If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk? –Laurence J. Peter
Let’s be honest…you are tired. It’s been a long season. You’ve coached 70-90 practices. You’ve coached 20-30 games. You’ve taught. You’ve encouraged. You’ve yelled. You’ve celebrated. You’ve left the gym devastated. You’re darn right you’re tired. A basketball season is completely physically and emotionally consuming for a coach. It’s not just the practices and the games. There’s the player meetings, practice prep, film sessions, trips to scout your opponents, writing of scouting reports, more film, more one-on-one player meetings, administrative meetings, conference meetings, uninformed parent meetings…It goes on and on and on.
Whether you went 1-24 or you just won the state championship, your body is still running on adrenaline, and you are trying to figure out what to do with the massive amount of time that just fell in your lap.
Now, I know there is equipment and uniforms to collect. There’s a banquet to plan. There’s stats and film to organize. There’s weights and conditioning and summer camps and leagues to create. There’s college prospects on your roster that need help with their recruiting, and there are letters to write and phone calls to make. I get it. However, you’ve got no more practices to plan for 8 months…no more games to prep…no more x’s and o’s to build. It’s time to breathe.
As Mr. Peter said above, it’s time to clear your desk and time to clear your mind. Today you are a phoenix. Today is the start of your next renaissance.
You need time to start fresh and for a few weeks, you need to think about you and your family and let basketball be a foreign country a billion miles away. Make yourself establish some new routines for a while. Meet a friend for coffee or breakfast once per week. Start hitting that treadmill at school 3 days a week…even for just 10 minutes. Take your wife or husband out for dinner on a Tuesday or Friday night. They don’t even know you exist on those nights. Start a book you’ve been meaning to read. Eat dinner with your family every night and actually have a family outing once per week. Whatever you do, replace the loss with routine that gives you peace and joy and a reminder that you are a human being.
If you are one of those coaches whose desk is always clean and immaculate at the end of the day, I applaud you. That’s impressive. If you are like the rest of us, you want that clutter created from needing the days to be longer than 24 hours to go away. Clean your desk. Clean your office. Then step back and feel good that you have a clean canvass to start painting your next season again when you are ready.
What’s nice about the end of the season is that you now have the power to re-invent yourself. You can explode from the ashes of last season, and come out flying as a completely new creature.
Maybe you are finally getting some seniors to graduate who weren’t the best leaders. Maybe you finally will have some size or speed or shooters or scorers or a team committed to running or defensive pressure next year. Whether you won ZERO games or you won them all, step back, breathe, and start thinking about who you want to be next and what tools do you have to create your very “first” team for the upcoming year.
If you need that guy to have a coffee with or just a chat that will lead to a lot of laughter, give me a call. Enjoy this time. You’ve earned it!
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