Rinse and Repeat

One of the new skills I have developed since I retired is the ability to actually use a washing machine with some degree of success. One of the setting on the machine caught my attention. It is a button you push to get an extra rinse cycle. Now how in the world can that apply to coaching/teaching?

I have gained access to several of the local high school games and been able to watch the teams perform by way of such platforms as HUDL and Youtube. I have found it more and more difficult to focus on the games as the season has progressed. I must confess to the fact that I watched very little video during the course of the season. I found it difficult to prepare and teach five hours of science each day, then plan for practice, and deal

with the other duties asked of a coach. Get some sleep and rinse and repeat five to six days a week.

During a normal basketball season, the length in terms of weeks is somewhere around 16-18 weeks. If you average playing twice a week and practicing 3-4 times a week, that means you will plan and execute somewhere around . To make the math simple let's say you practice three times a week. Over the course of the season you will have somewhere around 48-54 practices and 20 plus games. Now if you spent even 30 minutes prepping for practice you would spend somewhere around 24-27 hours in planning for each practice.

These are of course rough estimates. Your situation may be much different. How do you rinse and repeat?

Routine is a necessary part of our lives. The struggle for me was how to do my coaching and teaching responsibilities in such a way that they did not moved from routine to boredom? Just like washing clothes. A rinse is necessary and the repeat of the process makes sure the residues of washing have been removed. Repeat can lead to a loss of focus and a staleness in learning. How do you repeat without losing your students? How do you repeat and maintain your enthusiasm as the coach/teacher?

"In an emergency (like practice) break this glass!"

I coached junior high football and for a number of years 9th grade football also I coach some junior high baseball. By far the best coaching assignment was coaching 9th grade football. We (my coaching partner) and I practiced Monday thru Wednesday. Played games on Thursday. Then we had three days off. Short season in terms of weeks then went to being a varsity basketball coach. Long season. Twenty six games. Numerous interruptions. Basketball coaches must be crazy!

My wife could never understand why I often tried to "tweak" what I was doing both in my classroom or in my coaching. Teaching five days a week. Coaching for five months can be a grind. The temptation can be to take the easier way out and just let route become boredom. All of you can remember a teacher and in many cases having a coach who managed to be boredom. You know the same every day. Resist the temptation to do the same day after day. You will benefit and so will your student/athletes.

(I had a social studies teacher in high school who came in early each day and wrote questions on the board. He had several black boards and they were filled each day.

We were required to write down all the questions. Then he would go through the questions and tell us the answers which we also needed to write down. Every ten class periods or

so we took a test. Then it was rinse & repeat. Surprise, surprise I learned NOTHING in

that class.)