Success Begins Up Top
In college basketball the path to championship status is at times misconceived. Individual players cannot take complete control of a program because that would most likely lead to chaos and division within the team. There are many different personalities on a basketball team that could not coexist without an influential leader. This job is not for a common man with no true knowledge of the game, in most cases that would lead to poor judgement. An individual cannot just give a paint brush to a fish and except anything to be done this also applies when coaching. This role is for a person that has leadership, intelligence of the game and a gift of persuasion, this person is the head coach. A head coach is the anchor of any team and has control over every aspect that leads his or her team program to success, comparable to an artist who is forming a perfect portrait.
Individuals who follow college basketball understand how important the role of a head coach is. I also vouch to this argument due to my background with head basketball coaches and personal experiences. At my last school I played basketball for Coach Izzi Metz and learned an enormous amount from him. It was not merely about developing a basketball player; he was also about developing a man.
College coaches are the main influence in a college programs success in the rankings, from the players the coach recruits, set plays that are executed in clutch moments and installing life lessons; the head coach is credible for all the concluding decisions that are needed to succeed, as Leonardo Da Vinci would when painting a perfect portrait.
Many basketball fundamentalists agree with the statement, basketball is more than a game. Any person that has a connection with the game would agree that basketball is more of an art rather than a game. Art requires creativity and imagination, Coach Krzyzewski states “Imagination has a great deal to do with winning". Creating a piece of art and building a basketball program are synonymous in several ways.
An artist must select the correct material to create a piece of art, think of an idea for a piece then create the piece. A head coach must select the correct staff to fit his system success along with assisting in planning strategy. Coaches must recruit players suitable for their system or depending on the coach adjust his or her system to adapt with the player recruited. Coaches also must select the proper offensive and defensive strategies to become a contending team.
A head coach and an artist are obviously different in which they use different materials but similar in their goals which is to create perfection. A head coach has mastered this form of art, coaching, when he or she has polished a program into it being a championship contending team each year. This process involves securing a spot as the team to beat, once this is achieved that coach can be considered great. The Washington Post describes Coach K as the leader in division one college basketball stating, “Coach K has been more than a basketball coach. He’s a bona fide leadership guru.” This shows how people who watch college basketball often think of a great coach. Coaches always have an impact on the student-athletes that are recruited into their programs.
Many different analysts on sports networks focus all their attention on the positive’s individual players, claiming they bring success to a team rather than the positives a coach. I am not trying to make the point that the players do not have an important role on the floor because it is obvious, they do; however, the difference between a good team from a great team is the coaches' leadership. The amount of positive coverage in the media about college coaches is not close to the amount of negative coverage coaches get.
Coaches create character in players as well as knowledge of the game. To be an effective basketball coach, the first thing a coach needs to do is establish their philosophy and priorities. I compare coaches’ philosophies and priorities to a paint brush and canvas of a traditional artist or a pencil and piece of paper of a sketch artist. It is much more effective if a college coach picks a few important aspects of the game and primarily focuses on those aspects. "The coach who emphasizes everything, teaches nothing!" (Jeff Haefner; Sports Analyst). Those few important aspects that are worked on first can lead to success as John Wooden once said, “Don’t look for big, quick improvements. Look for the little improvements one day at a time. That’s the only way change happens. And when it happens…it lasts”. I can confidently say that any artist would agree with me when I say working on a little at a time creates the big picture that was once only dreamt about.
A coach contemplating his or her individual philosophies is very much like an artist, such as Steina, envisioning what her next unique art piece is going to consist of. Art is created with a creative imagination and expression, which Steina applies to her art. Steina says this about one of her unique pieces and my favorite, Mynd, “Mynd worked itself backwards from my ordinary creative process. First, I saw the space, then I got a commission and then went to work on making ‘Mynd’. Financial security and an awareness of a great exhibition space had an impact on the creation” (Steina - Mynd VASULKA.ORG).
In a way Duke Universities’ coach, Mike Krzyzewski allows his teams to work themselves backwards like Steina did with Mynd. Coach K believes in adjusting his strategies to the strengths of the individuals on his team. A hallmark of K’s approach is that he shifts his system each year to his players, rather than forcing his players into an installed system. Coach K is not the only coach that can relate with Steinas’ work, they all do the same things just in their own unique fashion. There are many similarities between Steina and college coaches in the nation, but Steina works with a computer screen, projections and images; college coaches work with a white board, spoken word and young men.
When establishing a philosophy for a coach's program to succeed, they think about their own individual goals as a coach, what aspects of the game they think are more important to teach, what the players will get from the experience and how they define a successful team. Student athletes in college have only four years to play their sport and even less time for the individuals who have professional talent. However, coaches have many years in a program, if they are successful enough to remain, to mold many different faces and personalities. Not only is a coach attempting to create a perfect program, comparable to an artist attempting to paint a perfect picture, coaches are changing young men to adult men.
College Coaches instill into the minds of their players the importance of teamwork. No one soldier can go into a war alone and come out victorious unless this soldier is Superman himself, even with Superman there is still a chance the opposition uses kryptonite to take him out. This applies on a basketball court also; a truly good team works as one unit; without unity a team would fall apart. A piece of art, the idea, materials and different techniques all must coexist, or the piece would look uneven.
College coaches are the main influence on a college program's success in the rankings, from the players the coach recruits, set plays that are executed in clutch moments and installing life lessons. The head coach is credible for all the concluding decisions that are needed to succeed, in a way the coach is an artist painting a perfect portrait. From firsthand experience, I realize the positives an individual can receive from a great coach. Being open-minded I can see my previous coaches as artists who had the intentions to shape a successful piece of work, me.
