How I became a basketball coach

I'm following in the footsteps of my dad.  I've become a basketball coach.

This summer, I joined a basketball league with a bunch of guys from camp.  After we lost by 40 in the first game, I had two goals.  My first goal was to hit a three.  My second goal was to win a game.  We lost our second game by 50, but our scoring output more than doubled.  In the third game, I hit my three and gave us a 5-4 lead at the time.  I'm pretty sure it was our last lead of the game and we lost 31-23.  After the game, a bunch of us went out for some drinks and we were discussing the game.  I thought that was a very winnable game.  One of the reasons that we lost was that we played too many guys.  We had 11 guys splitting up minutes.  I realized that I was taking away minutes from players who were better than me.  So I retired with six points in three games (three foul shots and one three), bought one of those dry erase coach's clipboards and became the team's coach.  Unfortunately, I was never able to run a practice (we had one all summer and it was before I took over coaching duties), but I did what I could.

Did I wear a suit and tie for every game that I coached?  Of course I did.

In my first game as coach, we led for most of the game.  I can't say that I did much other than switch to a 2-3 zone and manage our substitutions.  The other team cut into our lead with a big run to end the first half.  Not calling a timeout during that run was probably my biggest mistake of the game.  I think we led by one point at halftime.  I think our biggest lead in the second half was six points.  Sadly, we lost 44-42.

I coached two more games and we lost both.  Neither were as close as my first game.  I would have continued coaching, but we were missing some guys for all our games after that, so I decided to dress again and play limited minutes.  In one game, Connor took over coaching when he was out with an injury.  I made my greatest defensive play ever in that game.  The ball got inside to a guy a good eight inches taller than me and I came down from the top of the zone for some help defense.  As he went up for the shot, I tried to just foul him and keep him from getting a shot off.  Instead, I got all ball and he came down with the ball for the jump ball.  We got the ball on the possession arrow.  In the other games, I took on kind of a player-coach role.  I didn't play much and still handled the substitutions.  With one regular season game remaining, our record stood at 0-7.

We would finish strong.  In our final regular season game, we held on for a 29-28 victory.  We led for most of the game and managed to hang on at the end.  Fortunately everybody made the playoffs, so we had at least one more game.  It was not pretty at the beginning.  We were down 15 at halftime.  I hadn't played at all in the first half.  Down by that many points, I didn't mind going in to start the second half.  I played some solid defense and grabbed three rebounds (easily a season high for me).  I came out after five or six minutes and we had cut the lead to about 10.  Thanks to a great team effort, we eventually took the lead, but it didn't last long.  The other team went up by four once again and the game seemed to be slipping away.  Connor hit a huge three to cut the lead to one.  Andrew scored on a beautiful drive to regain the lead.  My biggest contribution came with us up by one with less than a minute to play.  We had the ball, but our point guard had given up the dribble and was surrounded by defenders.  Instinctively, I yelled for a timeout from the bench to save the possession.  With less than 10 seconds left, Mike hit both shots of a one and one and we won 42-39.

The Swamp Donkeys celebrating a playoff victory.

We lost our next playoff game to a much better team by a score of 73-44.  It was our highest point total of the season.  We came together at the end and finished strong.  So thanks to the Swamp Donkeys for some fun times this summer.  If we get back together next year, I think we'll increase our win total.  My record as head coach was 0-3, but I took solace in the fact that Red Auerbach lost his first three games as coach of the Celtics.

I did enjoy coaching.  I might try to get into coaching at my school.  I could definitely see it being something I'd want to do.  I'd love to do it where I actually had a chance to practice with my team.  So hopefully my coaching career is just getting started.