Coach Ed Science
  • Home
  • Intro
  • PS (1-4)
  • PS (5-9)
  • PS (10-14)
  • PS (15-18)
  • PS (19-21)
  • Space Exploration
  • Warriors Hoops
  • Summer Basketball Camps
  • Flying Pumpkins, 2020
  • Literacy
  • #getBETTER Hoops at Home
  • Coach's Corner
  • NOVA Nation
  • Villa Drills
  • Improving Your Shooting
  • Footwork Drills
  • Bball Skills & Drills
  • USA Basketball Tips
  • Things to Ponder
  • Motivation
  • Sportsmanship
  • Thoughts from Paul Harvey
  • Cool Links & Games

Coach's Corner

“It never ceases to surprise me at the infinite capacity of the human mind to resist the introduction of useful knowledge.”
- Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

PROPER FOCUS (GENO AURIEMMA PART V)

9/22/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Geno Auriemma is the Head Women's Basketball Coach at the University of Connecticut. His teams have won eleven national championship; the most in the history of college basketball. Auriemma's teams have a record of 188-3 in the last five seasons.
 
Coach Auriemma has the ability to get his players to have proper focus: they focus on what they are doing right now in practice as opposed to worrying about what the ultimate outcome will be.
 
His interaction with future Hall of Famer and All American Rebecca Lobo, who led Connecticut to its first national championship in 1995, is a good example of the proper focusapproach.
 
UConn followed up its surprise run to the Final Four in 1991 by landing Lobo, the top high school player in the country. UConn had modest success in Lobo's first 2 seasons, losing early in the NCAA Tournament in both seasons and finished 2nd and 3rd in the Big East Conference. It was a disappointing start. In his book Geno: In Pursuit of Perfection, Auriemma described working with Lobo to achieve the proper focus:
 
"Just before her junior season begins, I sit her down and I tell her, Whatever you are doing needs to change. You are obsessed with winning a national championship and becoming an All-America, and you know why? Because you are afraid you won't. And because you are afraid you won't, it's paralyzing you when it comes time to make plays. So here's what we are going to do. It's a process that is going to involve the next two years. Understand that whatever happens, you are in the process of becoming all the things you want. Let's stop focusing on the end result and start focusing on what happens every day in practice. Live for the moment and stop worrying about what will happen in the future".
 
"The next season, in 1993-94, we go 30-3. She's a first team All-America. The year after that, we go 35-0, and in the second half of the national championship game she makes every single big shot she needs to make, and she becomes Rebecca Lobo, the symbol for everything that is right and good about women's basketball. Lobo was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2010."
 
Auriemma removed the stress for Lobo - the kind that comes from a fear of losing, meeting the expectations of others or an overeager appetite to win, by focusing on improvement each day in practice; one day at a time.
 
Long term goals are great but obsessing or worrying about whether or not they will be achieved creates stress which is a distraction from the daily improvement needed to reach your potential.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Dave Edinger has been coaching basketball for 37 years at the high school, middle school. and international levels. As a head coach, his teams have won 572 games.

    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed