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I shared the notes from the Coaching U LIVE clinic here last week and hope to share the notes from this one as they become available. Sadly, I did not attend. I truly hope to one day. Invite only clinics and clinics that have the focus this one does are the best. Back in the late 80′s and early 90′s a group of us used to hand out assignments: BOB’s, P & R Defense, Specialty Plays, Late Game, etc…, convene at the Final Four, meet in an empty room and go. It was truly awesome. Each person was responsible for bringing in enough copies of written material for the group. Each coach had about an hour, with time for Q & A after. Sadly, that disintegrated.
The “recruiting” aspect of the Final Four… college guys hanging with AAU guys to solidify the relationship for X player took over and the time for X’s & O’s was prioritized out of the equation. Everyone said, “We have to do that again.” It never happens.
Kudos to Coach Shyatt and the Florida staff for keeping it alive and growing the game in a way outside of recruiting. As they said, the reason why many of us got into it in the first place.
This was a good article on what the clinic is truly all about.
First thing Monday morning, and Larry Shyatt is standing on the men’s court inside the Florida basketball practice facility, welcoming those who have assembled on this SEC campus to talk hoops in what feels like a genuine and pure environment. There is nothing glamorous here. A white board on the court, folding chairs lining a baseline and sideline, and little more. The room is filled with everybody from future Hall of Famers to junior college coaches, and Shyatt, Billy Donovan’s associate head coach at Florida, has just one instruction before turning things over to Butler’s Brad Stevens.
Matt Painter shares information about the motion offense he has perfected over at Purdue. (Courtesy: Gary Parrish)
“No holding back,” Shyatt said. “If you’re not willing to share, this is not for you.”
What happened next was nice to witness.
The subsequent 14 hours featured one speaker after another — Stevens, NBA icon Del Harris, Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon, Boston Celtics assistant Kevin Eastman, etc., — talking about a variety of subjects, exchanging ideas, discussing, debating and thoroughly enjoying a two-day clinic Shyatt created years ago that continues today thanks to the support of Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley and the willingness of those invited to make time to attend. They talked about transition defense and motion offense, about mental toughness and proper shooting techniques. They talked about how to deal with certain situations in the media, how to handle players who won’t work, what to do with student-athletes’ sometimes embarrassing addiction to Facebook and Twitter, and then they went to bed, awoke early Tuesday, and did it all again.
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As we all begin a new academic year I wanted to share with you some “wisdom” I have gathered along the way. Many sources, many people.
These thoughts can apply to any walk of life, any career, any program or organization.
Hope it is helpful as the journey begins for 2010 – 11.
* PRINTABLE copy is available at the bottom.
what is possible, what is desirable, what is sustainable. It’s time to RE-WRITE the rules.A printable copy is here.
From Digital Hoops Blast, via LinkedIN and Andrew Pawlowski.
This blog is all about inspiration.
We’re going to spend 3 days elevating best practices from the squads that make up the Atlantic Coast Conference. And then we’ll talk about how to make that even better…
What makes something a best practice? This isn’t about the most intricate experience. It’s about looking at the world from your consumer’s point of view and delivering something that hits it right smack on the head. In the case of colleges, I’m treating the primary consumer as that prospective student athlete.
Cool?
Let’s move.
It seems fitting that today is here. Yesterday, we covered the details at the bottom of a website (check what Duke does, here)… And today we will flip that around with the top navigation. Let’s move to the Maryland Athletics website, here. As you can see in the image below, they hit us front and center with a For Recruits header.
That’s where the magic happens.
First of all, let’s zoom into that menu, below:
Maryland Positions Twitter as a Recruiting Tool. We have long identified that Twitter offers the potential for prospective student athletes to stay in contact with coaches. But if you look at the majority of sites, they instead offer Twitter under “Fan Zone” or “Multimedia” or, maybe, “Social Media”. And I’m a believer that you identify your audience and speak to them. Maryland makes this very clear.
I clicked into Twitter, and come to Coach Gary Williams’ page, here. Coach Williams does a great job here – he’s up fairly often, and is conversational and relevant. Scroll through it and you’ll see he gives props to former players (Greivis Vasquez, Steve Blake, and Landon Milbourne recently) — signaling that he doesn’t forget you once you leave Maryland. Just solid all around.
How could this be better? Make this the first thing on the menu. Twitter crashed the recruits menu, the mission now is to move it to the first thing we see.
You can follow this blog, via the Digital Hoops Blast Facebook page (linked here) or on Twitter — @pawlow34.One thing Andrew doesn’t mention is that perhaps an even better use of this comes from “down the hall” at the Comcast Center… Brenda Frese and her staff have, arguably, the Nation’s #1 recruiting class in 2011 and 2012 may be equally as good. There is no secret that Frese has long been known for her masterful art of recruiting and her staff is tremendous.
The custom UMD Women’s Basketball site (many schools are doing this now) is really, really good.
I follow many coaches “Tweets” out there and the primary difference between the ones flowing out of College Park and the rest is I don’t just here about: “It’s a beautiful day in (you fill in the college town), or ” Heading to workouts, it’s a great day to be a (fill in mascot of your choice.)” and the best is “just had a great (fill in meal based on time of day) at (fill in local sub, pizza or food spot) AWESOME!” Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty of that… every staff does that, it’s a given. Follow Coach Frese on Twitter, you’ll get the idea.
I haven’t personally done a “Best of Twitter College Basketball Review,” maybe that is something that is out there.
Anyone with input and links to really good uses of Twitter forward them via comments section and we will share.
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