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University of North Carolina Athletics
The Carolina Way - Chapter 1 - Part 2
February 3, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 3, 2004
Introduction | Part 1 | Part 3
A former college player told me his college coach had belittled his shooting for four years, admonishing him, -Don't shoot unless you have a layup because you're the worst shooter I've ever coached." During the player's senior season his team was down one point to a conference opponent with one second to play, and he was on the foul line to shoot a one-and-one that would decide the game's outcome. During a time-out called by the opposing bench the player's coach suddenly told him a different story: -You're the best shooter I've ever seen. There's no doubt in my mind you're going to knock these shots in. Just go out there and be confident."
The player took his place on the foul line and looked over at his bench. He saw his coach slumped over in his chair, eyes closed, fingers on both hands crossed. The player burst out laughing. His first shot was so hard that it bounced off the backboard and into the basket. He also made the second shot to help his team win by one point. In practice the next day the coach said, -Nice going last night, but I still don't want you shooting anything but layups."
Confidence can be as fragile as an eggshell. Coaches can't talk players into being confident, although praising players when praise is deserved can help them become more confident. But they can do the reverse if they tear players down with criticism. Then self-confidence may never bloom. It's entirely possible that I was too critical, especially early in my coaching career. I was too much of a perfectionist. At some point I realized that our execution wasn't going to be perfect. Basketball is not a game of perfection. Mistakes are part of it.
Thorough preparation does wonders for anyone's confidence. We tried to put our players through every situation in practice that they might experience in a game. For instance, we would give our second team a fifteen-point lead with five minutes on the clock to see if our starters could go to their -hurry-up" offense and overcome it. The first team pressed and gambled on defense, shot three-pointers on offense, and if it missed, it fouled the defensive rebounder. (A team's best rebounders usually are not its best foul shooters.)
When a situation came up like this in a game, I could say to them, -We've done this before in practice. Let's go out and repeat it now." In such a situation, players can gain confidence from their coach because they have been prepared to face it.
Hard work that results in success equals confidence. That's the only formula I have. I know of no other way. That's why bad practices really got me down. I never really learned how to handle them. -What did I do wrong to make us go backward the way we did today?" I would ask myself.
Basketball was extremely important to the young men who played it at North Carolina. It had to be in order for them to have worked and practiced as hard as they had over their early years to reach the level of excellence that resulted in scholarships to a great university and basketball program. I tried to impress on them, however, that they couldn't make basketball their entire lives. Some perspective was called for. They all knew their academics came first, even though at times basketball seemed more important. There was much more to their lives than basketball, and we tried to emphasize that. I wanted them to be actively involved in the student body and to have friends who were nonathletes.
My staff and I worked hard to give the players their best chance to succeed. The by-product of this is loyalty, which early on became a cornerstone of our program. Players and coaches, managers and secretaries. We all looked out for one another. We depended on one another. There was a trust there that no one wanted to violate. The feeling of not wanting to let your teammate down is a powerful one. It's an important part of building a team.
This manifested itself in every game, but especially on the road. Of the thousands of people in the building-and we usually played before capacity crowds-only the ones with -North Carolina" printed on their blue jerseys wanted us to be successful. The fact that we won so often made us the big game on the schedule of just about every team we played, especially those in our own league, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). North Carolina was everybody's rival.
Getting to the top is difficult; staying there, or near there, for many years running is even harder. It takes a special group of players to handle that pressure. We prepared for that pressure by the way we practiced. We were greatly concerned about how we would play and much less concerned about what our opponent would do. If we did what we were supposed to do, the end result usually pleased us. There was no substitute for this hard work. There wasn't going to be any magic five minutes just before the game, no spellbinding pep talk from me that would catapult us to victory.
As our players gathered in the dressing room before games, they didn't see me until five or six minutes before they went out to warm up. I came in to go over the individual matchups that had been written on the chalkboard by an assistant coach, informing our players whom they would guard. We quickly reviewed what we wanted to accomplish. Then I would say something to them like -You've worked hard for this moment. We've prepared well. Now let's go out and play with great effort, unselfishly, and make smart decisions."
Some coaches say they could tell if their teams were ready to play by the way their players acted in the dressing room before the game or how they were at the pregame meal four hours before tip-off. I never could figure that out. I had teams play well that were loud at the pregame meal, and others that played well when they were quiet and focused at pregame.
At home and away we protected the sanctity of our locker room. It was for our players, coaches, managers-our basketball family. The media made many requests over the years to be allowed into our locker room to tape our pregame or halftime talks. We had chancellors of the university ask for permission to come in and speak. A North Carolina governor once wanted to come in to observe what we did in our last-minute pregame preparation. All those requests were denied. I didn't want our players looking up to see a stranger in their locker room, and certainly not a stranger holding a television camera. If the president of the United States had asked permission to visit with us in our locker room before the game or at halftime, I would have denied it. The North Carolina locker room was for the players. They were the most important people in our program, no exceptions.
I didn't plan special things for halftime. It all depended on how the first half had gone. My halftime sessions were mostly impromptu. Certainly, if the team hadn't played well, I didn't praise their execution. I analyzed what had transpired in the first half. I tried to keep it positive, especially for road games. It was hard enough on the players without my dealing in the minutiae of their mistakes. The crowd was against them, the other team was fired up, and it was time for us to band together as one. We talked about keeping our poise. Our reserves were really active on the bench, cheering for the players on the court. It was all part of supporting one another in tough times.
If we had particularly good senior leadership, as we usually did, and we had played poorly in the first half, I might cut my talk short and say to them before departing, -You guys get together and decide how you're going to play better. It's your team."
Our players usually responded with superb play on the road in front of hostile crowds. We won as a team or lost as a team. There was no finger-pointing. I might have plenty of critical things to say to a player in a team or individual meeting. It might be tough criticism. But I would never criticize a player in public. A leader should take the blame for losses and give the players credit for victories. I strongly believe that.