WHEN TO FOLD ‘EM?

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Phil Jackson intimated he may not return to the Los Angeles Lakers next season as head coach and it’s among sports’ top stories. It should be. He’s a freak as it pertains to completely dominating an entire realm. He’s gotten the greatest players ever to work with colleagues toward common objectives. He’s a battle tested cerebral field general who gets lambasted by fans and critics who think that anyone could win championships with Jordan, Scottie, Shaq and Kobe.

But that’s not why I think this potential coaching vacuum should be A-1 news. A true competitor does not compete to prove anything to anyone or at least he shouldn’t. Yet I’m tempted to speak of Phil and say, “He’s got nothing left to prove and that’s why he should retire.” But even that doesn’t suffice as valid excuse for leaving the Lakers. A valid and more noble reason is simply that he needs to rest and his family could probably stand to have a little more of him. What’s so wrong with those? What’s wrong with a nap in the middle of the day if you’re working hard? Why do we expect movie stars to look as they did in ’85. One left click and I know exactly how old Madonna really is.

We can drop the pretense in Los Angeles and stop letting the looters and superficial fans call the shots on how long an icon remains an icon accessible to the public. Truth told, Phil should bounce. What’s left for him to do?

REINVENTING THE HUSTLE PLAY

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Ron Artest was brought to the Lakers to do one thing. Do you think he played out of position this year?

Seth Godin had some great insights yesterday about the Archetype to which we belong. In short, our jobs have titles and those titles may sound a lot like something we’d love to do (i.e. Nursing). But the truth is we are often misaligned and I’ll take it a step further. It’s not by accident. You can be playing out of position, so-to-speak, and not know it but I doubt such ignorance. The truth is that no one probably knows more quickly than you that you are being PLAYED out of position. But what are you going to do about it?

There’s a fine line between a proper appeal to be used in one’s area of strength and a ploy to exalt oneself due to deluded ambition. I’m talking about doing the former not the latter.  If you are a competent teacher who enjoys crafting and creating lessons that will effectively communicate and aid students in some discipline, check your job description against your daily activities. You might find a mismatch. The rub is that should you find you are being played out of position, that your title is light years removed from who you really are, then the hustle play must be reinvented.

We learned to hustle in P.E. and on sports teams growing up and all that diving on the floor for loose balls in centered on one principle: TURNING A BROKEN PLAY INTO AN OPPORTUNITY. So what happened? Someone or some people figured out that you were valuable and commandeered your greatest attributes to serve their archetypal construct. In other words, they got you to join their team as a small forward when really you’re a shooting guard. That’s a broken play. If you don’t know what it is you do well, what makes you come alive, what you’d do for free, then the ball is loose and you haven’t gone after it. The hustle play reinvented could be working two jobs: the first to make ends meet and the second to make occupation and calling intersect. Hustle to salvage and hustle to redeem the time. Otherwise life is just a series of motions.

I WAS A LAKER SLAVE

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When I first started blogging, I felt like the “Add New Post” button was an invitation to log discoveries made in the daily struggle. I got away from that though…started opting for other subjects, sometimes volatile other times patronizing. At any rate, I discovered something so superficial in myself when these 2010 NBA Playoffs moved along. I realized that not everyone is a Lakers fan. Wait…I knew that. I arrived to the valid conclusion that I’m an arrogant fan. It’s as if I’m on the payroll for the Los Angeles Lakers ‘reppin’ LA like some thug and expecting everyone else to do the same.

I meet California transplants who root for their home teams, natives who think Kobe ruined the franchise and ‘Anybody-but-them’  haters who loathe everything Lakers. I’m a salty fan, so I’ve realized, who has spent the better part of 34 years expecting sports enthusiasts to share my loyalty. I can’t imagine that they would feel the same way about the bumbs they root for. It’s a crying shame.

But I’ve grown up a tad in this June 2010 NBA Finals episode of Lakers vs. Celtics however. In the age of DVR I don’t always run to the television to watch the game live. I can watch the game with enemy combatants and acknowledge the value of their franchise player. And I don’t yell at the players, as much, for defensive let downs. Why should I? I’m just a fan, a constituent of AEG at best. I’m not a team consultant, a family member of a Laker Legend nor a season ticket holder. I’m a Churro eater and a fool who quietly envies that I have to pay to watch a game I love playing so much. I’m not sure my beloved hardwood heroes would have my back if someone said, “I hate 6ixth Man. I’m all about the 12th Man.” Fanhood is not a requited love by any stretch. Nevertheless, it is nice to have a champion in your city. I’m in rehab I suppose learning my true place as a citizen in the kingdom of fans ’round the world. That said, I’ll take a 2X if you’re doing Laker shirt orders.

THE HARVEST OF CAPABLE

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There’s a day when you go from incapable to capable. Today was the first day of the first 6ixth Man Basketball Fundamentals Clinic and this was the theme of my subconscious. I knew today wasn’t the day six athletes between the ages of 13-16 go from incapable to capable. But I wondered when that day would be. I wondered how much a day like today has to do with the long-term objectives of a kid trying to excel at basketball.

The day started with a plyometrics circuit, fancy jargon for exercises that promote explosiveness in the lower extremities. The circuit alone left my clinic attendees exhausted before we effectively entered the second hour. But I could read these young ones. I know that they want so badly to be what they currently are not. They want basketball to be fun but they also want to master the task at hand. But today was one of those reminder days where patience either becomes a watchword or abject frustration ebbs and flows until heightened to tidal proportion.

The guy running the clinic, me, had to develop that same patience so as to appreciate the process of exploration as kids conquer physical and mental adversity to continue training. We always hear about paying the price or doing the drudgery in route to triumph as if it’s a linear transition. Today and my recent camp experience in Maui is/was proof that transformation is anything but a straight line. Somewhere though, between vomiting and dehydration lies a very real encounter with the requirements of unlocking potential. Just because there’s something valuable enclosed in a casing doesn’t mean it can be easily harvested. Kids learn this at camps and clinics and I see glimpses of such truth almost daily. To the young athlete’s surprise, potential is often buried deep and seemingly impossible to excavate. But four hours, one day, or one week after a commitment to coaching and proper execution a 14-year old may begin to see the CAPACITY to which some coach learning patience is referring.

MAN MADE

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A great man named Pastor Chuck Reeve once told me his goal on Sunday mornings was to have as many quality conversations as possible, namely with church congregants. It stuck with me and last week at NBC Camp in Maui I tried to revitalize Pastor Chuck’s motto.

I dealt mostly with 12-18 year-old boys and rediscovered the strangeness of being an adolescent male. And it’s not all about the odor and bodily sounds like when I had our whole group on their backs doing ab/core work. Lots of farting goes on doing those times accompanied by laughter. I digress. What I realized in conversation is that boys are still hopeful at 12-18 years. They still esteem, have questions, want to learn, grow and even communicate. However, they don’t always know how and will not walk through doors you don’t leave open. “…quality conversations…,” I was reminded. So those interactions arose out of a willingness to talk to the kid on the bus rides to Kamehameha high school. While I was sitting in the stair well because the bus was too full, boys would ask about the Lakers, college and other things basketball.

On the court or shortly after our day’s work ended, you could find a 17-year old flanking you asking for your opinion of their game. And shudder to think how that encounter evolves if you haven’t been paying attention to that particular kid. What would you say? Would you make something up or look that kid in the eye and say, “I didn’t have a chance to watch you closely today. But I did see you do _______ on that one play.” The male adolescent is steeped in ambiguity, insecurity and frustration. He is under MAN-SIZED pressure because society, and possibly even family, saddles young men with expectations which are incongruous with our mentor-less culture. Many of the guys I had the pleasure of working with were on that brink of quitting…and I mean quitting everything. But the “quality conversation” can never be overrated. It is the personification of love for the future men who will nurture or destroy their own sons. It’s never just camp is it?

COME AGAIN

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At NBC Camp Maui last week I was ending a session when a kid named Kyson said, “Thank you…” after shaking my hand. Camp wasn’t over. It was just the end of nice hard day of gettin’ after it. Kyson lives on the island and I guess I had heard thank you so often while in Hawaii that I finally stopped him and said, “Why are you thanking me man?” He responded, “For teaching us…for coming all the way from the mainland just to run this camp.” Why are the epiphanies so basic?

I was told that the island of Maui really only has 2 or 3 indoor gymnasiums. Here in Southern California, they are seemingly infinite. In Maui the kids told me that basketball is better on the island of Oahu. In Maui, most are Laker fans because it’s the closest NBA team to their island. The kids in Maui created a culture of gratefulness which defined my camp experience as a coach. Kids are lambasted for being lazy and unappreciative. These kids were quite the contrary. Many of them had received scholarships to cover the cost of attending camp but none of us knew who those people were. All we knew is that each day kids were, for the most part, early to the nicest gym on the island (Seabury/Kamehameha) and excited about the game plan. There wasn’t one complaint, one groan, one smart aleck quip. Basketball Maui has done well in launching a potential movement that stands to harness the earnest gratitude of the Maui County community. Gratitude is a reflection of need. It is the signal that reminds us our efforts are not without necessity. Just when you think basketball is just a game, along comes a kid who says thank you and somehow you know he’s talking about more than his improved crossover dribble.

A Brush with Bruin Pride

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I met Scott Rueck at NBC Camp in Maui last week and you’re thinking, “So…” The point is that I didn’t know who he was either which is a shame considering that I’m immersed in the basketball world coaching kids, playing at my alma mater with current players, following the NBA and even the NBDL. But I didn’t know who Scott Rueck was and I think Coach Rueck is just fine with that.

From time to time you rub shoulders or work alongside someone who belongs on a pedestal but wouldn’t dare agree. You’re joking with the guy or girl, befriending the individual only to find later that he or she is the kind of person you read about in the paper. They’re so unsung it’s as if you encountered an apparition unknowingly and lived to tell about it. (If Scott is reading this right now, he’s uncomfortable from laughing so hard.) But that’s how I felt as my time in Maui came to a close. The advent of the internet means you can search a dude on an engine and pull up the fact that Scott Rueck is the highly successful Head Women’s Basketball coach of George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. He led the women to a national championship in 2008-09 posting a flawless 32-0 record. That’s who Scott Rueck is.

Coach Rueck has led his team to the NCAA tournament 7 times and as of 2008-09 had an overall winning percentage of better than 75 percent. Talk about finding a niche. All this and he never played college basketball. He’s not 6-feet tall and I’ve never seen his vertical leap. He’s a quick witted comedian with an earnest interest in people. He loves God and family. He’s immensely loyal and arrests buy in from those whom he leads. I’m sure of this and I absorbed it all just rubbin’ shoulders with him at camp. Who knew? You never know I guess. Go Bruins! (George Fox Bruins that is…)