JoePgh
Cranky pants and wise acre
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- Aug 30, 2011
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Geno and Jen Rizzotti were 2/3 of a panel this evening at the University of Hartford on the theme of winning streaks. The 3rd panel member was the men's squash coach at Trinity (Paul Assaiante) who has a running streak of about 250 wins over more than a decade. The panel was sponsored by the Courant and Fox-61, and I'm sure that John A will have an article about it tomorrow.
The most surprising thing was that the auditorium was jam-packed with standing room only. There might have been more people at this discussion than there are at some of the "cupcake" games at Gampel.
They talked about a lot of subjects (recruiting, conference realignment, how kids are overprotected and don't face adversity until they get to college), but the most interesting comment in my mind was from Geno about why players should give their full attention to practice. He said that he likes players to have an attitude of curiosity -- they should want to learn about basketball just as they hopefully do about academic subjects. He likes a player whose attitude at practice is, "Teach me something about the game of basketball that I don't already know." At the same time, he doesn't want to answer "why" questions during practice, because he thinks they are a way for players to take time away from the physical aspects of practice. He thinks players should have faith that if they follow the coach's instructions, they WILL learn something about the game that they don't already know.
The correlation of this to winning streaks is that during streaks (and presumably at other times as well), the focus of practice is on how to play the game better, not on winning (not the next game, not the National Championship). If you constantly make your game better, you should expect to win often enough. And learning how to play the game better is its own reward.
I think this resonates with at least some players. I remember reading stories in the past year or two about how Tiffany did not want to miss practice even for a very compelling reason, simply because the coaches might introduce something that she would not learn. And I think other players (like her friends Caroline and Kelly) have a similar attitude. The joy of learning can be a powerful motivator.
I suspect that very few other coaches in WCBB have this mindset or this approach.
The most surprising thing was that the auditorium was jam-packed with standing room only. There might have been more people at this discussion than there are at some of the "cupcake" games at Gampel.
They talked about a lot of subjects (recruiting, conference realignment, how kids are overprotected and don't face adversity until they get to college), but the most interesting comment in my mind was from Geno about why players should give their full attention to practice. He said that he likes players to have an attitude of curiosity -- they should want to learn about basketball just as they hopefully do about academic subjects. He likes a player whose attitude at practice is, "Teach me something about the game of basketball that I don't already know." At the same time, he doesn't want to answer "why" questions during practice, because he thinks they are a way for players to take time away from the physical aspects of practice. He thinks players should have faith that if they follow the coach's instructions, they WILL learn something about the game that they don't already know.
The correlation of this to winning streaks is that during streaks (and presumably at other times as well), the focus of practice is on how to play the game better, not on winning (not the next game, not the National Championship). If you constantly make your game better, you should expect to win often enough. And learning how to play the game better is its own reward.
I think this resonates with at least some players. I remember reading stories in the past year or two about how Tiffany did not want to miss practice even for a very compelling reason, simply because the coaches might introduce something that she would not learn. And I think other players (like her friends Caroline and Kelly) have a similar attitude. The joy of learning can be a powerful motivator.
I suspect that very few other coaches in WCBB have this mindset or this approach.
