Since team building is a huge part of the art of basketball coaching, you can never have too many resources for team meetings, bulletin boards, or player’s notebooks.
Here is one that we hope you will find to be useful with your team:
- Keep skid chains on your tongue. Always say less than you think. Cultivate a low, persuasive voice. How you say it often counts more than what you say.
- Make promises sparingly and keep them faithfully, no matter what the cost.
- Never let an opportunity pass to say a kind and encouraging word to or about somebody. Praise good work, regardless of who it is.
- Be interested in others; their pursuits, their work, their homes and their families. Make merry with those who rejoice; with those who weep, mourn. Let everyone you meet, however humble, feel that you regard him as a person of importance.
- Be cheerful. Don’t burden or depress those around you by dwelling on your aches and pains and small disappointments. Remember, everyone is carrying some kind of burden.
- Keep an open mind. Discuss but don’t argue. It is a mark of a superior mind to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.
- Let your virtues, if you have any, speak for themselves. Refuse to talk about the vices of others. Discourage gossip. It is a waste of valuable time and can be destructive and hurtful.
- Take into consideration the feelings of others. Wit and humor at the expense of another are never worth the pain that may be inflicted.
- Pay no attention to ill-natured remarks about you. Remember, the person who carried the message may not be the most accurate reporter in the world. Simply live so that nobody will believe him. Disordered nerves and bad digestion are a common cause of backbiting.
- Don’t be anxious about the credit due you. Do your best and be patient. Forget about yourself and let others “remember.” Success is much sweeter that way.
