You Don't Have the Perfect Coach? ... So What!?!

-Author Unknown

It doesn't matter who you are or where you are.  No one has the "perfect" coach.

It doesn't even matter where you go.  Basketball players have transferred from Duke and North Carolina.  In my neck of the woods, a player transferred from Minnesota at mid-season.  These players don't think Mike Krzyzewski or Dean Smith or Roy Williams are the best coaches in the world.  Not every player at Connecticut thinks Geno Auriemma knows everything or does everything perfectly.  The same goes for Dan Monson at Minnesota.  Or Bob Knight.  Or Lute Olson.  Even at the very best programs -- proven winners year in and year out -- there are disagreements.

If you have a great basketball IQ and knowledge of the game, you are going to disagree with your coach from time to time.  That's a given.  All athletes, in all sports and at all levels, have some things that they would like to change about their coach.  The better the coach, the more likely he or she is to have strange idiosyncrasies and 'special' ways (or irritating ways) of doing things.

Be a smart enough player and don't waste time complaining, thinking, or even worrying about the kinds of things that every athlete has to deal with.  So your coach isn't perfect!  He doesn't do things exactly the way you think he should.  Big deal!  So what?  That's all part of the game.  Everyone deals with that.

How many times have you said - or heard another player say - "If only my coach would do this-or-that."  The problem with saying and thinking things like that is that you, as a basketball player, get distracted and fail to take time to think about what you need to do yourself.  For every 60 seconds you spend thinking about your coach's problems, you lose a minute thinking about your own solutions.  There are many things you can do to make yourself a better player, in spite of what your coach does.