Coaching Philosophy

Conor Howard

1-18-18

SES 435
Coaching Philosophy

Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Philosophy of Life......................................................................................................................................... 3
Philosophy of Coaching ................................................................................................................................ 5
Style of Play .................................................................................................................................................. 7
Coaching Values ........................................................................................................................................... 8
DISC Profile.................................................................................................................................................. 9
Coaching Videos ......................................................................................................................................... 10
Observations ............................................................................................................................................... 11
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 12
References ................................................................................................................................................... 13

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Coaching Philosophy

Coaching Philosophy

Introduction

Throughout this class, I have learned so much about myself as a coach and my attitude,

style, and approach. From previous coaching experiences with Basketball, I began to see what

kind of coach I want to be, but now because of this class, I have a greater understanding of what

it means to be a coach. Previously, I had a few basic thoughts about myself being a coach, and a

general direction. But now I know more about what it means to be a successful coaching going

forward and applying the lessons we have learned.

Philosophy of Life

In my life, I want to be as successful as possible, not just as a coach but as a future

husband, father, and human being. I want to be able to provide for my own family, as well as

paying my parents back for all they have done for me. As a coach, I want to be as successful as

possible, like winning championships and having consistent winning seasons. I would love to

someday be the head coach of a college level Basketball team. At the college level, I would

preferably want to be at a more lower profile Division 1 school, or something like a Division 2

school. I also want the program to have a good reputation and be highly regarded. I want to be

respected by my peers and all of my players.

I am currently a student here at the University of Northern Colorado. I am an absolute

fanatic of Basketball at all levels, but especially the professional and collegiate levels. I have 3

years of experience coaching, being an assistant coach Basketball coach with 1 year as an

assistant with 5th and 6th grade girls, and then 7th and 8th grade boys for 2 years. I always want to

learn more about coaching and my sport in general and am willing to put in the work to be more

successful. I would definitely classify myself as a student of the game. I am always wanting to

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increase my knowledge and understanding of offensive and defensive tactics, plays to use, and

drills to use in practices, and much more.

I represent a culmination of the hard work and perseverance in my life. I have faced

many hardships and difficulties in my life and have needed to find a way through. All the hard

work that I have put into my education has gotten me to this point. The passion and the love I

have for Basketball that was started from my favorite coach during middle school. I got to being

a Coaching major because of not making the Basketball team in my freshman year of high

school, and then went to help coach middle school kids that year to be around the game more and

do something else aside from school. That is where I found a love of coaching and wanting to try

make other players better. I combined my passion for Basketball and my desire to help others

into a core reason of why I want to be a coach in the future.

There are several key ideas that I believe in in my life. I believe the in value of hard

work, that hard work allows a person to become more successful than people who just rely on

talent or other people. People who value hard work are more likely to be able to address and

persist through an issue they are faced with that seemed to difficult at first. I believe in the value

of preparation in all things you do in life. The statement I often refer to in life is “rather have it

and not need it, than need it and not have it”. In a mental instance, I want to prepare for a variety

of possibilities that may occur, that way I have prepared for what may happen. I want to

approach a situation knowing what is likely to happen and how to respond. As a coach, I want

my teams to be prepared and able to do anything on the court, whether that is a fast-paced

transition offense or slow, set play style involving driving to the rim or kicking out to shooters;

and we are able to perform a zone or man to man style of defense, such as a 2-3 zone or a 1-3-1

or 3-2 zone. The key is to be comfortable with any style of play, and be able to perform it well.

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I also want to be organized in everything I do, everything should have a place and be

fairly easily accessible, so it can be reached at a later point if needed. Another key value of mine

is to pay attention to the small details in all that I do. The finer details are often just as important

as the obvious details, especially when it comes to being successful. I believe in the importance

of communicating about issues and things a person may be dealing with in life. Talking things

over to resolve issues is a key ideal in my life; I want to understand an issue that someone has

and see if there is a way that I can help them, whether that issue is with me or someone or

something else. The sense of compassion helps to build trust between others and understanding

between people.

I feel like my behavior is appropriate to my future goals. I always works as hard as I can

and push myself to do my best in everything that I do. I am willing to learn as much as possible

about the game of Basketball and how to become the best coach possible. I am more than willing

to slowly work my way up the ranks as a coach in order to become the best coach I can be at the

level I want to coach at. I am willing to take the time to develop into the best coach I can be in

order to lead future teams and players to success.

Philosophy of Coaching

I want to be a Basketball coach because I am passionate for the game and love to be

around it, and of course I want to be able to make a living and being able to provide for myself

and my future family as a coach. But as a coach, I want to take the time to help develop my

players and help them to become better, both on the court and off. I want my players to grow and

improve as Basketball players, as well as members of society. I want to transfer the same love of

the game to all of my players and provide life lessons and values to all of my players. I want to

bring success to the program, the team, and myself.

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Coaching Philosophy

I believe that I am coaching for the right reasons. I want my players to have fun and push

themselves to perform their best. I want to help develop into better Basketball players, as well as

people too. I want my athletes to genuinely enjoy becoming a better Basketball players and

people when they are involved in my team and in the program. The winning and success is

secondary to player development. The textbook discusses a style of philosophy called “Athletes

First, Winning Second”; this belief is that you should make decisions based on what is best for

the athletes, and then on what will be best for the team to win, (Martens 2012). In the long term,

I want to do what is best for my athletes, concerning their safety and their development, while of

course doing what I can to win as many games as possible.

My goals as a coach are to ultimately try win championships with the team, have

consistent winning seasons, and have a positive reputation of both myself and the team. But

aside from the general success goals and parameters like with any coach, a key goal of mine is to

help my players develop and grow both as Basketball players and as people. I want to pass on

important life lessons and values onto all of my players that they can use anytime, not just within

the realm of sports.

As a coach, I will have a variety of ways of showing my philosophy in place around my

team. One of the key pillars of my philosophy is to focus on the small details, give your full

effort in all you do, and to do things to completion. In drills during practice, I expect all my

players to touch the line when doing conditioning. My players should practice shooting with the

same intensity and focus they would as if they are shooting in a game, like catch-and-shoot 3-

point shots and pull-up jumpers. If we can execute the little details in practice, we will be able to

execute them in games as well. Another piece of my coaching philosophy is to be adaptable and

willing to make changes with the team; so if our current style of play is not being efficient or

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successful, I want to be able to accept a change and have the players be willing to make the

change as well. I also want to present my philosophy to my team in the very early stages of the

season, that way they know what I expect from them, and what they can expect from me

throughout the season. Another key idea is to have a good relationship with my players and

understand that they have lives outside of Basketball that they need to deal with. I want to

present myself as an option for someone to go to for advice and guidance for my players, should

they ever need it.

I do not know for certain if I am a good coach. From what I understand from the material

with this course, I think I am a good coach, but can always get better. There are areas I need to

work on and implement new ideas, but I also think that I already do several of the suggested

actions of a good and successful coach. I know specifically work on my knowledge of the sport

with tactics, plays, and drills, and also working on motivating my players, as those are some of

the key qualities of successful coaches (Martens 2012).

An increased knowledge of tactics for both the offensive and defensive end of the court,

as well as plays to use in game and drills to use in practices. Having a greater tactical knowledge

of the game will have an immense impact on my effectiveness as a coach. Also, just having a lot

more experience coaching athletes at higher levels of performance will help me become a better

coach. I don’t have very much coaching experience, so I know that I need to have more, that way

I can apply more of these lessons to real life situations. That is a key step in the process to

becoming the best coach possible for myself.

Style of Play

As I mentioned earlier, I want my teams to be prepared and able to do anything on the

court on a high level, whether that is a fast-paced offense or slowed down style of play; and also

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able to perform a zone or man style of defense. The key needs to be that we are comfortable with

any style of play, depending on what our opponents are giving us; and we must be able to

execute it well.

On the offensive end of the floor, I would want the team to be efficient running both in

transition and playing in the half-court, that way we are able to capitalize on what the defense is

giving us. My initial desire for the team’s style of play would be to primarily focus on fast breaks

and transition scoring. But the team could switch to a slower more methodical pace if necessary

due to the defense preventing easy transition points. I would focus on running plays that allow

the offense to move and react to the defense and have a more natural flow to it with cutters and

spacing for easy shots around the rim, or creating wide open 3 point shots. Lots of shooting drills

would be used in practice in order to work on making shots anywhere in a half-court offense

from all areas in the half-court setting, as well as working on spacing and cutting.

For defense, I would want to have my team be able to play both Man-to-Man and various

styles of Zone defense; depending on what works better against the opposing team. Some of the

various zone sets I would use would include a 2-3, 3-2, 1-3-1, or even a 1-2-2 zone. I would

mainly use Man Defense for every game with the team, but if that isn’t working consistently one

game, we would change to some style of Zone and see if that helps.

Coaching Values

In this course, we were able to uncover more about the values that we hold dear to

ourselves as coaches. My top five values were: Certainty, Recognition, Duty, Cared For, and

Safety and Security. Certainty for myself would be encouragement and knowing for certain from

supervisors and players that what I am doing with the team and the direction we are going in is

meeting the programs expectations. Recognition is more self-explanatory, that as a coach, but

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also the team and program as a whole are recognized for our successes and are building a

positive reputation. Duty means to me that everyone on the team and coaching staff is

performing their roles to the best of their abilities and doing everything they can to help the team

be successful. Cared For with me means that as a team we focus on the players and the staff as

people first, then as Basketball players. We want everyone to have a personal and home life in

order, that way they can go and play to their best; but if they are going through an issue, we do

our best to help them find a solution. Safety and Security applies to both on court actions, but

also to having security with the job. I want my players to have all the proper equipment and be in

a safe facility, that way the risk of injuries are decreased. If something is going on that could

jeopardize my position as the coach, I would want to know what I can do to fix the situation and

keep my job.

DISC Profile

With the information provided from the DISC profiles, I found out that in both my

Adapted and Natural Coaching Styles; my highest values were C and S, which are Analytical and

Supportive respectively. In the Natural approach, my highest value was C at 98 out of 100, with

S being second at 82; followed by I at 20 and D at 17. In the Adapted approach, my highest value

is S at 85 out of 100, and C at 84 out of 100; and then D is next at 23 and I at just 2 out of 100.

From these results, I know that I am a very analytical and planning focused head coach,

and a balanced supportive and analytical assistant coach. I believe and agree with these results,

especially looking back at my previous coaching experiences. As an assistant, I am definitely

supportive of my head coach’s ideas and want the players to know we believe in their abilities. I

also wanted to have plans or at least an idea of a plan for the practices of the day, and also the

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plans for the games. Those plans included drills to do in practice, the starters for the games, key

substitutes in the games, and what plays to focus on practicing to then incorporate into the game.

As a head coach, I can easily see myself being heavily focused on analytics and planning

and preparation. I would likely build player rotations on statistics and data, as well as chemistry

between players; as well as putting the right players in at statistically beneficial situations, like

putting our best 3-point shooters in when we desperately need a 3-pointer. Any plans we make

for practices or for games would be extremely thorough and detailed and have potential changes

we can shift to on the fly if need arises, particularly in-games. I would need my players to

understand the game-plan as well as the coaches do, that way they know what is expected of

them as well as the other team, and are able and comfortable to make changes on the move and

know what they need to do in the new set up.

Coaching Videos

Having outside coaches brought into the class or watching videos about coaches

discussing their knowledge and experience with us was an amazing opportunity to learn more

about real world application of the concepts we covered in the class. Two of the most beneficial

coaches we heard from were Kamie Etheridge and a video from Jorge Lee.

With Coach Etheridge’s discussion, I learned more about how to build a team culture

together and holding the team to that culture and identity. One of the biggest points I recall from

her talk, which also was discussed in the textbook, is that the team culture and identity should be

created in a group with the team, not just given by the coaches. Having the team involved in the

creation of their identity and culture will often result in the players being more bought in and

invested in what they created for themselves. The coaches can still have a large input on what

they want to see from their team, but still have input and thoughts from their players. This is a

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key idea of my philosophy, I want the team to create their culture and identity together. I want

my teams to be invested in each other as well as to the program itself.

From the Jorge Lee video, I learned more about what it means to build character through

sports. One of the key points I got from the video was to have teams focus on working on the

easy and little stuff, as well as the hard stuff. The quote was “If you want to be good at the

hardest stuff, you gotta be good at the easy stuff”. Teams and players should always give their

full effort in every aspect of their game no matter big or small. I want my players on the team to

compete and do all the little things on the court to win, like diving for loose balls and rebounding

out of their position. These little things are key to the team having full levels of success. This is a

big aspect of my philosophy, I want my players to give their all in everything they do on and off

the court. They should go out and compete and want to be successful in the little things as well as

the major points.

Observations

One of the things I picked up from my coaching observation of Coach Etheridge was to

make sure to use positive reinforcement with my athletes in practices and in games, as well as

correct athletes for mistakes they make. I want my athletes to know I support them and what

them to do well and believe they can do well. But I also need them to know that in order for them

to succeed, corrections and fixing situations need to happen as well. Coach Etheridge is also a

more aggressive coach when talking to her players and the way she goes about correcting

mistakes is extremely intense and blunt. I want to be more even keel as a coach and explain why

this is a mistake and what happens if it keeps occurring over and over. I also want to have a more

athlete-centered style of coaching, where the athletes are able to understand their own mistakes

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and make their own adjustments, as opposed to always have the coach give them instructions on

what to fix or change.

Conclusion

From all the material we have covered in class, from the textbook, to the videos, to the

in-class coaching assignments, there were lots of lessons we learned about how to become a

better coach. Because of this class, I know more about what it means to become a success coach

moving forward. I know the areas that I do well in, and I know where I need to improve on. I

also have a more tools now to use in real world coaching situations I will face in the future as a

Basketball coach.

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References

Martens, R. (2012). Successful Coaching (14th ed.). Leeds: Human Kinetics.

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