I want my audience to be basketball players but I realized that I was making very few posts specifically about basketball. Now I have to balance all of this out.
I thought I would make a post on how to deal with difficult coaches. Na, you just have to shut up and get better.
I thought I would make a post on how to deal with difficult teammates. Na. Again, you just have to shut up and get better.
So here we are. It turns out “Shutting up and getting better” will solve 99% of your problems in life. But I have more to add to it than that.
From experience, I can say that neglecting to shut up and get better will not only not solve the problem but actually make it worse.
I found this out my junior year of high school. I had a difficult coach but the real problem was I wasn’t playing very well. I was good, but I was thinking too much. I was inside my own head and allowed the coach to get inside my head too.
Then my parents got involved. This is where it gets worse. Instead of telling me how I needed to play better, they would only talk negatively about the coach or shift the blame to something else. “Other players mess up, too, and they get more leeway!” Stupid stuff like that.
They insinuated tons of little thoughts like this into my head and I believed them. Eventually they convinced me to talk to the coach. TERRIBLE IDEA.
I went into his classroom before school one morning, nervous as hell, stumbled over my words as I made my bullshit claims, and for the most part he just sat there and listened. He made some rebuttals and that was it. Our meeting ended and I left, knowing I hadn’t made any progress.
We had practice after school that day but before that we had a film session in his classroom. He told me to stay afterwards. When film got over, I tried to save face by telling him I understood what he had said earlier that morning. In truth, our talk had made me understand how much bullshit I had fed myself, especially as I listened to myself trying to put my complaints into words and realized there wasn’t really any substance behind what I was saying.
By then I had realized my numerous catastrophic errors. But it was too late. Coach pointed out all my bullshit to me and, of course, there wasn’t anything I could say. He was right, and I deserved it. The only results from the meeting were a mix of frustration and humiliation, albeit not as bad since it wasn’t in front of the team.
Oh, and of course, a valuable lesson learned the hard way.
It all could have been prevented if I would have taken responsibility for my situation as well as not listened to my parents (that’s for a different post).
Shut up and get better.
The same holds true for problematic teammates. If it’s a situation where they aren’t passing you the ball, then a skill increase needs to be in order. Good players get the ball passed to them.
(Side note: “Good” means exceptional. Mediocre or average players may or may not get the ball passed to them. You can’t be “just as good as your teammates” either. With that argument, why should you get the ball when any one of your teammates could produce the same results with it? If you are not exceptional, then your problems with teammates and coaches require an increase in skill level.)
If it’s something else, then perhaps you need to work on your leadership or communication skills but the bottom line is it always comes back to YOU.
“Win through your actions, never through argument.”- The 48 Laws of Power
Athlete-Student
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