With the end of the season right around the corner for many high school teams I thought I should touch on the subject of player evaluations. When I was coaching we used to do them at the beginning and end of each season with individual player meetings throughout the year. If your coach doesn’t provide you with an evaluation, ask him or her for one. You need to know where you stand. Don’t ask people who will tell you what you want to hear — you need to hear what you NEED to hear.
When I played one thing I always looked forward to was being evaluated at the end of the season or at a camp. I think the reason why can be summed up in two sentences I picked up from a great book, Winning, by Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE. I couldn’t say it any better than this.
“Maybe some information is hard to swallow at first and yes, “bad” news often hurts, but soon enough, like all knowledge-it’s power-in fact, it’s liberating. When you know where you stand you can control your own destiny, and what is more fair than that?”
So the question is, “What are you going to do now?” Are you going to sit around and feel sorry for yourself because the coach said you needed to work on your jumper or get in the weight room? Or are you going to form your organized plan of attack and get to work? Are you going make excuses?
After the season take a week off, evaluate your season, decide your goals for the next 3 months, 6 months and where you want to be at the beginning of next season. Don’t try to make big gains in 1-2 weeks. It’s small improvements over a long period of time that lead to big results – it’s called the Compound Effect. You have to have patience and persistence.
If you are looking for workouts you can print and take to the gym we have over 170 drills and printable workouts at www.miskillz.com. For about $10/month you can have a personal trainer working with you.
On a side note, if you are a coaching a team, I highly suggest reading books outside of the basketball world. I have read several books regarding management and leadership by executives in the business world and they give great examples of how to manage and lead your team, which is essentially what you are doing with your players. I just posted a top 10 list here.