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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Register-Mail First Practice

The following is the RM article on our first practice.....

The Galesburg High School girls basketball team began their season on Monday with an early morning and an evening practice.

Galesburg coach Evan Massey, who is entering his 35th season at the helm of the Silver Streaks, said this year’s team should have more offense than last year’s team, which finished with an overall mark of 27-6 and advanced to the sectional semifinals.

“We return a pretty athletic group,” he said. “Last year, our greatest strength was we were a better defensive team than offensive team and this year we’ve improved offensively.

“Hopefully, we are a deeper group this year,” Massey added. “This fall, we happened to have a lot of girls not involved in fall sports and there was enough of them that they got to play.”

Monday, October 29, 2012

Athletic Character

The following is a handout from Coach Bollant. This was part of the info that he provided at their fall clinic. Good stuff for sure!!!

Fall Was Insane

We have always felt it has been important to our team to be very involved in the weight room. We started a strong commitment to the weight room in the mid-1990's when Coach Peachey came on as an assistant coach. He developed a strong lifting program for us, and it was incredible the difference it made for us.

The best example of the importance of strength training for us was our 1999 team, which took 2nd in State. (It should be noted that was back in the days before 4-classes where we had to go thru all the big schools in Illinois). In 1998, we made it to the Elite 8 but were crushed by Loyola. Loyola had several DI players, and was rated nationally. We returned everyone from the '98 team. So while we were excited about the prospects of having everyone back, we realized the team who had crushed us, Loyola, also had everyone back.

Great Fall

We had a great fall. In terms of self-improvement and strength/conditioning- it was very good. Two things made it especially a good opportunity to improve.

#1- We had a huge number of girls involved on a regular basis. We had 9 varsity age players participating in conditioning and open gyms. Of those 9, none of them missed more than two sessions from mid-August thru today. We also had another 10 frosh-soph players who participated regularly. So in open gyms, the girls had an opportunity to actually scrimmage and have meaningful scrimmages.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Geno Wants to Lower Hoops

STORRS, Conn. (AP) -- Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma says he wants people in women's basketball to start talking about how to make the game more exciting and attractive to fans.
He is trying to spark that conversation by suggesting the rims be lowered by at least 7 inches for the women's game.
"I think if we want to get to where other sports are in terms of appealing more to more people, you have to evolve," he said Thursday. "I'm trying to help those teams that can't figure out why they get only 200 people to watch them play every night."

Bo Ryan Gives $41,000+

Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema might want to pick up the tab the next time he and Badgers' men's basketball coach Bo Ryan share a meal.

Ryan is a little poorer today, but for a very good cause, and one of Bielema's players is a big reason why.

Ryan on Thursday invited all Wisconsin students to the Kohl Center to help them raise money for Coaches vs. Cancer and the American Cancer Society. The event, billed as "Make Bo Pay," had Ryan donate $1,000 for each halfcourt shot made, and $10 for every free throw made. A total of 36 Wisconsin students make their halfcourt shots, including Badgers sophomore defensive tackle Warren Herring.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Value of a Mentor

This is a great story of an older player mentoring a younger player. It shows not only the maturity of the mentor but the maturity of the younger player to recognize the need for mentoring. Humility is a huge part of learning.

Montee Ball's 'low-key mentor'



Montee Ball, Ron Dayne
Ron Dayne has been quick to offer advice to Montee Ball, who's been eager to receive it.



MADISON, Wis. -- Montee Ball stood on the sideline Sept. 22 at Camp Randall Stadium, his eyes cast down, his helmet taken away from him, his day finished before halftime.



The Wisconsin running back suffered a concussion on a touchdown run against UTEP, his second head injury in less than two months. Wisconsin had launched a Heisman Trophy campaign for its senior star before the season began, complete with the tagline, "This fall belongs to Ball."

Friday, October 12, 2012

Kevin Eastman- Leadership

"It's What's Best for the Team"
Rajon Rondo on Team Decisions

"My job is to play, whether Doc throws an 8th grader out there...I'll try to make his job easier and bring the best out in him." That's Rajon Rondo talking about how he isn't concerned with who starts and who doesn't.

Part of leadership is getting the team to buy into the importance of team over self, and that's what Rondo is talking about. There are some great lessons in this quote if you spend somet ime thinking about it: leadership lessons, teammate lessons, and trust lessons. Let's take a look at each of these:

Monday, October 8, 2012

Building a Culture

The following is a story in the Chicago Tribune by KC Johnson describing the reaction of new players to Coach Thibodeau. The obvious is the players see the coach creating a positive culture based on being focused and work ethic. I have highlighted what I think are some great quotes....


One of the few givens about this Bulls season is that the newly paid Tom Thibodeau won't change.

Money can't sway obsession. Practices remain long, detailed and organized. Communication is intact. Accountability is demanded.

Seven of the faces are new on what eventually should be a 14-player roster. With chemistry needed, buying into what Thibodeau is preaching is essential. And despite the Bulls coach signing a four-year, roughly $17 million extension to open training camp, that message remains as true as a 14-hour workday.

"I appreciate what he brings," veteran center Nazr Mohammed said. "Coach (Rick) Pitino told me before I got here he's a worker. He's one of the coaches who lives in the gym, a basketball junkie. He's here early, stays late. (Pitino) told me to be prepared for (Thibodeau's) attention to detail. So I knew coming in that's what it was going to be like.

"Physically, he wants things done a certain way. He wants you to go hard. He wants to make practices so they're like game situations, so when you get in the game, you've been there, you're in shape, you already know what to do. Mentally, he really wants you to know the terminology. He wants you to know what the other team is doing. He actually quizzes you."

One of Kirk Hinrich's many disappointments about being traded shortly after Thibodeau accepted the job in 2010 was not getting to play for such a demanding coach. Hinrich's time is now.

"It's intense," the veteran guard said. "He expects you to be locked in when you come in the gym. When you're together as a team, time is valuable. So I like that.

"After being in so many different situations for different coaches, you appreciate preparation as you go along. As a younger player, you might not. You might think it's harder work or whatever. But it's nice to be in a situation where you know you're going to be prepared every day."

Guard Marco Belinelli said everybody in the league is aware of a Thibodeau-coached team's reputation: It defends and works hard. Reserve center Kyrylo Fesenko said he sees similarities to Hall of Fame coach Jerry Sloan. Veteran guard Marko Jaric drew a parallel to another cornerstone of consistency, Gregg Popovich.

"At the beginning of some seasons, not many talk about San Antonio, and then they're always one of the top teams," Jaric said. "You can see there's a system behind the success here. He's incredibly detailed. The way we practice and (how) he teaches us to think (about) the game is good."

Hinrich summarized Thibodeau succinctly.

"Usually, a team is a reflection of its coach," he said. "You could tell just from the way this team competed, they were prepared."

Thibodeau shrugged.

"You're striving for excellence and perfection, knowing you're not going to get to perfection," he said. "You want to see how close you can get to it. It's important to set the bar high. Players help establish the standards you're going to have. I don't want them to be satisfied."

Friday, October 5, 2012

Pat Summitt Forced Out?

A lawsuit by a former Tennessee athletic dept. official, claims she was forced out by the AD because of some combination of her age and her fighting to allow Pat Summitt to stay at Tennessee.

This is Pat Summitt's affadavit in the case.

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/452632-pat-summitts-affidavit.html


This is an article explaining it....

Debby Jennings' lawsuit against the University of Tennessee and athletic director Dave Hart was amended Wednesday in response to a UT official refuting the original suit's claim that Hart told former women's basketball head coach Pat Summitt that she would not be coaching the team during the 2012-13 season.

Presidential Visit

If you are President of the United States, in the middle of tough campaign, and just had an even tougher debate-- what do you do to try to bounce back. Of course you try to associate yourself with things all of America love. So where did Obama go on Thursday- Madison, Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin. And while there, he met with the Badger basketball team. As many of you are aware-- the Wisconsin Badgers are America's team. It will be interesting to see how big of a bump this creates in the polls.

On a more serious note, this is a neat story about how two players on the team worked to make this happen. One player a Republican from Iowa, and the other a Democrat from Chicago.

Badgers basketball team scores private audience with president