How I Came to Love Women's Basketball

[Zinethar]

I had a system that would help themselves self police each other about the attitudes. Whoever was the one with the attitude and it could have been more than one. They would stand next to me while the rest of the team ran. Of course they ran until I got tired! Only had to do that once a year. Of course I had a meeting with the players and parents and explained everything to them and what I expected from them and what they could expect from me.

I was a cross country and track&field coach. My cross country team got T-Shirts with the message "Your punishment is our practice". So true . In my 40 years of HS and College D3 coaching I only had to remove 2 players. Hardest decisions I had to ever make as I felt part of my job was teaching what was right. The first one was the hardest as he was clearly the best runner on the team and sitting him would mean the team would be severely damaged. Had a meeting with the assistants and all agreed with the decision so we suspended him. His Dad had a hemorrhage and pulled him from the team. Years later he came to me to say he regretted what he had done and to tell me I was right. His Dad never did. End result was that I learned kids reflect what they get at home. You really can't do much about that but you can eliminate the problem.