Student of the Game

Each year in late April the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association hosts the State Clinic at Lawrence North High School. It is a great opportunity to connect with other coaches, re-connect with past teammates and coaches, and evaluate the things that you are currently doing as a coach. I always feel like it is a successful day if I can walk away with one new idea from the clinic. One of my favorite talks at the clinic came from Rick Majerus. At the time Coach Majerus was the Head Coach at St. Louis University. He had coached prior to that at Utah and at Ball State. I will always remember the passion with which he spoke.

(Picture taken from usatoday.com) Coach Majerus was not a small man by any means. As a matter of fact he looked like he could have been a starting tackle on the football team. He walks out on to the floor with gray cotton shorts and a white t-shirt. Before he is even 5 minutes into the talk he is sweating holes in his shirt, and is making everyone laugh. He had a presence. I am not sure what the main topic was that he spoke, but he spent part of the time talking about defense. This was the one thing that I took from the clinic that year. He said, "Every time that you play, you have an opportunity to work on defense. Whether that is playing open gym, playing in the drive way, playing AAU or playing in your regular season games. Defense is something that you can work on all the time. When players play they don't think about that. Talk to your players about playing with a since of urgency at the defensive end all the time. Ask yourself as a player- How many points did my man score? How many offensive rebounds did my man get?" This was something to think about as a coach. We spend alot of time in the off season working on offense, but how much focus do we put on defense? Something to think about. As I approach today I am excited to think about what that one idea will be today that I can use to improve as I move forward as a coach. The line-up this year is filled again with great High School and College coaches. The main speaker this year is Coach Calipari from Kentucky.