Most of us that have played have heard our coaches at some point yell at us to get low on defense. Usually, we hear that when we’ve been beaten off the dribble. I can remember one specific instance of one of my coaches in university yelling that after just such a play. Like most instructions we receive, we know they are the right answer, and in knowing the right answer, we truly believe that’s just what we did. Offended at being called out for something I was completely confident I was doing, the next time on defense I over-exaggerated how low I was to attempt to prove a point to my coach – that I was low and that it didn’t matter how low I was. This time, when the player I was guarding tried to beat me off the dribble, I was able to keep him in front and actually ended up stripping the ball from him as he tried to bring it up to shoot. I got some emphatic clapping from my coach for the play. “Huh”, I thought! That was interesting. It couldn’t have been that I was standing up previously. I was low – to my knowledge. The problem wasn’t that I wasn’t low. It was that I wasn’t low enough. I didn’t understand what my coach was saying when he told me to get low. Just telling me to get low wasn’t effective communication. There was no universal measure, other than success. In the first instance, I didn’t have success, so I wasn’t low enough. In the following one, I did have success, so I was low enough. But in a game where you don’t have to be Irish to get lucky, success can’t be the consistent measure. Now, as a coach, I make sure to communicate, specifically, what low is. Low, is making sure your shoulders are lower than the shoulders of the player whom you are guarding AND that your hips are lower that their hips. This way, when I tell my players they aren’t low, or low enough, they know, specifically, what they’re not doing, and what they need to do, regardless of whether the opponent ate their Lucky Charms that day, or not. The other, most common term we use that causes confusion and turmoil is effort.
Most players, regardless of degree of effort, think they’re making an effort. They think they’re trying. And to give everyone their due, they’re probably right. I thought I was low. And, to some degree, I was. I just wasn’t low enough because I didn’t know the difference. Most players think they’re trying or that they’re working hard. They don’t realize until it’s too late, that they weren’t making the needed effort. In my basketball class, I have the students complete a self-evaluation each week. The very first part of that self-evaluation, asks them to rate their effort on a four-point scale. Regardless of the fact that at the start of the semester I, specifically, detail to them what each point of the scale represents, students consistently give themselves a higher grade than I give them. Through the constant feedback over the semester, the difference between how they see their effort, and how I do, shrinks. Most often, their evaluation and mine coincide before the end of the term. That’s because we are in constant dialogue about what their effort looks like and what it should look like. We specifically address ways of knowing what their effort tangibly, concretely, objectively, looks like. And yet on every team, we still see players who think they’re trying. Who think they’re making the effort.
Sometimes, you get lucky, and you have former players come back to your gym to work on their game to show the next generation what effort looks like. For us, we welcome our grads back to our gym to train and develop their game – not just for them, but for the next group of players, so that they can see what effort looks like, and can measure themselves against the models in front of them. When you aren’t fortunate enough to have that, then the dialogue has to be more explicit. Just as players are correctly defending themselves to say they are trying, they just need to place their effort in the appropriate place on the universal scale of effort.
To the surprise of many, effort doesn’t begin with just trying. It begins with presence. You first have to be physically present to make an effort. For some, that means getting past their “one day” and actually getting to “day one”. Once a player is physically present, they have made the first effort. They’re there. Then it’s a matter of how present they are. Are they solely physically present, or are they mentally present as well? Mental presence is a huge leap forward from physical presence. No longer are you just there, going through the motions, you are present to whichever element of development you are engaged in, be it the weight room, the track, or on the court. Without mental presence, we’re just going through the motions and nothing sticks – we don’t move the sticks forward for ourselves. Then, once our mental presence is a part of our effort, we want to see players take the initiative in their effort. That’s the next point on the scale. They do this by seeking those extra opportunities to develop. They want the coaching, ask for it, and seek ways to further their development on their own. Effort, like being low, can be measured on a scale. First you have to know what makes up the different points of measurement on the scale. Once you do though, then the degree of effort is up to you. How far you go, will be directly related to what degree of effort you’re willing to make. Just making an effort isn’t enough. You have to make the right effort to realize the goals and dreams you have for yourself.