamental truths. And the memorable makes the point not by telling, but by helping the students discover on their own. Learning takes place through discovery, not when you’re told something, but when you figure it out for yourself. All a really fine teacher does is to make suggestions, point out problems, above all, ask questions, and more questions and more questions…teaching encourages not only discovery but initiative.”

--William Safire, “Lend Me Your Ears”

Screening Situations To Cover

Screening Situations We Must Cover
1. Ballscreens
a. Trap and Rotate
b. Hard Show
c. Trap & Recover
d. Squeeze and Go Under
e. Switch

2. Backscreens
a. Squeeze and deny shooter
b. Absorb and recover non-shooter or open cutter
c. Man on cutter must jump to ball

3. Downscreens
a. Open tunnel
b. Bo ballside if ball is in the outer third of floor
c. Tunnel or chase shortest distance otherwise
d. Bumping curler’s keep contact with screener to stop slips

4. Side by Side Double
a. Chase the cutter
b. Zone for slips if furtherest screen from ball
c. Extend if closest screen from ball—on great shooter make screener flash to ball

5. Double Stagger
a. Same as above

6. Cross Screens
a. If a shooter sets it, no separation
b. Zone or absorb otherwise
c. Tag the cutter and force him high
d. If he cuts below or under cuts, he goes out of bounds

7. Flare
a. Man on cutter over the top
b. Man on screener zone lane for slip
c. Take away the reverse curl pass

8. Handoff/ Weave
a. Switch
b. Trip if switch hurts
c. Stay if mismatch hurts

3 Essentials For Rebounding

Three Essentials For Rebounding

1. Assume every shot will be missed
2. Get your hands above your shoulders
3. Go get the ball (Pursue it)

Teaching Points on Excuses

Wooden’s Two Sets of Threes:
1. Never Lie
2. Never Cheat
3. Never Steal

1. Don’t Whine
2. Don’t Complain
3. Don’t Make Excuses

Excuses
We have been focusing on the Two Sets of Threes with our team. Here are a few thoughts we are teaching about excuses.
1. To make an excuse is to transfer responsibility.
2. We teach that mistakes are meant to be learned from and the excuses get in the way of that process.
3. Responsibility is power.
4. Honest introspection is the first step to changing negative habits. Awareness is the first step to change.
5. The conscious acceptance of responsibility is on e of the greatest indicators of a player’s maturity.