Playing in the Positive

This is a step away from my normal Ed Tech blog...Today's topic: Youth Basketball.  After a weekend of watching 4th and 5th graders play in a state basketball tournament, I was inspired to share some of my observations.

Disclaimer: This blog isn't directed at my son, his teammates, his coaches, or our group of parents, it is a reflection on multiple teams and supporters I witnessed at the tournament.

The reasons we participate in sports are numerous: love of the game, competition, camaraderie, community pride, etc.  All positive!!  However, frustration and anger were the two dominant emotions I witnessed this weekend from players, coaches, and parents.  My concern is that we are creating a culture of playing in the negative.

What is playing in the negative?

A player makes a negative play (turnover, missed shot, defensive mistake, failure to block out, etc.) and that play is immediately followed by a negative reaction.  This weekend I witnessed countless negative reactions from multiple sources, including the player involved, teammates, coaches, and parents.  These ranged from body language, to yelling (at the ref, teammate, parent, child, etc.), to pouting or giving up, or worse--retaliation.

As a result, that one negative play has now grown exponentially and has lowering the "negative bar" even lower for the next negative play, and so on, and so on.

Mistakes are part of the learning cycle.

Basketball is a game where players constantly have to learn and evolve, and mistakes or negative plays are a natural part of that learning cycle.  In my 30 plus years as a player, coach, and spectator, I have never witnessed a "perfect game,” mistakes and negative plays happen.  We can't control when mistakes happen as there are too many variables from the play of another player, the ability of the opposing team, or a missed call by a referee.  What we CAN control is how we respond when a negative play happens.  The teacher in me always likes to compare the basketball court to the classroom.  Imagine if the "playing in the negative" scenario happened in that environment. I would imagine it would look something like this:

• A 4th grade student is reading in class and mispronounces a word.  The reading specialist in the classroom identifies the error to the student.
• After being corrected, the student shows their frustration by flipping their book over and gesturing towards the regular classroom teacher with their hands up.
• At the same time, the classmate next to the student slams their hands on the desk and shouts "Really?!"
• Then the student's parents yell at the student, "Come on!  You are better than that!"
• Finally, the classroom teacher stands up, walks towards the reading specialist and yells, "Now you are going to call that?  The other kids mispronounced the same word and you didn't call anything!"

I think we all can agree that this isn’t a culture of learning in the classroom, so why is it ok on the basketball court? We need to play in the positive.

What is playing in the positive?

A player makes a negative play (turnover, missed shot, defensive mistake, failure to block out, etc.), realizes that mistakes happen and concentrates on making a positive play on the next possession.  At the same time, the player thinks about what caused the negative play and how it could be avoided next time.  Teammates respond by supporting their teammate with positive play in the next possession as well and reflect on how they could have changed their play to positively impact the situation.  Coaches encourage the player to respond with positive play.  When the time is appropriate, ask some constructive questions or give good feedback.

• Why do you think the negative play happened?
• What could you have done differently during the play?
• Give specific skills or activities that you will work on in practice to help.

Parents also encourage the player to respond with positive play.  Focus on positive play, not the negative play.

Model positive responses to officials.

We need to stop complaining to referees.  When we do this, we are modeling to our kids/players that this is acceptable behavior.  Has anyone ever witnessed a sporting event where somebody has argued or complained to a referee and the referee changes the call? When a call doesn't go our way, we need to let it go and model how to handle it positively.  This weekend I referenced a handful of technical fouls, a few flagrant fouls, and one coach ejection...in a 4th/5th grade tournament.

Change the culture!

Where do we go from here?  Well, we need to change the culture one play at a time.  "Playing in the Negative" didn't happen overnight, it has been learned by our kids/players over time.  Getting our kids/players to "Play in the Positive" will take effort, but ultimately will produce players we all will be proud of.

Play in the Positive!