March 2010 edition of the Arizona Men’s basketball Newsletter.

Some Offensive Thoughts From Kevin Eastman

I’m always looking for nuances that help explain things. I like finding patterns and see how to apply them for added advantage. From some notes that I received a little while ago, here are some interesting “truisms” courtesy of Kevin Eastman, the Assistant Coach for the Boston Celtics

TRUISM # 1: There is a direct correlation between the number of ball reversals and defensive breakdowns. 

Our players have to understand that the hardest thing to do defensively is to close out — to be running out at a player from the help position. Having said that, we need to understand that an advantage our offense must look to create is to get the defense to close out as often as possible; we want the ball to be reversed from side to side. With our team I can tell you that our scoring proficiency goes up as the number of passes and ball reversals goes up. Of course we have a shot clock that forces us to shoot the ball quicker, but we still would like a minimum of 3 passes as we then know the ball is getting reversed. When we only throw 1 or 2 passes we find that it is very easy for the defense to load up to the ball

TRUISM # 2: The closer you run your offense to the basket, the more physical your screens can be.

We have found that the officials are more apt to let contact go when it is closer to the basket as they are used to seeing more contact down there as opposed to out by the 3 point line. We feel that is why the flex action is allowed to get away with some physical baseline and pin down screens, and why we have to be careful when setting a back screen out by the 3 point line. So give some thought to having some part of your offensive system where you run your stuff closer to the rim.

TRUISM # 3: The faster the ball moves, the closer the defenders stay to their man.

We have found that when we move the ball a little faster, the defensive players are more concerned with staying up with their man and tend to not jump to the ball and get in help position. We also feel that that leaves us with more room to drive it as the defenders are out of position just enough to allow us to get a good driving angle on them. I would say if you do not have a good scoring post man, you should look to move the ball a little faster at times and create driving opportunities. If you do have a good post man you would want to slow it down and give the post man a good look.

To see real change and gain significant benefits from their strategies, leaders (be it head coach or assistant) need to establish an environment of trust. Leaders who are trusted — even in times of great difficulty — are skilled communicators.

When leading in times of change and transition – new head coaches, assistants moving to a new school and staff – remember communications fundamentals including these:

• Communicate relentlessly. Communicate information, thoughts and ideas clearly — and frequently — in different media. Find many ways to share information; keep processes open and transparent.
• Listen. Good communicators are also good listeners. Allow people to air their gripes and complaints. Pay attention to what others are saying, thinking and feeling. What is said, and what is left unsaid.
• Explain. People are often skeptical of change. Share your thinking and the trade-offs you’ve weighed — not just the final decision or strategy.  Involve everyone in the process.
• Articulate expectations. Clearly explaining why, how and when things need to happen will set expectations and create a healthy level of stress and pressure. It also establishes a mechanism for monitoring and addressing performance.
• Be visible. If you communicate well, you won’t be out of sight. Find ways to interact with all of your stakeholder groups – staff, student-athletes, administrators and supporters.  Be willing to roll your sleeves up and get in there and work with them.
• Confront problems and conflict. Don’t postpone dealing with challenging issues or conflict. By avoiding the difficult people or difficult issues, you can do great harm to yourself, your team, your staff and your university.
• Be honest and sincere. Communicate truthfully and honestly, follow through with what you say and avoid deception.

Leading with Authenticity in Times of Transition,  CCL Press,  2005

Organizations today are awash in change. Managing change requires leaders to focus simultaneously on managing the business and providing effective leadership to the people. More often than not, it is the focus on the people side that loses out. This book offers a framework for understanding the issues and competencies that contribute to effective leadership during times of change. Its purpose is to help leaders determine how to choose and move among a variety of managerial approaches — to help them see what’s working, what’s not working, and what’s missing. In this way, leaders can more clearly assess their impact and learn how to meet the demands of both managing the business and leading the people.

It’s the end of February… March and April are just around the corner.  Conference Tournaments. NCAA’s.  Coaching changes.  The end of season right of passage.  Every year, the same – the inevitable.

Usually 25+ new head coaches are hired in Division I Men’s & Women’s Basketball each year.

What is the most important skill for those “First-Timers” as a new leader?

Leadership 501 recently identified some important characteristics or abilities that are necessary.  They polled many experts, posted their answers and interjected their insight.  We, as coaches, can apply these ideas to  new first time leadership roles, as well as continuing to improve on what leadership skills we already possess.

Constant learning. Public speaking is also important.

It is much easier to want to follow someone who is constantly improving themselves.  Public speaking is something that is often overlooked. Even a leader that does no public speaking needs the communication skills that come from having a good public speaking ability.

Connection skills: connection to work, organization, and the people you lead. Getting everyone to connect at an authentic level to their strengths and to leverage their strengths in the service of the organization. Remember as leaders we are human.

I have definitely seem many people try to lead who do not have this ability.  Some of this comes from having a “I’m the leader, you are the follower” attitude.  Some comes from simply not spending enough time paying attention to those around you.  There is a huge difference between “leadership” and “power.”  There are people who empower others and lead and there are people who are in charge and have power.  It’s pretty easy to tell the difference.

There are so many skills needed, but I think the most important skill for a new leader is to learn the art of command. This includes a new leader taking unpopular stands when necessary, facing adversity head on and encouraging open debate as a way to work through tough challenges and crises. Young leaders have to develop the emotional and mental strength to be able to communicate with higher management, (administration) investors (boosters and alumni) and tough competitors (recruiting), and in order to do this, a leader has to come up with big ideas and express them with passion and conviction. A young leader has to know the “cutting line” as to when he/she will say “We’re moving on” and then follow through each decision with a presence that communicates strength and confidence.

Leadership Coach Bea Fields, President of Bea Fields Companies, Inc. from Five Star Leader.com

Very good advice.  At least part of this comes down to knowing what to do. Early in my career I watched my boss avoid confrontation on a particular issue.  I didn’t understand why she didn’t push to “take care of things.”  One month later, the situation resolved itself without her needing to create any type of conflict.  I realized that she had the experience to know when to push and when to let things go.  It was extremely valuable and something I worked hard to develop in myself.  It is not an easy skill and must be practiced and perfected.

Thought!!!!! Leaders must keep things in perspective and most of all, keep the Desired Outcomes in mind. They must also continually remind their people of the purpose behind the processes. People need to find meaning in their work.

Jim Cathcart from Cathcart Institute, Inc

This is another area where I’ve seen a number of counter examples.  I’ve worked places where no one knew exactly what they were trying to do because the leader didn’t want to tell them the goals.  The logic was that if they new the goals and missed them people would be discouraged.  What this leader didn’t seem to realize is that everyone was running in different directions because no one was communicating their purpose, direction and why those things were important.

The ability to connect with and communicate with others. Leadership is not so much about what you do. It’s about what you can encourage and inspire others to do. It’s about creating a vision and communicating that vision to others. Leaders inspire people and point people to a brighter and better future and empower them to take action to make that future a reality.

Jon Gordon, author of the international best seller, The Energy Bus from  www.JonGordon.com

This is a good distinction about the role of a leader.  Leaders often get too caught up in doing all the work and don’t spend enough time communicating their vision to people around them.  This is one of the reasons leaders hit a glass ceiling when it comes to growth.

Humility

Bussta Brown from Leadership Cultivation

Humility is one of those things that can help everything else fall into place.

Humility – the ability to understand that they are a conduit for activity not the driver of activity. Leaders need to value the input and work of the team – demonstrate that value and continue to set goals and objectives for the team to tackle.

Paul Hebert from Incentive Intelligence

Another vote for humility.  It is sometimes difficult for a leader to get to the point where they understand that the value of their team working together toward the goal is often greater than getting things done exactly the way the leader would do it on their own.

As John F Kennedy once said ‘Leaders are perpetual learners’. An attitude of openess towards learning – learning from every single incident how much ever trivial it appears to be, learning from every single person that they meet, how much ever small that person appears to be – is the most important skill for a leader. Leaders should go around with a permenant ‘Learner’s Board’ around their neck.

Sangeeth Varghese from LeadCap: Building a nation of leaders

When a leader things they have “arrived” they are probably not going to accomplish much more.

Being able to learn from everyone around them – as quickly as possible.

Marshall Goldsmith from Marshall Goldsmith Library

This is an interesting perspective.  So much of the time we focus on the way that leaders need to communicate out and teach people around them.  It is just as important for them to quickly learn from the people they are working with.

This is a tough question. There are so many important skills to be developed simultaneously and that development is continual. If I have to choose one I would say communication. If a leader is a poor communicator, he will never be able to create the cultural climate necessary to bring about positive change. Leadership is about taking people from point A to point B and this rarely happens in a straight line. It’s more like leading people through an obstacle course while blindfolded. The leader has to stay ahead of the team, pointing out the obstacles and communicating where to go next.

In the ancient middle east, shepherds would share large, walled, areas for their sheep to sleep in at night. These areas were meant for the protection of the sheep from predators such as wolves. The sheep would intermingle in the fold and there was no way to distinguish on shepherd’s sheep from the other by looking at them. Interestingly, when a particular shepherd was ready to take their sheep to pasture, he would simply walk into the fold and make a unique sound with his voice. His sheep knew his voice and his special command. They would get up and follow him out of the fold.

Leaders must develop their unique voice.

Tad Thompson from Total Leadership

The way leadership is often taught is to point out how other leaders did things. Tad’s point about developing your unique voice is often overlooked.  This isn’t to say you can’t learn from the success and failures of others, but it is always important to look at what is working for someone else and figure out how to apply it given your particular personality, goals, and values.

The two essentials for any successful leader are the ability to choose the right strategy and the right people. I have found that the most difficult part of solving this equation is learning to eliminate bad strategy and fire unproductive leaders. There is a natural human reluctance to do much of either, which is why most leaders are mediocre.

Will Marre from Will Marre’s Blog Site

Having a good definition of success is vital for both of these things.  I see a lot of leaders particularly in non-profits who determine success based on how things feel–not on how well they are working. With a business dollars becomes a pretty easy to understand metric, but you need to have other very measurable goals besides money.  Once you have a good measurement, it is easier to determine who needs to go and what strategies are not effective.

Setting sensible priorities for him or herself and those being supervised. It’s easy to yell for results and set near-impossible targets, but all it proves is that you’re an idiot. Macho management, the approach most often practiced today, is based on the erroneous belief that pushing people to their limit is both motivating and acceptable. In reality, all it does is encourage them to cut corners and feed you with whatever you want to hear, just to get you off their backs. No one can do quality work, let alone be creative, if they’re stressed and exhausted. Focus only on what really matters and dump the rest.

Carmine Coyote from Slow Leadership

In this respect, good leaders are kind of like good teachers.  They set goals/assignments that are carefully chosen to help people stretch but still succeed.  The momentum of success is then carried on to the next goal/assignme

I know it’s three, but I believe these three are the tripod of success: Insight, Influence, Integrity.

Shelley Holmes from Leadership and Motivation Training

The ability to understand beyond what is apparent on the surface, the ability to move people toward a desired result, and the ability to operate ethically and inline with your values are all key traits.

Empathy. Understanding others. ‘Sizing people up’.

David Straker from Changing Minds

“Sizing people up” is an interesting skill to try to develop.  Some people have an uncanny ability to read people, but everyone can develop at least some skill in this area simply by becoming more conscious of how you “feel” about various people you meet.

Listening. It is the key to learning, adapting, building community, and developing vision.

Don Frederiksen from Lead Quietly

I think this ties in well with humility that was suggested earlier.  People who are not humble are not going to listen.  People who don’t listen are going to make mistakes that could have been avoided.

Effective communication skills are vital. That includes giving assignments, checking for understanding, following up to make sure that understanding translates into behavior and talking to people about performance or behavior in ways that help them and the team perform better.

For one behavior, I’d pick touching base a lot. Many good things flow from this.

Wally Bock from Three Star Leadership

I see a lot of leaders with a deficit in the area of followup.  They give assignments without any clear indication of how or when success will be measured.  From what I’ve seen of the military leadership model, they seem to do a great job of associating goals and assignments with measurements of success and planned followup.  It is much easier to move forward when followup becomes part of the culture instead of something that only occurs when things go wrong.

Connected to my first answer, my vote would be for communication skills. You can have the most fabulous, legacy-destined message in the world, but you won’t get very far if you cannot articulate it clearly enough to inspire others, causing them to enroll in your goal or movement. Campaigning wow projects has to be your forte: Great leaders are energy creators who infuse people with optimism and fire them up with positive expectancy.

Rosa Say from Managing with Aloha Coaching

Another vote for communication.  It is interesting to consider that the leader with a mediocre vision and good communication skills may still accomplish more than someone with a great vision and mediocre communication skills.

Assertiveness. Clean, clear, unequivocal, don’t-mess-about-with-me, communication is the essential tool of leadership. People need to understand you and they need to know what is important, why it is important, and when it has to be done by. Without this skill, you’ll find delegating very difficult and will become endlessly mired down in tactical detail.

Rowan Manahan from Fortify Your Oasis

When Lafayette was working with Washington’s troops he commented on how the American soldiers would do anything once they knew the reasoning behind it.

Relationship-building. You must be able to walk the walk and talk the talk with people from all angles of the organization. Be nice, friendly, firm, and persuasive. I had a great boss who said that you can easily learn the ‘analytics stuff’, but it takes years of grinding to influence throughout the organization.

Dan Naden from Naden’s Corner

Influence is something very hard to measure, but very vital in getting almost anything done.

The ability to enroll their team in helping to deliver the solution or change needed by helping them all to become leaders, i.e. by building a “distributed leadership” approach in the team, rather than the old-fashioned hierarchical structures.

Mick Yates from LeaderValues

Having compassion and heart is an essential ingredient to leadership. The heart is often a difficult thing to discuss in a business context because people automatically feel that they will be “walked all over” if they are too compassionate. But real compassion and heart is not necessarily soft, but it is truthful. Great leaders see individuals and see their strengths. You can’t really ’see’ another person without having full compassion and releasing judgments. The slate needs to be clean as a leader. When a leader comes loaded with preconceived notions about people and/or situations, they don’t allow room for others to rise to the occasion.

Laura Lopez from Laura Lopez and Company

It’s not so much a skill as it is an ability. Leaders must develop the ability to challenge their own mental models (assumptions, beliefs, perceptions) that shape their decision-making and the actions they take. If their mental models are oriented in the right way (for instance, believing that people generally want to contribute their best every day), then it’s easy to help them develop the specific skills necessary to unleash the talents of the people in their organization. If their mental models are oriented in the wrong way (for instance, believing that people don’t want to perform their best or they are merely trading time for money), then all the skill development in the whole world won’t help the leader be more effective.

Here’s a real world example. Organizations spend millions of dollars every year developing the listening skills of their leaders. They teach them very specific skills about establishing the right environment for most effective listening, minimizing distractions, maintaining eye contact, asking appropriate follow-up questions and re-stating what the other person said. All of which are important. But, if the leader thinks the person they are “listening to” is just a whiner or complainer, the skills don’t matter. They leader is not going to hear what the other person is saying. On the other hand, if the leader truly believes that the other person has something valuable to contribute, even if they are “whining,” then the leader will get the message almost in spite of their actual “skills.” The leader’s effectiveness is determined by his/her mental models.

The challenge is that most of our mental models about leadership are baked in and hidden. Often, leaders aren’t aware of the assumptions they make or their underlying beliefs. And, it can be scary to hold those assumptions and beliefs up for examination and possible changes. So, developing the capability to do so distinguishes great leaders from others

Sean Ryan from WhiteWater Consulting Group

I think that strongly relates to some of the previous suggestions of trying to learn from everyone. Listening to learn is a lot more effective that following some type of list where you are supposed to repeat what they say, etc. Sean is right. If you think the person has nothing to contribute, it doesn’t matter how good your “listening skills” are developed.

Maintain confidentiality for what they are told. Whether it is something from employees (“I have cancer”) or from other managers (“We need to lay off 10% of the department”), a leader has to maintain confidentiality in order to have trust.

Scot Herrick from Career Management for Cubicle Warriors

This can be a challenge, but I’ve seen many people in leadership positions ruin any influence they have with their employees because they violated their trust.

Communication. Work on your ability to share your ideas in verbal and written form. Be comfortable standing in front of a group. Be able to communicate with passion on subjects you know only a little about! Have solid skills in clear, concise writing.

Military leaders must be able to give clear orders, to share their vision, to inspire people. All require good communication skills. I do not know a senior military leader who cannot command a room!

Thomas Magness from Leader Business

Thank you for everything you have done for your student-athletes and our profession.

Coach Don Meyer

from CBSSports.com wire reports

One of the winningest men’s basketball coaches in history is retiring.

Northern State coach Don Meyer said Monday he no longer has the physical or mental energy to run the basketball program at its “highest possible level.” He will retire at the end of the season.

Meyer, 65, was critically injured in a car accident in September 2008 that later resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee. Doctors then discovered he had an inoperable form of cancer.

“It is time for someone with more energy and time available to deal with the unique challenges of a basketball program like Northern State,” Meyer said.

Meyer has continued to coach despite his health problems, with 922 wins and 323 losses headed into the final week of this season. In January 2009, he broke Bob Knight’s NCAA record of 902 wins, coaching from the sidelines in a wheelchair.

Meyer’s record includes wins at NAIA schools, though he broke Knight’s record while with the NCAA Division II Wolves. Philadelphia University basketball coach Herb Magee won his 902nd game — all at NCAA schools — on Saturday. He can surpass Knight on Tuesday when the Rams play Goldey-Beacom College in Philadelphia.

Earlier this season, McKendree University coach Harry Statham notched his 1000th win at the NAIA powerhouse in Lebanon, Ill. The only other member of the 1,000-win club is Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summitt.

Last July, Meyer received the ESPN Jimmy V. Perseverance Award. In April, he is to receive the Legends of the Hardwood Award at the NCAA Final Four. The court at Northern State is named in his honor.

“Don is a legendary coach but, more importantly, a legendary person,” Northern State president James Smith said. “His passion for developing young men into extremely successful adults is and always has been his true key to success. I look forward to working more closely with him but am saddened by the thought of not seeing him walking the floor that so proudly carries his name.”

Smith said Meyer will remain on staff at Northern State helping promote the northern South Dakota school. A national search for a new head men’s basketball coach is to begin immediately.

Meyer, a native of Wayne, Neb., coached at Hamline University and Lipscomb University before taking the Northern State job in 1999. Before becoming a head coach he was an assistant at Western State and at Utah.

Meyer plans to address the crowd from center court following Northern State’s final regular season game on Saturday night against Southwest Minnesota State.

GUARDING THE TRIANGLE

Guarding the Triangle

John Noonan Ursuline Academy

In prepping for an “X’s & O’s” phone conversation with Ursuline Academy coach John Noonan one of the many things we were going to talk about was defending Flare Screens, both at the top and on the wing.  It got me thinking…

Like all of you, this is the time of year when it’s getting to be crunch time.  Being able to “steal” a play or two during a game (either offensively or defensively) can make a difference in the outcome of a game and potentially play-off seeding.

Talking basketball again with John was great!  John is a quality teacher of the game and an even better person.  His ideas on teaching fundamentals, defending actions as well as teaching players “HOW” to play are fantastic.

Follow the links below for ideas of defending FLARE SCREENS:  FLARE SCREENS 1 and  FLARE SCREENS 2.

I’ve become a much bigger believer in SWITCHING many things, including FLARING SCREENS.  The size and athleticism difference isn’t that great for one or two possessions to scare me out of the benefits of switching the action and killing the play.  You see most every coach during a late game situation say, “SWITCH EVERYTHING!”  With the game on the line, most people switch… why be afraid to do it as a steady system or scheme?  Not sure it isn’t the best way to handle most screening actions.  I wouldn’t do it all the time either, but it’s still probably the best way to kill the play.

One of the most over looked areas of defending flare screens is ball pressure.  Ball pressure, with “HIGH HANDS” that limits VISION is critical.  As a side note:  isn’t BALL PRESSURE a key to disrupting offense period?

Would welcome any thought and ideas in a reply or at: ideas@allbasketballreview.com

Good luck the rest of the way and in the tournaments.

I’ve referenced Mind Tools several times.  I’ve enjoyed and found several helpful leadership development ideas there.  The most recent of which is the GROW Model.

There is a wide variety of subject areas on the website:  Leadership Skills, Problem Solving, Decision Making, Project Management, Practical Creativity, Time Management, Stress Management, Information Skills, Communication Skills and Memory Improvement.  I have yet to explore all of the various areas and focused mainly on leadership.  As I explore further I will pull the best things I discover and publish them here.

The GROW Model jumped out at me right away.  Business people are always making “coaching” references.  Stressing to management teams the need to develop the ability to coach and using coaching strategies to improve their business.  Trying to find a way to harness those skills that we as coaches have developed over the years and sometimes take for granted.

GROW is an acronym standing for Goal – Current Reality – Options – Will.  As you read through it, think about what it is saying… isn’t it what we do everyday?  Doesn’t it seem as common sense as coming in out of the rain?  It is fundamentally so simple, yet we can re-apply it to our basic philosophy.  I think it is valuable and helps reaffirm many good teaching points.

Enjoy.

The GROW Model

Coaching team members to improve performance

The GROW Model

Coaching team members to improve performance

One key role of any leader is to coach team members to achieve their best. As “coach”, you will typically help your team members to solve problems, make better decisions, learn new skills or otherwise progress in their role or career.

Whilst some leaders are fortunate enough to get formal training as coaches, many are not. They have to develop coaching skills for themselves.

Now this may sound daunting. But if you arm yourself with some of proven techniques, find opportunities to practice and learn to trust your instincts, you can become a better coach, and so enhance your team’s performance.

One proven approach that helps with this it the GROW model. GROW is an acronym standing for Goal – Current Reality – Options – Will. The model is a simple yet powerful framework for structuring a coaching session.

A useful metaphor for the GROW model is the plan you might make for an important journey. First, you start with a the map: With this, you help your team member decide where they are going (their Goal) and establish where they currently are (their Current Reality). Then you explore various ways (the Options) of making the journey. In the final step, establishing the Will, you ensure your team member is committed to making the journey and is prepared for the conditions and obstacles they may meet on their way.

How to Use the Tool:

Use the following steps to structure a coaching session:

Establish the Goal:

First, with your team member, you must define and agree the goal or outcome to be achieved. You should help your team member define a goal that is specific, measurable and realistic.

In doing this, it is useful to ask questions like:

”How will you know that you have achieved that goal?”
”How will you know the problem is solved?”

Examine Current Reality:

Next, ask your team member to describe their Current Reality. This is a very important step: Too often, people try to solve a problem without fully considering their starting point, and often they are missing some of the information they need to solve the problem effectively. 

As the team member tells you about his or her Current Reality, the solution may start to emerge. 

Useful coaching questions include:

”What is happening now?”
”What, who, when, how often”
”What is the effect or result of that?”

Explore the Options:

Once you and your team member have explored the Current Reality, it’s time to explore what is possible – meaning, all the many possible options you have for solving the problem. Help your team member generate as many good options as possible, and discuss these. 

By all means, offer your own suggestions. But let your team member offer his or hers first, and let him or her do most of the talking. 

Typical questions used to establish the options are:

”What else could you do?”
”What if this or that constraint were removed? 
”What are the benefits and downsides of each option?”
”What factors will you use to weigh up the options?

Establish the Will:

By examining Current Reality and exploring the Options, your team member will now have a good idea of how he or she can achieve their Goal. That’s great – but in itself, this may not be enough! So your final step as coach is to get you team member to commit to specific action. In so doing, you will help the team member establish his or her will and motivation. 

Useful questions:

”So what will you do now . and when?
”What could stop you moving forward?”
”And how will you overcome it?”
”Will this address your goal?”
”How likely is this option to succeed?”
”What else will you do?”

Tip 2: Practice by Coaching Yourself
.  A great way to practice using the model is to address your own challenges and issues. When you are ’stuck’ with something, you can use the technique to coach yourself. By practicing on your own challenges and issues, you will learn how to ask the most helpful questions. Write down some stock questions as prompts for future coaching sessions.

The two most important skills for a coach are the ability to ask good questions, and effective listening.

Tip 3: Ask Great Questions. and Listen Well

Don’t ask closed questions: “Did that cause a problem?” Do ask open ones: “What affect did that have?” Be prepared with a list of questions to for each stage of the G-R-O-W process.

Listen well and let your “client” do most of the talking. Remember that silence is valuable thinking time: You don’t always have to fill silence with the next question.

Graham Hays does an exceptional job of capturing “who” Jim is and what his relationship is with his players.  As you read this one thing jumps off the page… the article is being written about him and all he talks about is his players, the university and how fortunate he is to be part of their existence.  Humility.  This isn’t just because Jim had a brush with death, it is who he has been since I met him in 1983.

There is no question that if Jim had stayed at Marquette they would be the “UConn” of the Big East as well.  Jim has the plan and the process and Dayton is his vehicle.  Enjoy this.

Jabir making most of second chance

Five seasons after dealing with cardiac issues, coach has Dayton on brink of NCAAs

By Graham Hays ESPN.com

HANOVER, N.H. — Kendel Ross embodies just about everything Jim Jabir believed Dayton women’s basketball could be when the school gave the veteran coach a second chance seven years ago. But for any of those plans to come to fruition, Jabir first needed to receive a second chance at something far more substantial than a profession.

Tim G. Zechar/Icon SMI Jim Jabir hasn't taken a team to the NCAA tournament since 1995 (Marquette), but his Flyers are 17-5 overall and 5-2 in the A-10.

Dayton’s coach admits he’s harder on Ross, now a senior, than just about any player on a Flyers team that remains in control of its postseason fate despite a loss last weekend at Atlantic 10 leader Xavier. Coming out of Canada four seasons ago, Ross was, in Jabir’s words, “the first kid we shouldn’t have got that we got.” He expects excellence out of her, and her mistakes pain him more.

For lack of a more accessible comparison, she is Dayton’s Shane Battier. She does everything that shows up in the box score and half a dozen things that don’t. For better and occasionally worse when stubborn will meets stubborn will, she has a motor and a competitive streak that will not shut off. Tell her you need 15 rebounds in a game and the result is predictable.

“She’s gonna get you 15,” Jabir said. “It’s like clockwork; she’s going to do what you ask her to do. Or she’ll die trying. So it’s this great intensity, it’s this intangible — this will is tremendous. I mean, she’s got this will — and sometimes it works against her, but for the most part it’s been beneficial to us. And I tell her this all the time, too, I love her and I hate her. I mean, she’s so stubborn, you know what I mean? I literally love her and I hate her. There are days I want to kill her and days I can’t get enough of her.”

Mostly though — and this is the most important part — there are just days.

Live a little and die a little. That’s the life of a coach, for whom a job comes down to 30 or more annual public assessments stretching from late fall through spring. It’s an agonizingly brief opportunity to show what all the unseen hours practicing, recruiting and teaching were about. It’s also a painfully prolonged grind through which to experience emotions rising and falling with every executed offensive set and every turnover, let alone every win and every loss.

Wednesday’s game against Charlotte was No. 650 in Jabir’s career, ample opportunity for a lot of winning and a lot of losing. For a long time, there was more of the former than the latter in Jabir’s case. After a successful stint at Siena, he led Marquette to back-to-back 20-win seasons and a pair of NCAA tournament appearances. But when the Big East came calling, he took the job at Providence, a rebuilding project that might as well have been Pompei by basketball standards.

And he lost — a lot. The Friars won more than 11 games just twice in his six seasons. A career coaching record that had stood 37 games over .500 when he left Marquette was three games below the break-even mark when he and Providence parted ways after the 2001-02 season.

Enter Dayton, which eschewed up-and-coming for down-and-out when it hired him.

“I work really, really hard at this, and I love my job and I love Dayton,” Jabir said. “I love that they gave me a chance. I was kind of a down-and-out coach. I left Marquette when it was great and stupidly left like a top-15 recruiting class, top-12 recruiting class, went to Providence, worked my butt off for six years and couldn’t get it turned around. And then I’m kind of like, ‘OK, I’m a used car salesman.’

“I mean, I lost for six years at Providence, so I go to Colorado for a year [as an assistant coach] and then [former and current Dayton athletic directors] Ted Kissell and Tim Wabler gave me a chance. They recycled me; they gave me a chance, so I’ll be forever in debt to them for that. I knew what I was capable of; I just needed a place to prove it and they gave me an opportunity.”

The Flyers were in better shape than Providence was when Jabir took that job, but they weren’t an Atlantic 10 juggernaut by any stretch. They had just one winning season in the decade preceding his arrival. His first team went 3-25. And before Jabir could coach a game his second season, he found himself asking assistant Greg Williams for a ride to the hospital after suffering chest pains. He was diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmia (a genetic condition, not specifically related to job stress) and had to have a defibrillator implanted to shock his heart back to a normal rhythm when necessary. He also had to take a leave of absence from the bench and face the prospect of losing something far more meaningful than a game or a job.

“I really thought, without getting too dramatic, I thought I was going to die,” Jabir said. “It’s a really, very lonely experience to go through. I was in the hospital for about three or four weeks, and in that process, it really kind of felt like I was going to lose everything I really, really loved.”

First and foremost, that meant his family at home. But it also meant his basketball family.

“All I could think about was losing my family and then feeling like I wasn’t going to get to do this thing,” Jabir said of turning around Dayton. “Because I knew what we could be. And I felt remorseful that I wasn’t going to get a chance to finish what we started.”

He did get the chance, returning to the bench after a month away and helping lead the team to a nine-win improvement and a 12-16 record. But despite a 17-12 record in the 2005-06 season, Jabir said it wasn’t until the last three years that he felt his players embraced and took ownership of the culture he wanted. That coincided with the arrival of Ross for the 2006-07 season and a talented freshman class last season that quickly learned to follow her lead.

“I feel like he demands excellence,” Ross said. “Not just in how you do stuff but it’s all about hard work. I think that is kind of like the heart of our program.”

Ross is a talented writer who pens a blog on the team’s Web site, but this was not a case of well-placed irony. From the outside, there aren’t any signs of Jabir’s brush with mortality. He’s as animated as any other coach, particularly when he and Ross knock heads. But even a guy who once viewed himself as a pick-and-roll Willie Lohman and who owns a stubborn streak every bit as wide as his Canadian import’s had to take stock of his affairs.

“It’s weird — like I have a defibrillator and a pacemaker, so I’ve been shocked a couple of times,” Jabir said. “And I’m very, very, very fortunate because I’ve not been shocked as often as other people. I think about, like I’ll be driving too fast down a highway and I’m thinking, ‘I could get shocked like right now.’ So that’s always in my head. And because of that, I think, I try to really enjoy right now. And I have to practice, to tell you the truth.

“When I was in the hospital, I was making a lot of promises, praying a lot and saying, ‘Hey, you get me out of this and I’ll change.’ And then you get back to — not the grind, but you get back to working too much and pushing and trying to be what you want to be, and sometimes I forget those promises. You get caught up in what you’re doing. But I’m really grateful that I do what I do, and I think we have a chance to be special.”

Jabir hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 1995, but with Ross and leading scorer and sophomore forward Justine Raterman leading the way for a team that plays as many as 12 people in its rotation during the normal run of play, that should change. Players talked about the intensity that translates into practice this season, just as their coach noted that for the first time, anything less than an NCAA tournament would feel like a disappointment. But that drive is all-consuming only within the gym walls.

“It’s harder for me to be the hard-ass during practice,” Jabir said. “Because I love my team — I love being around them. I love laughing. We have a good time, and I really enjoy every minute with them. I’ve got a lot of keepers. It’s harder for me to be the hard-ass … but I think they demand it and for us to be what we can be, I have to be. But I love the time I spend with the kids off the court. I think it’s probably more the reason I coach. I just love being around them. I love seeing them grow up. I love helping them when I can. They’re a lot of fun.”

You live a little and you die a little. And you’re thankful to have the chance.

Here are the links to the Arizona Men’s Basketball Newsletters:  November through February.

NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER

DECEMBER NEWSLETTER

JANUARY NEWSLETTER

FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

A lot of good stuff… articles, sets, BOB’s.