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Pregame Speech (November 2002)Thoughts, stories, examples and ideas on challenging your team to perform at their highest level possible.
A (Your Team) Basketball Player An (Your Team) basketball player can come in any size, shape or color. There is no common denominator except a love for the game and a desire to get the most out of his / her abilities. He / she is not only proud of his strengths but understands his weaknesses. He / she is first of all concerned with the good of his / her team and knows that individual recognition will come through team excellence. An (Your Team) basketball player has the enthusiasm of an evangelist, the discipline of a monk; the heart of a warrior; and never loses the honesty and character of a small boy. He / she appreciates the support of thousands of fans, but he / she is much more aware of the example he / she is setting for some small child watching from the sideline. He / she is happy when he / she scores a basket, but never forgets that a teammate threw him / her the ball. While he / she never lets up at either end of the floor, the other team is not his / her real opponent; it is the full extent of his / her own potential that he is always playing against. He / she lets the referees, with occasional assistance from his / her coach, do the officiating. An (Your Team) basketball player is made and not born. He / she is constantly striving to reach his / her potential knowing that he / she will by pass other players who cannot withstand the strain of this quest for excellence. He / she realizes that the challenges and competition of today's game will better prepare him / her for tomorrow's world. He / she knows that the true measure of his / her performance is not recorded in wins or losses but in how much of himself he / she has given to the game. An (Your Team) basketball player never realizes when the odds are stacked against him. He / she can only be defeated by a clock that happens to run out of time. He / she is what a small boy wants to become and what an old man can remember with great pride that he once was. Remembering Abe Lemons (this one might be better for the "Post Game Speech")
"I don't care what kind of schedule you make. When you've got only one starter back and play 14 games on the road, you've gotta chance to get beat." Of playing Duke in the NIT right after a double-overtime barnburner: "After that first game, you could have had Ann Margret refereeing in bare top and it would still have been anticlimactic." When OU football fans were down on coach Chuck Fairbanks: "I hope ol' Chuck weathers the storm. I'm for every big-time football program because when it gets in trouble, the fans want to fire everyone in the state. I'm near OU." "There's no booster club at Pan-American. They ain't gonna care whether we win or lose. There's too many other things to do around there. Why, there's white wing dove hunting just 12 miles down the road." "A couple of alumni once offered to buy up my contract, but I didn't have change for a $20 bill. So they let me stay." In a speech to Oklahoma City surgeons: "You only have so many heartbeats in you. You jog and you hasten your departure." "The best way to get to our Pan-American campus at Edinburg is by parachute. But it's tough to parachute out." "I'm going to Kentucky and Indiana to recruit a couple of prospects. That's a 900-mile trip, and I have to act as if I just happened to drop in." "We used our sieve defense tonight. We call it that because it leaks like one. I guess it's spelled 'C-I-V.' Hell, I don't know how to spell it. It's all I can do to coach it." "If some flagrant foul happens, you can't keep from jumping up. A guy can't sit around and watch his house burn. If he's insured, he might lay back and watch it go. But a coach's job isn't insurable." To his players upon arrival in Hawaii: "I'm gonna give you some meal money and then you're on your own. I'll nail some notes on coconut trees so you'll know where we meet tomorrow. Aloha." "I have one curfew. It's 2 a.m. on July 4th. When you have a curfew, it's always the star who gets caught. I once had a curfew, and I had an Indian boy named Gary Gray who got caught. He explained to me that the last time his folks went to sleep someone ran off with all their buffalo." To a team manager who showed up with long hair: "Get it cut. but don't just go into the first barber shop and have it whacked off. Get some estimates." "I don't mind long hair too much. I don't mind beards and I don't mind miniskirts. I just don't like to see them on the same person." To a good player who'd scored only one point in a loss: "You scored one more point than a dead man." "We went to Lawrence, Kansas. That's really great. On their big nights, they show two Jane Withers movies, and the Dairy Queen stays open until 8:30." "When they finally get to the bottom of Watergate, they'll find a football coach." "I tell people we don't give our kids cars at OCU, we give 'em 707 jets. The NCAA hears about that and just laughs and says nobody gives kids jets. We'll never be on probation." "They oughtta give every basketball coach the same amount of money to spend on recruiting and let him keep what 's left over." On assessing recruits: "It'd be all right if you could handle 'em like you do eggs and see what's inside 'em." "I don't jog, if I die I want to be sick."
Wisdom from Great Coaches "What does this program / team need this week?" "What you specifically teach is what your players will do best." "Practice to beat the best." "We teach offense 5-0 / 5-5 (whole method) and defense by part (1-1/3-3)." - Dick Bennett "You get what you tolerate!" "Stress defense - defense makes players unselfish." "Criticize on defense and encourage on offense." - John Brady "We stop practice every time we see one of our players not blocking out." - Jim Calhoun "We put a premium on knowing what the other team does. Then we try to take them out of it." - PJ Carlesimo "Offense is spacing and spacing is offense." "Defense can't guard two things in a row." - Chuck Daly "Work hard, stay focused and surround yourself with good people. "Have a spiritual basis which guides you in life. Have a philosophy of life to live by." Know how to win and how to lose and be able to handle adversity." - Tom Osborne "Deserve Victory." "Those who work the hardest are the last to surrender." "Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer." - Rick Pitino "It's what you get from games you lose that is extremely important." "No rebounds - no rings." "Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers." "Great efforts springs naturally from great attitude." - Pat Riley "If a coach is determined to stay in the coaching profession, he will develop from year to year. This much is true, no coach has a monopoly on the knowledge of basketball. There are no secrets in the game. The only secrets, if there are any, are good teaching of sound fundamentals, intelligent handling of men, a sound system of play, and the ability to instill in the boys a desire to win." - Adolph Rupp WHO
PACKED YOUR PARACHUTE?
Charles
Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat
missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and
parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist
prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One
day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table
came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the
aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!" "How
in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb. "I
packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb
gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man grabbed his hand and said, "I guess
it worked!" Plumb
assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here
today." Plumb
couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb kept wondering what
the man might have looked like in a Navy uniform. He wondered how many times he
might have seen him and not even said good morning, how are you or anything, because
you see, he was a fighter pilot and the man was just a sailor. Plumb thought of
the many hours that sailor had spent in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving
the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time
the fate of someone he did not know. Now
Plumb asks his audience, "Who is packing your parachute?" Everyone has
someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down. As you go through your week, month, and even New Year, recognize the people who have packed your parachute and enabled you to get where you are today!
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Abe
Lemons, the famed basketball coach who died recently, amused listeners and readers
with his sly wit throughout his 34-year career at Oklahoma City, Pan-American
and Texas. I thought a fitting tribute would be to include a few of Lemons' quips
through the seasons.
