Embrace challenges, recall the fundamentals

The fundamentals are the keys to athletics.

Balance, footwork, passing, dribbling, and shooting are the fundamentals taught in the play of basketball.

It makes no difference what offense you run – motion, dribble drive, read and react, or set plays. It makes no difference what defense you run – man-to-man, zone, or match-up. If your players are not solid in the fundamentals, the basics, they are not going to be successful.

Coaches are constantly looking for that magic offense or defense. Eventually, they realize there is no one magic offense or defense. If there were, everyone would be running it.

Your team’s success goes right back to the fundamentals.

When your basketball team is struggling and you, as the coach, are not sure what to do, you often decide to go back to the basics in your practices.

One of our former players, now in corporate real estate sales, recently told me about a difficult situation. He was having a bad year and troubled about how to get things turned around. Recalling his years with our collegiate basketball program, he thought about the fundamentals and how we used to revisit the fundamentals when things went awry.

He went back to cold calling and all the basics of selling and finished with a great year.

Athletics and business coaching, teaching, and learning do go hand-in-hand. Often, the challenges we face in any of these arenas can be successfully navigated by remembering the simple things: the fundamentals.