You can take Jimmy Chitwood

     In the movie Hoosiers, Hickory High’s basketball team had only eight members on it. “I thought everyone in Indiana played basketball” its coach Norman Dale inquired upon meeting the team for the first time. One of the players answered that a school with only 64 boys in the whole student body in a town where farming is a necessary priority, leaves very few players available.
     Even if you’ve seen Hoosiers several times, you’d be hard-pressed to remember the names of most of those players, including the one who quickly established to Coach Dale and the viewing audience the all-encompassing theme of the movie: Against all odds…the Cinderella story…David vs. Goliath.

     A commonality among most of the best films ever made is how the theme of the movie carries the story, and its characters, though essential, make up the background setting that propel that theme, not the other way around.

The Responsibility of a Coach

     When Bill Parcells was a 23 yr. old first year assistant coach at Hastings College, he spent an entire week of practice teaching one of his safeties a specific move and strategy in stopping their upcoming opponent’s most effective play. When the Saturday game came and his young player failed at the task at hand, allowing a touchdown on that exact play, Parcells lit into him on the sidelines, on and on, in front of everyone. Noticing the tirade, head coach Dean Pryor told Parcells that that was enough. “But we worked on that play all week” Parcells barked. “Well, you didn’t work on it enough because they scored” the head coach replied. Parcells got the point, and he has never forgotten it.

     As coaches, we sometimes fail to see our own coaching deficiencies while only seeing the deficiencies and mistakes of our players. Probably more than in a lot of other sports, in lacrosse, there seems to be more than enough player failure to go around. Especially if you’re a former player yourself, or if you coach in a youth program or an inexperienced high school or college program. And more often than not, unlike baseball, basketball, football, or soccer, lacrosse lends itself to being more of a challenge to coach, given the popularity and exposure these other sports have in comparison.

Victory Favors the Team Making the Fewest Mistakes

     (Written: June 2007)
     Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight has had a sign in his team’s locker room since he began coaching at Army in the 1960’s and that sign is still present in his Texas Tech locker room in 2007. It simply reads: Victory Favors the Team That Makes the Fewest Mistakes.
     You won't hear any disparaging remarks coming from me when the subject of Coach Knight is brought up. What I’ve learned from Knight about not only basketball and competition, but about character and integrity, I could talk about for hours. But as a coach and player, there are no words in my opinion, that say more about being able to compete in any team sport, better than these nine words.

How I See Bob Knight

     (Written September, 2000)
     No one will ever accuse me of being unbiased when the topic of Bob Knight comes up. I have been a devout fan of Coach Knight and Indiana basketball for many years, and despite all the criticism he has received over the last three decades, my opinion of him will always be a positive one. You see, unlike the majority of Knight's critics, whose opinions are based primarily on only the negative accounts of his behavior (many of which have been inaccurately portrayed through the years), the mass of Knight supporters will always see much, much more than that.

    
     We see Bob Knight the coach, the educator. We see a guy who is highly principled, honest, loyal, caring, and generous. We see him this way because we've talked to him. We've talked and heard from his former players and other coaches. We've been to his practices. We've seen him and heard of him performing countless acts of kindness and charity on a public and personal level over the years, most of which have gone unnoticed. We've seen him mold teenagers and twenty-year olds into successful men to be admired. And we see him this way, because we've taken the time and put a little effort into learning more about the man from reliable sources. Sources and people that actually know him. Sources other than Sportscenter and self-righteous sportswriters, who seem only interested in sensationalized soundbites and videoclips.

Coach Knight Resigns

     (Written February 5, 2008 5:47 a.m.)
     For the first time in 14 years of coaching high school basketball, I implemented a zone defense tonight. We put it in yesterday. "Has hell frozen over?" one of my players asked. "What if Coach Knight finds out?" another one asks. That one made me laugh.
     Walking to my car after another loss, I asked myself, "Would Coach Knight be disappointed in me?" We are just too slow, too unathletic to play man all game, I tried to rationalize. It didn't help. I worried WWCKT (What Would Coach Knight Think?)

  
       I got in my car, tuned in to Sportstalk. At 9:04pm I heard the news that Coach Knight had resigned. My body went numb. I got light-headed. I had to pull over. Hell just now had frozen over.

Teaching by Example

     As a college senior, an alarm malfunction caused me to miss a Saturday morning lacrosse practice, the only practice I had missed in eight years of playing, dating back to high school. When the following Monday’s practice concluded, I was told by my coach to stick around. To run. And run. And run some more. Until I could barely breathe or stand up. Until I wanted to, at least at that moment, quit.

     How could he do this to me? I thought as I ran forty yard sprints for what seemed like eternity. I’m a captain. The team’s top scorer. Surely missing one practice doesn’t warrant this type of punishment. And plus, it wasn’t my fault…really! I ended up surviving the sprints after all, and learned to set two alarms every Saturday after that. This happened twenty years ago, and still today I remember it as if it was yesterday.

     I had seven different coaches, in two sports, during my high school and college playing career. And I remember all of them very well, for different reasons, some in flattering terms, others not so much. Even today, their names come up in conversation whenever I’m reunited with old classmates or teammates. But the coach I remember the most, and respected the most, the coach I speak of in glowing terms, was that sadist who made me run all those sprints twenty years ago.