Barry Hinson: 'I regret one thing'
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Not the happy joker from the KU bench anymore.
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Well, I don’t know how other coaches do things, but I’ve read many times, Coach Self or Williams called out their players for bad performance. Not saying if it is ok or not, but a leader must find ways to motivate his charge.
I’d say the same to my son if I were in a similar position. From Jason King’s story,
“You looked like a jackass out there,” Self said. “I don’t know about you, Joel. Your attitude stinks. You’re soft. I don’t know if I can coach you, Joel. Maybe you should just take your ass back to Cameroon.”
But the quote below won’t fly with any coach,
Senior forward Davante Drinkard wasn’t amused by the rant and tweeted, “I can’t believe the little man had the nerve to call us mama’s boys. Smh. I guess this is where Our team learns to point the finger.”
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When your AD says this about you… should you be worried?
I know he’s a good man. But he can have these Yosemite Sam bombastic outbursts.
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I got a kick out of Hinson’s rant. That behavior was normal when I was growing up. If you screwed up, you could expect a complete tongue lashing. Going public is okay… but the most-effective efforts come on the team bus on the rides home. Imagine a 10-hr bus ride with a coach who basically slams you the entire time? It’s doubtful you will screw up on the next road game.
Times have changed. Kids can’t be spanked. A few tough words is classified as “verbal abuse.” And the big picture is all about not offending anyone. So we have a well-mannered society with no over-achievers. What a bunch of F&@%ING B&LL S#IT!
Apologies for my language!
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@drgnslayr - Forking Ball Spit is nothing to apologize for.
How true, that times have changed. When I got in trouble at school, I’d get the paddle from the teacher, maybe the principal, one or two of my friends parents on my way home and then the real trouble started when I got home. Nobody ran to the newspapers or radio (or internet, had there been one) and cried that their poor baby boy was being unjustly mistreated just because he blew up one or two toilets with M-80’s in the boy’s room.
A little bit of discipline ( or maybe even a lot ) is not a bad thing. I can’t figure out how our society decided that 5-22 year old kids should have free reign of their schools without consequence and then wonder why some of them are as screwed up as they are.
Whew. I feel better now.
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Wussificatjion of America abounds.
My coaches would call it like it was, and we would man up.
Even my daughters club trainer/coaches do this.
Any collegiate athlete who whines to his parents about verbal abuse and gets them involved with the school admin should just pack his bags and leave first.
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Now I’m busy trying to find youth ball leagues to put my son in that still keeps score.
Evidently, it hurts some kids’ feelings if they hear the news that they lost. Boo-hoo…
So it is becoming difficult to find leagues that keep score. I guess games weren’t designed to keep score. When will this advance to the NBA? Why do they keep score? Doesn’t losing at that level hurt those guys’ feelings?
@JayhawkRock78 - Wussification is exactly what is happening. A drive to kill incentive and make every kid exactly the same… non-achievers. It makes me sick!
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@drgnslayr I take that as the focus is less on whether you win or lose, and more on how you play the game.
For younger kids, this means more effort and engagement.
For older kids, more decision-making and execution.
If Coach Self didn’t have a scoreboard for a game, he’d be even more intense. The lack of a scoreboard doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and it doesn’t have to even be a “softer” thing. If you want to take a tough approach, I’d say its an opportunity to coach “no plays off!” It’s subjective.
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I was blessed with having no nonsense coaches in high school and college. Like Self they were experts. Knowledge was superior as well as training techniques. They and the their athletes are in a hall of fame or soon will be. They demanded 100% percent effort and would verbally land on you in front of the team if you didn’t make the most of your god given talent. As a result athletes reached a high % of their potential and championships abounded. It is great to see that happen to a great extent with KU bball year after year.
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I think keeping score is vital, especially with young kids. It’s a great opportunity to teach them a valuable part of life; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And the results are a product of the efforts you put into it. Plus… you can only teach good sportsmanship when young players go through the losing process. There is sportsmanship involved in winning, too.
I wouldn’t want my kid to not learn about these things right from the get go. The key is to be supportive as a parent. Let them know you have suffered through losses, too. Then focus on improvements.
I understand the idea of not keeping score so kids can focus on the process. That’s what practice is about.
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@drgnslayr Well said man. Those are some great arguments.
Score does serve as a universally accepted measure of one team’s performance against another team’s performance. “I made 5 baskets!” is much different than “I made 5 baskets, but my team still lost!” There are good lessons to learn from a scoreboard, and its easier to talk about a goal (a W vs an L) that is concrete and universally understood.
On the flipside, the presence of a score will cause coaches to play their best players the whole game, or have mixed feelings about playing their weaker players. That’s a tougher pill to swallow for young kids who feel like the coach/team/fans don’t want them to play.
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When my daughter was in elementary school I coached her bBall team and the league had a great rule for that age group. Each team had exactly 10 kids. Quarters were set to six minutes. The first quarter the top players were on the court. The second 5 played each other in qtr 2. The remaining time was divided into four, three minute periods where it was still best on best alternating with the other 5. Some times the best 5 won the games, some times times it was the bench that made the difference.
Everyone got the same playing time so you did not have a problem with anyone’s parents. At the same yet there were winners and losers. Not a bad setup for elementary school kids.
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I coached some little tikes about 25 years ago. I think my group of kids were about average with the other teams. We always won our league because I would just work on basic fundamentals and a simplified offense. It was all about learning and having fun at the same time. No pressure to win, though we’d always talk a bit about winning. I brought pop to every game, and kids were rewarded with their favorite soda after the games… win or lose. We usually had one kid capable of scoring better than the rest. But I gave everyone equal time, and I didn’t stress feeding the ball to this one kid to score.
We often played teams where they would run their best player for longer periods. It didn’t seem to help them in the long run because the kid would get tired and when little kids get tired they pretty much fall apart at the seams.
In fact… if we had a kid who would go games and games without scoring a point, we would try to get him the ball and tell him to shoot. At this level, kids all love success for their teammates, too. Our funnest moments happened when our worst players would finally score! Because of that, I laugh every time KU has their scrubs in and one of them scores and the bench goes wild!
When you make learning fun, kids jump all over it. I made all the learning drills into fun games and it was easy to keep their attention, effort and enthusiasm during practices.
I’d like to do it all again… I enjoyed it more than playing. I bet I jump back in when my boy is old enough to play.
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Boy you are right about the kids that finally score those first points. I think everyone deserves a special moment. And it is such a thrill for a kid and parents when that first bucket goes in.
I envy you being at the beginning of the adventure with your boy. Mine are in high school and they will be off to college in no time. Soon they will head out on the next great adventure without the old man around.
So enjoy it. And do me a favor. Start a thread and take us through the highlights when it is time.
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I’d like to do it all again… I enjoyed it more than playing. I bet I jump back in when my boy is old enough to play.
@drgnslayr I have no doubt that you will, and you’ll be great at it still. I coached older boys for a long time and had to give it up because of family too. It’s a big adjustment but it’s fun starting over.
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@approxinfinity - I coached my daughter’s softball team for 9 years and it was the time of my life. The girls had fun, the coaches had fun and the parents were a delight. Bonus - they were really good and racked up a lot of trophies and memories.
My son is 8 years younger and when it came time to coach his baseball team, it seems as though the whole world had lost their minds. The kids still wanted to have fun, but the parents seemed to think that we were a major league farm team and that we were competing for fame and fortune. It was sickening the way some of these so-called adults acted. They were forewarned too. From day one we told them we were there to teach them the basics of the game (I think they were 8 or 9 at the time), to teach them sportsmanship and to have fun. Apparently the parents weren’t listening at that meeting.
Did things change that much in 9 years? Or is it just the difference between the expectations of boys vs girls? Best of luck to all you current and future coaches.
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We’ve been lucky with parents most of the time. I’d say parents who behave poorly are about the worst things I’ve encountered right next to the occasional player who plays dirty and thinks it is funny.
