I had the greatest summer job any college kid could ask for – working summer basketball camps. In a gym 9 hours a day, learning from great coaches and working on my game at the same time. At camp the other day we were working on some 2 ball moving drills I had a memory of a time I was demonstrating for late Dave MacArthur, who was directing a gym at the Prairie du Chien Perimeter Camp (please RT if you know what I’m talking about or have been there! It was brutal!)
I was demonstrating a 2 ball behind the back drill, lost the ball, and heard the words “You Suck. I can’t believe you can’t do this drill!” come from Coach MacArthur in front of about 80 high school players.
What did I do after that? I hopped in line with the high school kids and worked on the move. Why? You can’t be afraid to fail. Many times people succeed for this reason alone. Alan Stein just wrote in a blog about Kobe Bryant having no fear. He sat down with Luke Walton at the NBPA Top 100 camp and asked him 5 things that make Kobe the best player in the game. Number 3 was “Kobe has no fear. He doesn’t fear failure and he doesn’t care what the public or the media think about him. He doesn’t look over his shoulder and he doesn’t try to please everyone. “ Your players need to understand that they are not a failure if they make a mistake — they’re only a failure if they quit.
My point is that you have to know how to motivate your kids. I’m sure several of you are thinking “If I said that trying to motivate a kid I’d be fired and have 100 voicemails before practice ever got over”. You’re probably 100% right. I’m not saying it’s the right way to motivate everyone, but my point is you have to know the kids you are working with – get to know them off the floor. Dave was never even my high school coach and took me to high school games, out to eat, to work camps and workout with me. I knew he cared so I did anything he said. I trusted him.
Look for a review next week on the Stephen Curry Skills Academy that I’ll be helping run this weekend with Ryan Goodson. Ryan has decided to give away the curriculum that he put together for the Academy, which is over 80 pages of drills that we’ll be doing with some of the top high school and college players in the country! Be sure to enter your email address here to be notified when you can receive your Stephen Curry Skills Academy Curriculum!
Don’t let Your Dreams be Dreams!
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Mike Lee
PS – be sure to follow me on Twitter or @mikeleehoops