Welcome to the Canada Basketball Coaching Podcast

(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Canada Basketball Coaching Podcast. My name is Brandon, I'm the specialist of coaches and officials development at Canada Basketball. And with me is Mike McKay, the technical director of Coach Education at Canada Basketball. And we're starting this Canada Basketball Coaching Podcast to open a whole host of conversations on some of the things that I think you and I both find very near and dear to our hearts. As you know, we can spend hours and hours talking, but I think what we wanted to do was actually share some of the conversations we have with coaches and bringing in as many different coaches as we can to share their story, share their journey and really help grow the game in Canada. - Yeah. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about those conversations and maybe why we're deciding to start a podcast. There's obviously lots of coaching podcasts out there, lots of basketball podcasts, lots of great podcasts out there. But why was it so important for you and I to try and do something like this and maybe what's a little bit different? - Well, I'll admit, I'm in the downside of my coaching, which is not a bad thing, that's just the reality where it is. But I really want to make sure the stewardship, and I was saddened to hear the passing of George Rowling recently and his most recent book actually just came out this year. He has a whole chapter based on stewardship and it's really stewardship is preserving the legacy of the game, making sure the game is there for future generations and what are you doing to make sure the game is helping others in the future and developing future leaders and I think that in our role with coach education, kind of basketball, that's one of our main things. But I also think it's one of the main things that coaches have. You are giving those athletes your stewards, you're not just their basketball coach, you're their steward, their parents are expecting you to grow them to be more than just a basketball player. And I think that that's a big part of it is how do we make sure people wear the stewardship part because as you know, I've always said, it's, you know, we don't coach basketball, we coach people play basketball. So we really want to make sure we emphasize that people side of it. Don't get me wrong, we're going to talk to basketball. This is it, you know, we can all talk basketball. So that was one of the main reasons was stewardship. But then the other one is looking at the game a little differently. I've been a lifelong learner and that's why I think you and I and you know, we can talk so much because we're both like one murder and I was looking for what's the not all to the new, but how do we do it better? It's sometimes it's not new. It's just looking at it with a different set of eyes or talking about another way, a little more of this, a little less of that. That's what I think we can do in these podcasts is helping people. Yeah, that's what I love about stewardship. Yeah, it's an ongoing process. It's not just something we're going to do one time as there's an ongoing process of stewardship, which is great. It also leads into our kind of our next big pillar of the podcast, which is this idea of transformational coaching. And I know you've talked a lot for a long time about transformational coaching, but you know, what about today's landscape of basketball really needs transformational coaches? Well, you know, you think binary between it's not transformational is transactional now. As you know, me enough, it's always a little bit locks to the three bears, which is is always like continue too much too little just right. So it is never all transformational or all transactional. But how do we make sure that we are transforming athletes? And that's stewardship and transforming really built around the four pillars. This came from John Coteu's, Professor at Queens, but, you know, do you believe in your athletes? Or do you show them trust and believe in them? Do you role model for them? Tough one, do you challenge them, especially the challenge of the think? Are you showing curiosity? And then detreat them as an individual. So to me, I've actually created my coaching award for coaches to coaches each year who are showing transformational qualities, not because it's those coaches that are going to show stewardship. So at all, each end transactional, it's much more, you know, do good, you play, you do bad, you sit, care instead. And look, there's always going to be some of that in there because you only get to play five players. So there's always some element of transaction, but it can't be everything you do is a transaction. And in today's landscape, changing landscape with NIL money and the business part of sport coming down lower and lower into sport, it's a transactional landscape over there. And we've got to try to balance that off and say, hey, but you still have to have stewardship and transformational coaching even though there are these transactions going on. Yeah. And I think it's not that, to your point, it's not that transactional relationships are inherently bad or have all these bad qualities to them. I think there's a lot of great things that are going to come out of, you mentioned the NIL landscape, money, more money being involved in basketball is can be great for basketball. But are there things that we can do better, do differently, continue to improve on? So the future of basketball is in great importance. It's been intentional. If you just allow it to organically, it's not always going to be that great. And it can actually harm people. So as you know, method cognition is another one of our main things, thinking about your thinking. So it's planning. It's implementing your plan. It's then tracking what's going on. And then it's debriefing or reflecting. If we can redo that within this new transactional transformation landscape, it's going to be OK. We'll come out and we'll do it shown to riches. But if we just let things go without leadership and without thinking about it and being intentional, and that's where I think we're going to fill up in these podcasts, working at some of these current leaders in sport in the basketball world that are, hey, what are you doing in this landscape? How are you doing your thinking? How are you tracking? How are you planning? How are you debriefing? How have you continued to grow? And it's through those conversations, I think we can really help new coaches and old coaches who are still learning to grow. And here all sorts of ways to do-- Oh, everybody we're going to do. We've already done some. It's a different journey for everybody, which is great. That's what we want. We want that diverse of thought. We want those diverse pathways. It's never one straight pathway, which we get that linear approach in our coach education sometimes, or these in school. Everything has to be grade one, grade two, grade three. What's that? That's not how it usually works. But it's through reflection, through planning, metacognition, that's how you're going to wobble your way through this. And there's nothing wrong with the mistakes if they were growing. Intentional mistakes, that's different. Or you're mistreating people, that's a different thing. But you're learning from your actions. Hey, that's what we're going to discuss. And we've already had some great conversations about that. Yeah. So methods in teaching the game, is going to be a lot of a conversation, a big part of our conversation. Oh, I think it's that whole learning environment. We know so much more now, how people learn. And as a lifelong teacher, I've always been fascinated by learning. And just how the brain works. And knowing that the whole social emotional side, and we're now using the term biopsychosocial, which is the physical, the mental, but the social emotional. But just how the brain responds to stress. And the people side of it is such an important factor that we're going to explore with some of our guests. And I think it's amazing that some of the research that's been done and the lived experiences that coaches are having with this. And how impactful it can be on the athletes. Yeah, so let's build on that piece, because I think this brings us to our third pillar, which is this idea of performance safety, which fully encompasses this idea of the biopsychosocial, then diagram interaction of all these things coming to the other to make people who they are. Well, it's an interesting one, because safe sport is important. We know there's been some abuses in sport. And we all are feeling the importance of safe sport. And that's important. But the problem with the term safe sport, it came from business. It wasn't designed for elite sport. Because there is, as we already said, there is some harm. If that's the word, that's what's used in the psychological language. But there is some discomfort or feelings that come from-- you played and I didn't play. Yeah. You started. I didn't start. You can't take that out of elite sport, or even recreational sport with only five to be on the four to time. But what happens is, I'm not happy. I'm feeling a little discomfort. Oh, that's a safe sport issue. That's not safe sport from the bullying behaviors and those sorts of things. But yet, it is something that happens. And how do we help coaches deal with that with compassion? Yeah. So we're working. I'm working with one professional. Hopefully maybe we'll get some people heard to come on with one of our podcasts, "About this holiday of performance, safety versus psychological safety." It's not versus a safe sport. It fits under performance safety. And really safe sport is like a picture of seesaw or performance safety picture of seesaw wear. There's always a challenge, but we got to bounce that off of what support do we give them. So if I'm challenging you physically, what support do I give you to make sure you're physically able to do that? If I'm challenging you psychologically, well, what supports am I giving you to handle, you know, that? And so it's a really good thing, but compassion is a key part of it. That I'm aware that there's a challenge on you and that's where the appropriate support comes in. Yeah. So do we do we do this performance safety? Are we very intentional in what the challenge is and what supports we give to the athlete? Yeah. So that they can perform in the storm, which is another big thing. Another thing went so coaches, a quick interruption of this podcaster reminds you that all of your coaching resources can be found on game plan from workshops, eLearnings, video breakdowns, podcasts, drills, games, and so much more head to gameplanbasketball.ca today to grow your coaching. Now let's get back to the podcast. Stewardship, transformational coaching, performance safety, really kind of the three big pillars of this podcast. That's our north star. Yeah. That's what's guiding us. That's where we're trying to go. That's our, you know, that's the older one is stewardship. Yeah. And it's not to say the X's and O's, tactic strategies are not important in basketball. But but but layer that into transformational coaching, performance safety, yeah, and stewardship, which they all fit. That's the so it's in how you're teaching the X and O's and how you're using appropriate X and O's to fit the stage or the context with your athletes are at. Yeah. Yeah. And we're still going to have those kinds of conversations that hopefully get some really old breakdown and play breakdowns. Yeah. That's where we're going to get some coaches onto to get to delve into a little bit of a why why why were you doing that what was the decision to run this. Yeah. What happened when it didn't go as planned? What was your what what did you do? What did you do next? And I think that's where we can be a little different in some of the podcasts. Hopefully we'll have some coaches who can feel a little vulnerable and and share some of those things where they share some of their learnings and I because I think that's what we really need. It's it's there's all kinds of video breakdowns up here just the play but why did you run that play? What happened when the defense did this to you and it didn't work? What was your thought process? Getting coaches to share that will think a very powerful process. Yeah. Why did it work in the first place? Yeah. Did it work every single time? What was the why did you choose it? Of all the actions. Why did you choose horns this horn set and horns flare? Yeah. Why did you say that think that that was the best for your team? Yeah. And that's the same level of decision making where we're hoping coaches can come conversation with that their athletes about. Yeah. Yeah. And did you involve all the athletes? Yeah. I asked my athletes and they wanted an action that they did this and yeah. And somebody said well that's up here. Well I think with your 12 year olds, 13 you you still can engage them and what do you think would be best for us to do? Yeah. To help you. Where's your superpower? What did you be doing better? So also I think we want to try to balance it. It's not just always for the top coaches at the top level. It's everybody long missed this coaching continuum. Yeah. Okay. So that's another big one you just brought up. This idea of empowering our athletes, giving our athletes voices. Talk about that. Well, again, I've always my my nor star guiding principles. I always been praying future leaders to sport. Yeah. And one of the only ways I know how to eventually free to future leader is to help in them become a leader. Yeah. And you have to let them lead. You have to let them make decisions. You have to let them wobble and make some mistakes in a safe environment. And again, that's that's a big part of it. But and I think you said at the other day was how can my brain be better than everybody else's brain? Like I've got a team of 12 players. There's three assistant coaches if I'm lucky in myself. That's a lot of brain. How? Yeah. But if we're only going to go through my brain and that's that unicorn idea that I miss this superhuman. All knowing all powerful. I never make mistakes. Well, that's false. Yeah. We know that. But if I can get my athletes to feel that we really want them involved. We want them to fake. Yeah. We want to know what you're doing. Well, yeah, that's powerful. Yeah. Powerful. Powerful. Powerful stuff. So, but how do I do that? Because that's not how my coaches coach me. That wasn't that wasn't the way it was. Yeah. You know, and it was you do what you told me. It's it don't think. Yeah. Wasn't the experience I got either, right? But hopefully we can start to shine a little bit light on why it might be powerful. Why coaches might want to try empowering athletes giving voice a little bit. But I also know that when you got into the storm of days. It slowly, if you're by yourself, it didn't always work when the coach wasn't prepared. Or it's up to the one prepared. But, you know, I played a lot of football. Football was a little different because you couldn't have one person coach everything in football. Yeah. Because it's impossible. Yeah. So you had to break it up in receivers running backs, you know, line coach especially saying is that they have that. And I think basketball sometimes could take that more where you have to empower other people within team to do more things because it's just too much. But yeah. But it's still the person on the field or on the core is the one who sees and perceives they have to make those decisions. And we'll try to bring in some of the research too. Like I don't want people to know that just Mike and Brandon ideas. We're going to have some people to do with some actual research into some of these fields. And here's what the latest research is saying. I think that's important. Yeah. They're science based totally. And recognizing and being vulnerable on our own, right? That's some of the ideas that we thought were cutting edge. Maybe there's new stuff that tells us a little bit different. And that's the whole part of learning. That I'm really excited for self-resolution. I just think it's some of the things I first did when I was coaching like I'm glad there wasn't social media for videos and audios of me doing something that did pure pressure punishment. That's how I was coached. And that's how I thought that that was the the secret sauce. The success was pressure punishment. But I know now I treat it to your full athletes. I'll share one story and this will be the uping. I will share stories that just see why I am. And I because I think that's how we learned what I had those Nova Scotia prevention team. We were training and I was working on this step back action. It was this new thing step back. So I spent I did all the progressions. We went on air. We slowly built it and we did all these things. And we spent probably half an hour working on this step back shot. Now late shot clock to treat your shot. And then we went into the game. And this is when we first come in with constraint letter pro tune. And I said, okay, if you score using a step back, it's double the points like thinking that everybody's going to be trying a step back. Yeah. Well, we played the game in no one even attempted one. And I luckily I had had learned that ask questions. And I said to the players that I really disappointed that no one who tried a step back shot. We spent half an hour on it. Yeah, why is no one me a step back shot? And I still remember and she played for me in high school. So she was pretty able to say she said, why would we try a step back when we know that the loser of the game was going around suicides? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, just that I created it. It wasn't that I didn't do the progression and use a constraint. That point, it was my pure pressure punishment that losers always ran. Why would we try something to lose that it run? Yeah. And I'm like, and most importantly, all along, it was us, the coach, yeah, we created, we thought we were doing one thing. We created a completely different environment than what we thought. And so hopefully we'll be all exploring some of those. So here's why we're trying to do what we do that that why. Yeah, why is these things being done and not be afraid to question? Yeah. And we'd love to have people also question sent us some ideas or questions. Well, I've always done this. What do you think about that? And hopefully we come up with some lived experiences, but also some of some reachable. Why maybe now there's another way to think about doing it? It's not that some of these were dead raw. Some things are, there are some things that no fish should never have done. Yeah. But there's other set, there's just a better way that can be more effective and efficient. The other one I would say is the whole idea of breaking everything down into these little components that are playing through the game. Yeah, I think, like I think of my practices I run now. I just don't do a whole lot of breakdown drills. I can't even think of what I would call a breakdown drill is mostly where planes, some kind of small side of game, but it flows. There's there's not like a do it stop. It's always what's next, what next, what next? Because outside the game's play. Yeah. And these are exactly the kinds of conversations I hope that we can get into and challenging some of the things that we've done. We see coaches doing, asking questions. Why? What's our thought process? Because oftentimes our intention is extremely positive. We think we're trying to do the right thing that's going to help our athletes learn and ultimately help transfer to the game. And our job is just to make sure that we keep asking those kinds of questions. And I think that's the key. Yeah. Asking the questions and being aware. And when we don't ask questions of our athletes, we're sometimes not aware. Yeah. And we just keep doing what we do, especially we get caught in, I call the carousel where you've got so many other things. And if so many of our coaches are going to be is volunteers. They've got another job that pays the bills. Well, you know, I'm rushing to practice and all of a sudden, like, "Oh, well, we'll just do this." So we just get on the carousel, we do that practice. I get off, I go back to my other life, I come back the next day, I'm back on the carousel. But when did you ever take the time to stop and reflect? Think about it, reflect, change it up, ask other, "Well, what should we do in practice?" Ask the pair or other. All those things are important to help you. The spiral goes up. Yeah. And hopefully we'll be able to help coaches with just how to ask what questions. What are you, are you aware of this? Have you thought about this? Have you asked your players? Have you asked other coaches? Yeah. And maybe that's a great one to end off of, is this bringing you back to this idea of metacognition. If there's anything that we can hope comes from this podcast, it's that it hopefully inspires a little bit of reflection, not always taking everything that you hear and implementing it right away, because maybe we're missing some contacts, but that's an interesting idea. I like to try it. It's better not to you for you to try. Yeah. And it's this idea of metacognition to me is, and we're finding this in our coaching education, is this novice to expert? Well, the novice to me is more of that cook. They need a cookbook. They need a recipe that says, "Do this for this mouth, do this for this, do this, do this, and if you can follow the cookbook, you're going to be going to okay practice, you'll be okay." Yep. But how do we start to create chefs? That's by metacognition, planning, implementing, tracking, and end debriefing. And the more you start to do that, the more you start to, how to use those ingredients to treat that initial five-star restaurant. Yeah. That's continuing to innovate. That's right. Yeah. And they're calling because you can't stay the same. It can't, because everything's going to keep changing. But because you're staying active and learning and your question reflecting, you'll always stay ahead of the field and be leading. And that's where we're trying to grow. It's grow, you know, Canadians, it's the top coaches. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's awesome. So that's the Candidabasimal Coaching Podcast, Stewardship, Transfessional Coaching, Performance Safety. What can you expect? Some video, lots of audio, everything will be hosted on GamePlanBasible.ca. Expect weekly episodes as much as we can do and create awesome conversations for coaches. Thanks, Mike. I'm a cue. Thanks for listening to their Canada Basketball Coaching Podcast. For more information on this podcast and what was discussed, please check out the show notes. You can find additional coaching resources at GamePlanBasible.com. And always remember, Transfemational Coaches, Coach People Who Play Basketball.