Participating vs Playing

Many years ago I attended a coaching clinic at which Bob Knight the legendary. college coach spoke. One of the quotes he made I will never forget. Coach Knight said .... "There is a difference between listening and hearing, looking and seeing, participating and playing.

Coach Knight had his issues and his critics but I don't think many could question his intelligence.

If you have coached for any period of time, you know that some of your players may listen to what you say but they do not or are not capable of hearing what you have said. Ask your player(s) to repeat what you have just said. Describe a late game situation then hand out pencil and paper and have your players write down what you just told them. The truth is some of your players will listen but do not hear what you are saying. This will

contribute to your team losing a game or two they might well have won. Listening instead of hearing will have an adverse affect on player execution.

If you have ever had a player miss an open player on offense or have your best ball handler pass the ball to one of your poorer ball handler 50 feet from the rim. You probably can remember other situations which would illustrate the concept of looking but not seeing. Believe me I have many times as a coach looked at a situation but not really saw what was happening. This concept sometimes separates a good player from a great player. Some very positive benefit from video game review is to have your players analize situations.

The reality is you will have player(s) on your team that are participants and some that are players. For your own mental health, I hope the majority of your team members are players. How do you distinguish a participant from a player? Participants tend to go through the motions at some point in time. Playing hard in practice and games is a good indication your player is more than a participant. My coaching experience suggests some of your players do not understand what "playing hard" entails. Do they challenge shots, run hard in transition, block out on offense and pursue the ball when rebounding on offense?

We, as coaches, do a disservice if we "look rather than see." One of my own coaching failures was my failure to consitently teach block outs. Coach John Wooden said there were sins of commission and sins of ommission. Commission mistakes are things like dribbling the ball off your foot or dropping a pass. Sins of ommission is making mistakes because of failure to concentrate such as not closing out properly or failing to block out. Not communicating on defense. Coaching involves knowing how to not over react to either type of player mistake.

What do you mean this is an offensive foul?