This Week’s Question
Being successful involves being organized. Every coach has approaches to game day- that day, pre-game, warmups, sideline management, timeouts, half-time, and post-game. What were some of the things that you felt were important to you on game day?
Mike Tracey- Alleman, UTHS
I was fortunate to experiencing head coaching from both sides. My experience was first at a Catholic school. The thing that we did, that was outstanding and very emotional , was a mass at the end of the day on game night.
We had a priest who served as our team chaplain. He loved Alleman and he loved football. He was one of the most emotional speakers I've ever been around. He reached our kids in ways that we couldn't as coaches. The effect that had on the players was very evident. Many of our former players today refer to this as their most important lesson during football . We felt like we were "invincible."
At UTHS, a large public school, we obviously could not hold a mass. What we did was corny and a bit hokey. As our players were passing between sixth and seventh hour, we asked our kids to recognize anyone who was a football player and nod and smile at that young man.. It gave us a feeling of unity, closeness, and the idea of being a team. So many of our younger kids were somewhat stunned when a varsity player made this silent contact with them. I don't know how much this all helped, but kids did it without complaint. We never had 100% buy in, but l liked to believe it brought us closer.
Jeff Parsons- Wethersfield, Fulton
Game day really started as game week. I would always try and see our opponent a minimum of 5 times. I loved the eye test. I would like to see them live 2-3 times at minimum. Hudl coming into the picture really helped getting video on opponents instead of shipping VHS tapes ahead of time. The night before if we did not have a game we would go over the situations and the whole breakdown of our opponents. I wanted to feel like I knew as much or more about our opponents than possible their coach did. I also would go over what we were going to do against them to be successful. We still spent time on fundamentals and shooting as well.
Game day, I would make sure all the personnel that was needed at the game was secured, from scoreboard, video, crowd control, meeting of our opponent and officials if it was a home game. Our boys wore ties at home for games and travel suits on the road. I wanted them to focus on their school work during the day, but their attire always reminded them to think about the task at hand that night. I would have a scouting report for them the night before and asked them to review it when they got the opportunity. Later in my career, it was hudl highlights and written scout via their cell phone.
We would also have a walk through after school especially if we had back to back games nights to go over everything that we need to know for that night. We also shot a ton of free throws.
I would require everyone to be at the school by 5pm to shoot round before the FS took the floor at 5:40. They would sit in our student section together and watch the FS play. We would be dressed and did lay up lines and shooting at halftime of the FS game. Halfway through the 3rd Quarter they would be in the locker for pre-game at the start of the 4th Q.
Three big things that I wanted one of my assistants (Usually my FS coach) to stat during the game were tImeouts for us and them, foul trouble for both teams, Paint scoring us and them, I feel that the team that got the most 5 foot shots would win night in an night out. The last stat was huge for us and that was defensive shot percentage and contested vs uncontested shots. If we could contest every shot and keep a team in the 20 to 30 percent field goal range we could be successful night in and night out.
There were 3 things that we expected from our players, they can control 2 things: Attitude, and Effort. We expected both to be excellent. We also told them that there are 3 things you can do on a basketball court, you can referee, play or coach. Their job was to play, if they did the other 2, then seats by me are very comfortable. Wins and losses come and go, but playing the game with the respect it deserves is the ultimate sign of a champion.
Mark Massey- Clinton
Game day: always went over scouting report prior to match. Usually consisted of any special servers that they had, of course their best hitters, what those hitters liked to do. Often I felt preparation was easier on the road as we had the kids in a controlled environment longer than we might have at home. At home, there were distractions from family and friends, there might be unforeseen things that I as a coach had to deal with. Quite often I didn’t mind playing on the road.
In volleyball, our lineup and how it matches up with the other team is more important than basketball in terms of starting positions. We seldonm them changed our rotation, but always wanted to get the opponents lineup so we knew what our matchups would be when certain hitters were in the front row.
At some point, I suppose for the last 20 years that I coached, we kept termination statistics that scored and identified each point or side out, where it came from, etc. This allowed me to identify when let’s say Mary was serving for us, how were we scoring if we did , and how did they score? Especially when we played a team a second or even a third time we had a pretty good handle of what had been effective for our opponent, and what had been effective for us. Especially at the high school level that permitted me as a coach to really set up defense in certain situations to stop what the opponent was gonna do. You didn’t have to play it straight up so to speak because you knew certain things were not an option, realistically in terms of what they were going to do to Score. So for example, there were times when we had number 15 serving, we knew that their best option to try to score was to run a back set on their side of the net. So when 15 is getting ready to serve, I’m telling my left side and my middle blocker be ready to come out here Because that’s where they’re gonna set the ball. If they did, we were ready, if they didn’t, then they’re running a set that they really didn’t wanna run and probably wasn’t as good anyway.
In timeouts if we were on a roll, we just reminded the team of what to look for if there was gonna be a setter attack on a two ball, who their big hitter was where she was along the net. If our block had been effective, we reminded our perimeter kids not to touch a ball destined to go out. If we call the timeout to try to stop them, I might talk to the setter alone and try to identify what might work. Just tried to give them one or maybe two things to remember
Mike Cooper- Ottawa
My game day was very organized and we tried to do the same thing every game night.
We would sit as a team in a specific area of the bleachers before the sophomore game started. I would encourage them to watch for things in the sophomore game that might be used in the varsity game. At halftime of the sophomore game we would shoot as a team doing 3 or 4 specific drills with me supervising. I thought it was important I watched what was going on to make sure we were focused. Everyone wore the same warmup and uniform during that time. It was important nobody did anything to draw attention to themselves.
We would go down to the locker room at the start of the 4th quarter to go over our final preparations. We tried to keep final Preparations simple focusing on trying to take away the two or three things a team does well and making sure we knew who their shooters were. We would always break out by saying "Team" which I thought was important.
When we took a time out we tried to have a special out of bounds play or offensive set that we don't usually use. It was a good time to change things up and make sure our players had a real good understanding of what we were trying to do. If any of the players had a question we could help them during a timeout as opposed to doing it during game play.
When a game finished we would meet in the locker room for a few brief words from myself and my assistant. We tried not to keep the team in the locker room too long, we would talk more at the practice the next day. Sometimes it was better that I watched the film to get a better feel for what happened in the game. Sometimes coaches jump to conclusions immediately after a game that might not be what really happened during a game. I just think players are creatures of habit and respond better when focused.
Greg Bennett- Lewistown
Proper preparation for the execution of “Game Day” is definitely key to the success of any program. Unlike professional or college coaches, high school coaches tend to have many additional job responsibilities beyond their coaching assignment. Most of them have primary responsibilities as teachers, counselors, deans, athletic directors, etc., that they need to complete before school is out on each game day. Additionally, especially at smaller schools, coaches may find themselves “wearing extra hats,” filling roles like equipment manager, athletic trainer, video coordinator, statistical supervisor, and even bus driver.
In order to be prepared for game day each week, which in the case of basketball normally occurred on multiple occasions, being properly organized in advance was a necessity. To make sure that I always accomplished all of my tasks, everything from finalizing pregame instructions to making sure the medkit was properly packed, I created a checklist form.
My checklist form, which constantly evolved over the course of my coaching career, proved to be an invaluable asset. It kept me organized and made sure that, regardless of everything else going on, school related, in my personal life, etc., I had put myself in the best possible preparedness situation for coaching my team on “Game Day.”
Evan Massey- Galesburg
My son convinced me to completely change how we handled our pregame. Before I would go into the lockeroom early in the 4th quarter of FS game and we would go over our entire scouting report. At Allen’s suggestion, we would do our scout report with the player before we left for away games, and do it at the beginning of FS game at home games. Then when we went into the lockeroom before games, I would just make it a 3-4 minute presentation, and give them 3 keys to the game. I think by doing this, our players were not as tight and were just playing vs thinking too much.
I had started coaching in an era where coaches could not stand, and most of my career I chose to at least start the game seated. I wanted to watch the game with my assistants next to me. That way we could have a running conversation as we watched the game. I wanted their perspective. I had many good assistance who gave me important insights throughout the games. There were many times that I got up to coach, but I thought sitting was a way of empowering my assistants more.
I always had a play card that was a reminder for me. While I had it on a computer, I revised it for each game. I had things into categories- best mm plays, best zone plays, best plays for individuals, best post up plays, best threes plays, etc. Usually making the card myself made it so I didn’t have to look at it during the game- the making of the card helped organize my thoughts.
Post games, I believed in the old John Wooden wisdom that you don’t get too high with a win, and too low with a loss. 90% of the time, I wanted post games to be short. With wins you praise but with wins it is a great time to also point out areas for improvement. With losses, it is better to be factual and not over emotional. There were usually a couple times a year where I felt it was important to be emotional and even upset in a loss- but I felt that as a coach you could NOT do this more than twice during a season or you created issues.
Before I left the lockeroom when we lost a road game, I would tell the players, “On the way home on the bus, make sure what you say and how you act, shows your teammates that the team is important to you and that winning and losing is important to you.”
Bob Anderson- Williamsfield
Once again, thanks for including me Evan.
We had a game plan we always went over before each game. On it were things we were going to try and do during the game to hopefully give us a chance to win. It was mainly in 4 categories. they were off., def, transition and situations. As i got older as a coach, one thing i tried to do was conduct our practice the day before the game to coincide with our game plan. We felt this was a great way to show our kids what we felt was important to be successful in the game.
During the game, there were 2 things we felt we did that really helped us compete with our opponents. No. 1 was when the Peoria Journal Star was putting in all the box scores, i would figure up each players average, free throw % and how many 3s he made. I would do that for the team as well. It was like a scouting report right out of the paper. When the local papers stopped putting in box scores, it really hurt our scouting for each game. Another thing that was huge we felt was having all our set plays, off., def, and game ideas down on index cards to help remind us of ideas we could use to maybe help us win a game.
Lastly i almost forgot this and we felt this was also very crucial in giving us a chance to win. we had 1 of our asst. coaches on the bench with a sheet with each opponents name on it and he would keep track of who was hurting us scoring during the game. Before that, sometimes a kid would get away from us and we didn't even realize it. These are just some key things we did that we felt really helped our program the day before and the day of the game.
After each game, we always gave each asst. time to give us his game analysis and then I would end by talking about our 4 main areas of transition, def, off and situations.
Thom Sigel- Rock Island
I would classify myself pretty much as a person who finds the importance of routines. I am confident those who know would just say I am superstitious. I imagine there is a strong chance there is a lot of overlap. Some of the game day activity topics here will be general with some more detailed in hopes that I hit on some of the specific items you asked about.
The first that comes to mind that some would say could be a superstition is that I would iron my clothes each game day. It was something that started many years ago, and maybe because I wanted it done a certain way. The reason I bring that up as a side note is because I always believed that I wanted to send a message to our players that our coaches approached every game the same way. If I would wear a suit for the State Championship (or any other big game), then I was going to wear a suit every game. We always talked about how we wanted to prepare the same all the time so that when a big game came about, we were just going to do what we do every game.
We wanted the varsity to sit together during the sophomore game. We would have them shoot until the sophomores came out for warmups when we were on the road. However, we didn't have them shoot at half time of the sophomore game. They should go in by the end of the third quarter even though many went in sooner if they needed more time to be ready for pregame. Before our pregame talk, we would have roll call by player to make sure we had the correct numbers in the book and would circle and hold hands for a moment of silence.
We usually had a pretty basic routine for our warmups even though we wanted organization. I wasn't one to spend much practice time going over what we were going to do in warmups, but it usually involved trying to get loose and get shots up. We had a segment with partners shooting and some stretching so we didn't have everyone running into each other fighting over balls. And we never did team free throw shooting where one or two guys shoot with everyone else standing around watching them.
We had coaches who would be in charge of charting timeouts/fouls, defensive stops, and have a playsheet to have in case I needed a reminder of something we hadn't used and could try at some point in the game. The board used at timeouts was sitting by a coach who would be in charge of getting that out. (There could have been an instance where I snatched it from the coach in the heat of battle and caused a minor injury to his hand.)
At half time, we would meet as a staff to discuss what we were seeing and talk about what to address heading into the second half. The coaching staff was also responsible for talking to players when they subbed out of the game.
Tim Engebretson- United
I didn't think we did anything unique from a coaching standpoint but our school did some inspirational things. At one point our whole district K-12 was in one building. We would have school wide pep assemblies. Every student and teacher in the whole district would be part of the assemblies. Elementary students would make hundreds of signs and really take part in different aspects of firing up our players. Many of our teachers would plan elaborate skits for the pep assemblies. Parents would also create skits and be part of the process.
It doesn't sound like a big deal but when everyone in your community is there to back you and make you feel special it has a positive effect. I think our players felt indebted to the community and gave more of themselves because there were so many people in their corner. It was a special place.
Bob Anderson- Williamsfield HS
Bob is retired as boys basketball coach at Williamsfield. At a school of only 89 students, in 45 years, his teams won 732 games along with numerous tourney and conference championships. His 1997 team made it to the Elite 8.
Mike Cooper- Ottawa HS
Mike is the retired Athletic Director at Ottawa HS. He was varsity girls basketball coach for 22 years, as well as sophomore football coach for many years. He was inducted in the the IBCA HOF.
Tim Engebretson- United HS
He was varsity head football coach for many years at United HS. He also has coached basketball at different levels. His 2005 team won the Illinois State Title, and Tim is in the Illinois Football Coaches' HOF as well as the United HOF.
Greg King- Sterling HS
In his head coaching career at Sterling, his football teams went 78-28, and had 10 straight play-off appearances and 5 conference titles. In addition to his success as a football coach, he was inducted in the Illinois Athletic Director's Association HOF.
Mark Massey- Clinton HS
Mark was the head volleyball coach at Clinton for 38 years. His teams won 818 games, and twice took second in State. He is in the Iowa Volleyball HOF and Clinton HS HOF.
Thom Sigel- Rock Falls/Rock Island HS
Thom coached basketball for 32 years. His teams won 502 games, and he has the distinction of winning the State Title at both Rock Falls and Rock Island. Thom is in the IBCA HOF.
Mike Tracey- Alleman, UTHS, Moline HS
Mike coached football at Alleman, UT, and Moline for over 20 years. He is considered the premier football coach in WB6 history. His teams won 140 games, and twice finished second in State. Mike is in the Alleman HS HOF and the Illinois Football HOF. He was also selected Illinois AD of the Year.
Greg Bennett- Lewistown
Greg coached many sports at Lewistown. He had teams go to State in girls basketball and football. He is in the Illinois Football HOF as well as being in the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame. He is know for his commitment as a coach and his high energy level.
Jeff Parsons- Wethersfeild, Fulton
Jeff was a highly successful baseball and basketball coach at Kewanee Wethersfield. He was inducted into the IBCA HOF. Presently he is the Athletic Director at Fulton
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