Insights to help improve your youth basketball experience.

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Why You’ve Got to Be True to Your Life-Guiding Principles

Article from https://www.thewoodeneffect.com … What are your life-guiding principles?

If you sacrifice principle trying to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.

When Coach John Wooden graduated from eighth grade, his father gave him a handwritten card and said, “Son, try to live up to this.” His father had written seven profound life principles:

  • Be true to yourself
  • Help others
  • Make friendship a fine art
  • Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible
  • Make each day your masterpiece
  • Build a shelter against a rainy day by the life you live
  • Give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day

Dave Meyers (UCLA: 1971-75), former NBA star and currently a teacher, summarized his lessons this way: “If you are not maintaining self-control, then you are not being true to yourself. You are letting your circumstances or your emotions or the actions of other people control you. To be true to yourself, you have to be in control of yourself. When I played for Coach Wooden, he used to tell the team, ‘If you can’t control yourself, others will do it for you. And if you’re not controlling yourself, you’re not helping the team.’”

 

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Feeling the Heat of the Spotlight?

Feeling the Heat of the Spotlight?

Even Shaq suffered under the bright lights at the free throw line. Many different shooting coaches were brought in to help him improve his form and he learned to shoot a high percentage from the line in practice. But in a game situation, “hack a Shaq” was the motto of opposing teams as the game tightened up. Why did Shaq struggle from the line? He was so skilled and yet even he felt the weight of the audience. How much more pressure does a teen feel when stepping to the line in front of his girlfriend, parents, and classmates?

It turns out that we all have a tendency to fall victim to the ‘spotlight effect.’ Whether we are coaches, parents or players, we all believe that other people are really attending to what we are doing. It is within our nature to grossly overestimate how many people notice something about us. There have been many psychology studies conducted that support this phenomenon. The research attributes much of the spotlight effect to egocentrism – the idea that we are all the center of our own universe and our existence is built from our own experiences and perspective. But other people are also the center of their own universe and focused only on their own things. So it is easy for us to notice our mistakes on the court and think everyone else noticed them too, even though fans might be more focused on their own hunger, girlfriend, or spilt drink.

With limited experience in the world, teens are the most prone to the struggle under the spotlight. Students often want to skip school because of the new pimple on their nose or will only attend wearing name brand gear. The spotlight effect can really impede our confidence and ability to move past our mistakes. What if Shaq had reminded himself when he stepped to the line that most people were buying popcorn, talking to their friend, looking at a cheerleader, or checking out their cell phone and were not focused on him? Even the acknowledgment of the spotlight effect will help athletes perform better and succeed when they think everyone is watching.

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Should you let your child specialize in one sport?

We asked Aaron Dickson, “Should my child do multiple sports or focus on a single sport?” … check out his response. http://blog.tourney.life/should-you-let-your-child-specialize-in-one-sport/

Keep in mind the research does present some cautions on specializing.

When it does come time to specialize, two suggestions:

  1. Make sure your child actually WANTS to specialize. Don’t make it YOUR priority.
  2. Create a balanced training program so your child’s body strength and agility develops in a healthy way.