Check out my favorite blog probably ever by Coach Eric Musselman http://emuss.blogspot.com/
The internet got 5% better with his site. Very impressive but has cut into my sleep time reading everything I've missed since it began.
To pull one item or another from Coach Muss's site would be an injustice since it is all great stuff. The most powerful passage was written by his sister Nicole and was posted as a tribute to his late father (and legendary coach) Bill for father's day. Here's the snippet that jumped off the page that I surely will share with our players this year:
"My Dad was interested in why people prevail and why people surrender. The will to triumph fascinated him. When I look back on his life, his greatest gift wasn’t a fantastic basketball mind; it was the dedication to follow his dream. Behind his steel blue eyes was a life full of passion.
My father once told me, “Two percent of basketball players are born with endless talent, the kind of talent that would take a complete fool to mess up. The other 98% are going to succeed because of how much they put into it and how deep they dig into their soul.”
Wow. Read the whole posting here. The passion for life, people, coaching, his family, the game of basketball and sharing his gift is awe-inspiring.
A byproduct of scouring the site lead me to Michael Lombardi's blog which is phenomenal. Check it out here: http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/blogs/notesfromlombardi/
Lombardi oversaw the Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns personnel departments and has over 20 years of NFL experience. He worked with Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, Mike Shanahan, Marty Schottenheimer, and many more. He also experienced the some of the crazy side of sports business such as the Al Davis run Raiders that he refers to as "Hotel California". His experiences and player evaluations are tremendously interesting.
I took a few notes as I went through Lombardi's site. Here's a snippet of somethings I found interesting that overlap to the hardwood. (Warning I paraphrase and stray somewhat).
*He talks about hiring a fundamental coach vs. scheme coach. Believes the fundamental coach will get his team better each month while the scheme coach will get caught up to when the scheme is figured out, the players don't fit the scheme, or the players fundamentals fall off within the scheme.
*Ben Franklin was right when he said, "Well done, is better then well said"
*Each coach should write down before the summer break ways that he can improve in the following areas:
1. His overall football knowledge-scheme and personnel
2. His presentation to the players
3. His leadership skills.
4. His daily routine
5. His " in season" study
And work on those five areas at night during the summer vacation. It is important to get a great job, but is more important to do a great job once you get it.
*Henry Kissinger says in his memories about life in Washington, "Is you borrow on the intellectual capitol you bring, and you can't renew it once your here".
*"Recruiting is like shaving, if you don’t do it everyday, you look like a bum.”
*Albo lives the McArthur Creed for Youth every day.
“Youth is not a time of life. It’s a state of mind. It’s a test of the will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair…these are the quick equivalents of the ling long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whether 70 or 16 there is, in every beings heart, the love of wonder, the sweet amazement of the stars, and the star like things and thought, the undaunted challenge of events; the unfailing childlike appetite for “what next”. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt, as young as your self confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man and from the Infinite, so long are you young. When all the wires are down, and all the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then and only then are you grown old indeed, and may God have mercy on your soul”.
*Someone once said, "Life is never measured by what we get, rather, what we give".
*He says, "Your either getting better or getting worse, but your never the same. I have tried to follow that creed each day."
*Bill Walsh use to talk about the need to scout “inside out, as opposed to outside in”, meaning know what it takes to play in the scheme your own team runs. Most scouts are scouting over a broader scope of players with out the intimate knowledge of the scheme their team runs. You have to know the plays to evaluate the players.
