I'm an old guy, and I was never very good, but I still try to keep playing -- and I think it's important for all coaches to play in pickup games and leagues. The main reason? It's a hard game, and when you don't play any more, you tend to forget how easy it is to make a mistake, and you can become too negative.
A general example: You're playing and doing OK and then, for no apparent reason, you take a dumb shot or make a bad pass. If a coach was on the sideline, he would immediately call you out -- but some coaches, especially those who haven't been on the court recently and forget how easily those lapses occur, can go off. And they shouldn't. Players make mistakes, even experienced players, and we're coaching high school girls, who don't have experience and are often pretty goofy to begin with.
A specific example (which brought this to mind): So I was playing four-on-four on a short full court on Sunday, and two of the players on my team were good, and we were in a close game. I was on the weakside block when an opponent who I wasn't guarding drove to the hoop. I went across the lane to contest the shot and left the ground ("jumped" would be too generous). The guy missed the shot but my momentum had carried me past the shooter, so he got the rebound and scored. One of the two good players yelled at me for not screening out.
Now, that kind of thing doesn't bother me, so I said nothing, but I thought "Hey, I came to help rather than give up an uncontested layup, maybe contributed to the miss, but there was no way I was athletic enough to land and quickly screen out a better player than me." It's possible that when I'm coaching I would yell at a player for exactly that kind of play, but I shouldn't -- and the only way to know that is if I'm still playing and make that same mistake.
There are pickup games everywhere, and lots of levels of play, and even though, like me, a lot of coaches aren't what they used to be and don't necessarily want to demonstrate that (to themselves or others), I think it's important that coaches get out there and make mistakes, and remember just how hard it is to be a good basketball player.
A general example: You're playing and doing OK and then, for no apparent reason, you take a dumb shot or make a bad pass. If a coach was on the sideline, he would immediately call you out -- but some coaches, especially those who haven't been on the court recently and forget how easily those lapses occur, can go off. And they shouldn't. Players make mistakes, even experienced players, and we're coaching high school girls, who don't have experience and are often pretty goofy to begin with.
A specific example (which brought this to mind): So I was playing four-on-four on a short full court on Sunday, and two of the players on my team were good, and we were in a close game. I was on the weakside block when an opponent who I wasn't guarding drove to the hoop. I went across the lane to contest the shot and left the ground ("jumped" would be too generous). The guy missed the shot but my momentum had carried me past the shooter, so he got the rebound and scored. One of the two good players yelled at me for not screening out.
Now, that kind of thing doesn't bother me, so I said nothing, but I thought "Hey, I came to help rather than give up an uncontested layup, maybe contributed to the miss, but there was no way I was athletic enough to land and quickly screen out a better player than me." It's possible that when I'm coaching I would yell at a player for exactly that kind of play, but I shouldn't -- and the only way to know that is if I'm still playing and make that same mistake.
There are pickup games everywhere, and lots of levels of play, and even though, like me, a lot of coaches aren't what they used to be and don't necessarily want to demonstrate that (to themselves or others), I think it's important that coaches get out there and make mistakes, and remember just how hard it is to be a good basketball player.
