Dealing with Difficult Players or Parents

I have to be one of the luckiest coaches in history. I have coached for over 20 years and can count on one hand the amount of confrontations I have had with parents about their kid’s playing time or role on the team. To be fair, outside of the four club years with my daughter’s teams I have strictly coached varsity boy’s high school or men’s college teams. Parents tend to let young adults deal with those issues on their own, but I also think there are little things you can do, as a coach, that will reduce those issues (more on that in a bit).

On the rare occasion I’ve had these discussions it is never fun and certainly not easy. Generally speaking, parents have tunnel vision; they only see what is best for their child. They also tend to have an over-inflated view of their child’s abilities. There is one constant that all coaches must understand… it will be your fault if their child doesn’t play more or have a larger role. Self-evaluation is difficult; it’s even harder when you are evaluating your own child.

Now that we understand most parents’ point of view, we are a little more equipped to handle, or better yet, limit these difficult conversations – regardless of playing time and role. I believe there are two pillars to effective leadership, communication and honesty. Both of these ideals will make your coaching life easier in the long run.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Basketball Coaching Roadmap – 7 Areas Where All Successful Coaches Shine

When dealing with difficult players or parents you must be honest; you can’t sugar coat things. It is imperative for team success that they understand your point of view and there can’t be any grey area. Do not promise anything you can’t deliver just to get out of an uncomfortable conversation. Never compromise the group for any one individual or parent.

I believe a lot of these situations can be avoided with constant communication with your players. The more you talk to your players the easier it is to see when they are unsatisfied. Do NOT avoid it. Ask them what’s up. Deal with it head on and remain honest (but don’t be a dick about it). They may not like your response but they will respect your approach. If you let it fester you may lose that player, or worse, that player will start talking to other players.

“…it will be your fault if their child doesn’t play more or have a larger role. Self-evaluation is difficult; it’s even harder when you are evaluating your own child.”

As I think about my days as a player in the context of this discussion, two stories jump out at me:

First, I remember playing a particularly difficult exhibition game. It was the kind of game the players looked at it as an exciting challenge to show how good we really were. It was also the kind of game our coach probably knew we were heavily outmatched on the road and stood little chance of putting up much of a fight. The coach made a very unusual change to our starting line-up that day. He started someone (we’ll call him Craig) in the back court with me that played very few minutes and usually played in defensive roles. We got killed that day and Craig was exposed as a mediocre defender and really struggled offensively against that level of competition. I was a captain and had a good relationship with the coach so after the game I asked him why the change was made. He told me Craig had been complaining about minutes and felt he was the best guard on the team and should be starting. The coach tried communication and honesty but he couldn’t get through to Craig so his last option was to show him. Sometimes honesty can be uncomfortable, but the film session later that week showed Craig why he was not ready yet. More importantly it gave him valuable information on what he needed to improve. After that game and film session I don’t remember Craig complaining around the team for the rest of the season.

The second story involves the same coach. We were playing a home game against a team we would have been favored to beat. I played a particularly poor game and found myself on the bench for the last five minutes of a close game. We eventually lost and this was my first experience on the bench during crunch time. I did not handle it well. I truly believed that if I had been out there we had a better chance to win. It angered me. Right after the post-game talk by our coach I followed him out of the locker room and told him what I thought. He tried communicating to me that he was doing what he felt would give us the best chance to win at that point. I didn’t like the answer so I called him at home that night to talk further. The next day before practice I confronted him again. Finally, we agreed to disagree (reluctantly on my part). It wasn’t until many years later when I had been coaching for a while when it hit me. He was saving me from myself. I didn’t deserve to be out there at the end of that game. I had already had my chance to affect the game and didn’t do a good job. He was doing what he felt was best for the team. I saw him a few years later and recalled the story. I am not sure he even remembered the incident but I reassured him that he was 100% right, and that I now understood.

Unfortunately communication and honesty aren’t always met with open arms. It is your job as the leader and coach to ensure that disagreement does not affect the team negatively. Communication lines must remain open. Sometimes it’s okay for players to openly disagree with you. Good leaders are not dictators; good leaders are open communicators, great listeners and honest people. Constant, honest communication will result in parents and players who understand your view and align with the team’s goals and direction.

On that note, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite coaching/dad moments…

My daughter floated between the 11th to the 8th player on our depth chart in the four years she played for me. I approached her one day to talk about her lack of playing time. She cut me off before I could get started…. “Dad, I know you are only doing what you feel is best for the team, it’s ok. I’ll keep working and see if I can move up”…. are you kidding me? My 12 year old daughter already understood what took me years to figure out. It made me cry.

5 Tips to Become a More Effective Coach

The best basketball coaches are as much psychologists as they are strategists or teachers of the game. I was fortunate over my time as a player to play for many good coaches. Although I played at both the University and College levels my favorite coach was someone who coached me at ages 10 and 11. His name is Ron Dawson.

From what I remember Coach Dawson was adequate at teaching the game but his real strength was connecting with his players. He had an expression he would use sometimes, “let’s play animal ball.” On paper it wasn’t a strategy that would be considered effective since it mostly resulted in everyone chasing the ball but we won a TON of tournaments. We didn’t win because we played ‘animal ball’, we won because he made us believe in him. He built relationships with all of us. I always felt important around him. I always felt I was better than I actually was. He would always yell “Who’s a Team?” to which we would respond “WE ARE!” To this day I use that same rallying cry with my teams. It is inscribed inside the band of our National Championship rings.

Coach Dawson was in the minority. When I grew up there seemed to be less worry about finding the right buttons to push to get the most out of someone. There was a common theme of dictatorship and the majority of coaches yelled at everyone within range. That was their one and only move. The players responded out of fear. There is still some of that today but a growing sector of the population would now consider that bullying (and rightfully so). Old school coaches usually counter that by saying today’s generation is soft. As in most discussions about topics that span generations the truth probably lies somewhere between the two extremes.

The reality is that everyone is different. The more you talk to someone and observe them, the more you understand them. Simple, right? As we’ll discuss in this article the process of gaining that understanding is critical for success. Your goal as a coach is to build a relationship with each player. The foundations of your relationships are based on how much you genuinely try to connect. If you truly care about your players it will show through. Relationships with players are strengthened with every question you ask about them as a person, not just a player.

A coach’s ability to challenge players becomes a huge piece in the team dynamic. How successful you are at it will have a dramatic impact in your team’s success. You need your players to respond to challenges with focus, a sense of responsibility to the team and a desire to overcome. What kind of response would you expect to this scenario? It’s the biggest moment of a game, you call timeout and look a player in the eyes and ask “we need you to stop your man on this possession, can you do that for us?” Yes, every player will accept that challenge, but there is a huge difference in how hard they try when they truly feel a sense of responsibility to more than themselves. If you have put in the time to build strong relationships and genuinely care for your players as people, you will get the result you desired more often than not.

I’d like to challenge all the coaches out there. Below is a list of five coaching tips to help you become more effective. Go to practice this week and use these tips. Help build relationships with your players and develop their trust in you as a coach and a person. That trust is required for your players to not only accept your challenges but to thrive while doing so. If you’re currently not using these tips you will love the new energy your team finds in the coming weeks.

“The foundations of your relationships are based on how much you genuinely try to connect. If you truly care about your players it will show through.”

ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS. Even when you know the answers, still ask the questions. You want players who are always on their toes, focused and engaged. You want them to think about the answer before you even ask. The activity of a player thinking about a response is much more memorable than you dictating the answer.

This goes for your players too. Encourage them to ask questions when they’re unsure – if one player has a question that usually means others have the same question. Players remember their peers’ questions more than they will remember you talking at them. Besides, the whole team benefits when everyone’s questions are answered.

YELL WITH A PURPOSE. Most coaches yell because they are angry about something. Channel that anger and focus on the message. Your job is to communicate that message in a manner that will be received with open ears. Yelling derogatory things at a player does not build upon that relationship. One quick tip: don’t correct in the moment, emotions are usually too raw, wait for a better, quieter time.

That being said, I also believe yelling can be a very effective tool. Be careful though, the more you reach for that tool the less receptive your players become. Limit yelling to four or five times a year. There is magic to infrequently raising your voice. One word of caution, do not EVER make it personal… EVER. Remember, whatever it was that upset you there is something to be learned from it. Find a way to make the yelling meaningful.

HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH EVERY PLAYER EVERY DAY. You don’t need to go into deep and time consuming conversations. What was your favorite class that you had today? Are you doing anything fun this weekend? It is your job to make time for these conversations. Have them while everyone is waiting for the practice before you to end, during warm-ups or cool down time. Every time you talk to a player one on one about something other than basketball you connect. It matters to them that the coach sees them as more than just a player.

RELATED ARTICLE: The Seven Areas All Successful Coaches Shine

YOUR GOAL IS TO GET PLAYERS BUYING IN BECAUSE THEY WANT TO. You will always have better results when someone does something they also believe in. Forcing a player to do something they don’t want to do or aren’t comfortable doing rarely works out well. Put your players in situations they can succeed in. While talking with your players you will learn more about their personalities, preferences and interests. This will make it much easier to understand which player will succeed in which situation.

Sometimes you won’t have a single player on your team that can succeed in a certain situation. Maybe you don’t have any shooters on your team. Don’t give up, find the hardest working player on your team, tell him/her you need a shooter real bad this year and you believe it could be them. That player may not become the shooter you need but you can bet they will work hard to impress you and improve a lot more than they would have otherwise.

FIND THE MAGIC BUTTON FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL. Some players respond well when yelled at. Some recoil. Some respond to being centered out and others will go into a shell. Some players only respond to positive reinforcement. That’s not for you to change. And it’s not the players’ role to adjust to your style. Part of your job description as the adult, the leader and the coach is to adapt to your surroundings. The previous four tips will lead you directly to the answers for this one. Not all players are created equal. Similarly, you can’t expect their personalities to be the same either. Learn about your players, find out what makes each person tic and vary your approach accordingly. Your team will overachieve on all levels.

Being a great coach doesn’t always require you to be the strongest at the X’s and O’s but ALL the great coaches find a way to connect!

Adaptability – The Basketball Coaching Roadmap

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” – Leon C Megginson

Season to season, game to game, minute by minute, adaptability can set you apart from all other coaches; if you can adapt you can succeed.

You will have seasons where your player’s skill-sets don’t match your preferred system. You have two choices: force your system on the group or adapt your system to suit your team. You will achieve more success (click here to read about our definition of success) when you put your players in positions that give them the best chance to succeed. Having players who feel confident about what they are being asked to do is extremely important. Asking them to display their strengths brings out that confidence.

I am in the midst of a season that couldn’t be more different than the last few years. Last year we won a conference championship (OCAA) and lost in the National Final Four (CCAA) with a group that featured:

• Fifth year National Player of the Year, Matt Fennell.
• Fifth year shot blocking machine, Taylor Dowhaniuk.
• Fifth year offensively dominant post player, Andrew Cicuttini.
• Fifth year sharp shooting point guard, Matt Savel.
• First year all-round talented guard, Lamar Barr.

We had a ton of size and experience and an absolute scoring machine in Fennell. We ran loads of set plays on offense and played almost exclusively zone at the defensive end.  This season we still have some experience but we are much smaller, more athletic and very young at the guard positions.

Our assistant coaches and I had a choice: continue to do the things that made us successful the last few years or adapt and modify the system for the group in front of us. We chose the latter and it has invigorated us as coaches. We are teaching new principles, playing a different style and enjoying the fresh outlook. We are playing man to man defence, we are pressuring more, we are going deeper in our bench and we have changed to a dribble, attacking offense. What are the results thus far? Well, we just finished our first ever perfect semester in league play winning all nine games. We are 14-0 overall against college competition. Our scoring has not dipped this year even though we lost 76% of last year’s scoring. We are currently ranked fourth in the country when most people would have pegged us to be scraping for a playoff spot.

You can’t be afraid to adapt, to change on the fly, to admit things aren’t working. We have had times when we’ve spent an entire week preparing to defend a certain player a particular way in pick and roll situations only to have them come out and score effectively against that strategy. As coaches, we aren’t afraid to admit our strategy isn’t working and explore alternate solutions immediately.

I try to recruit players that are capable of solving problems, thinking quickly and showing adaptability. I love when players offer suggestions about in-game adjustments. We encourage their suggestions and consider implementing them; doing something they want empowers them and makes them further accountable. Don’t be rigid, they have a different perspective than you and many times they are able to see and feel aspects of the game you cannot. The key is to be willing and open to adapting.

In order to achieve long term success, adaptability is essential. Look no further than Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs and Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots – they are both famous for their in-game adjustments, sometimes completely revising their strategy during half-time. The reason they’re able to make drastic adjustments is because they have an open mind (even though their press conferences would indicate otherwise) and they approach each game as its own entity. Their system is adaptability.

“Set patterns, incapable of adaptability, of pliability, only offer a better cage. Truth is outside of all patterns.” – Bruce Lee

Another aspect of adaptability is how you motivate or teach your players. Not all players are created equal; they all have different backgrounds and experiences that have shaped who they are. Some players respond really well to being challenged, either by the coaches or opponents, and some will look to shut down. As we discussed in the Communication article, it is your job as a coach to understand your players as individuals. What motivates or inspires them? How much responsibility can they handle? How do they respond to failure, challenge, pressure or success? That understanding comes from personal interaction. Do not make the mistake of treating all your players as if they have one equal personality. They don’t… and you wouldn’t want them to. Adapt your message according to the audience and you will maximize everyone’s chances for success.

Next item on the Basketball Coaching Roadmap is Consistency:

Communication – The Basketball Coaching Roadmap

Every step of our Basketball Coaching Roadmap revolves around building relationships with your players and coaches. It only seems fitting to start with communication. In coaching and in life, communication is the foundation for success.

Communication is about listening even when you’re the only one talking.

Your ability to speak, connect and listen are essential in achieving success as a coach. Something as simple as learning each player’s name at a clinic can have a tremendous benefit in fostering positivity and connection on your team. Over time, consider getting to know your kids as people not just as players. Every day I make a point of asking each player about school or specific personal issues they’ve mentioned. There’s a mutual benefit in the exchange – players feel empowered in the experience of being known by their coach and you get to learn about your players’ personalities (e.g. what motivates them, their responses to stress) and use that information to achieve success on the court.

When you get to know your players, you develop a greater sense of trust. Trust is a necessary foundation, given that coaches need to have some uncomfortable and challenging conversations. It’s not pleasant having to tell kids that despite their commendable effort, they didn’t make the team or that they aren’t going to get as much playing time as they think they deserve. I tell my kids that they might not like what I say but I will always be honest and transparent with them. If you develop a sense of trust and get to know kids personally beforehand, these conversations can be easier; avoiding a crushing impact on their identity as a “player.”

“Knowledge is knowing what to say. Wisdom is knowing when to say it.” – Unknown

Another aspect of communication is timing; knowing when to say something, and equally as important, knowing when not to say something. Not all mistakes warrant a response. The human brain is naturally wired with a negativity bias. It detects negative information faster than positive information and it’s known that negative leadership drains energy and motivation. Therefore, as a coach, it’s essential to understand that the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones (Rick Hanson). Players respond to positive communication and it needs to far outweigh the negative communication.

I always caution coaches about noticing when they are putting in more effort than their players. When players feel listened to and included THEY also take ownership of their own development and the team’s success…and magic happens.

The year we won our National Championship I remember the specific practice when I felt the magic. We had spent five months getting to a point where I believed everyone clearly understood and accepted their roles. In the bigger games we had clearly established our rotation and we were only using seven or eight guys on a regular basis. That didn’t stop the others from working their butts off every day for the betterment of the group. By this point everyone had been told what the coaches’ expectations were for them and how valuable those roles were regardless of the amount of minutes they may or may not play. Trust had been earned in both directions and that made acceptance of the roles more palatable. Though some roles may or may not have been what was best for the individual, it was best for the group.

We had three games remaining in the season and we were preparing for a game against Niagara College. There was a different energy in the gym that night and a bounce to everyone’s step. Early in practice we were going through a routine full court shooting drill and there was so much positive energy. As the drill was going on I walked the circumference of the court and had a one sentence conversation with almost everyone. “Do you feel it Manny”? “There is something happening here tonight, Aminu”. “We are in a great place right now, Cupido”. Yes sir was the frequent response to all my comments or queries. Driving home that night with Mike Woodburn, one of my assistant coaches, I told him I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t lose again. We didn’t. Ten game winning streak. First Ontario Championship for the school in 40 years and the school’s first ever National Championship.

Next item on the Basketball Coaching Roadmap is Organization: