ATTITUDE: THE KEY TO MAKING YOUR TEAM
BY GUS ALFIERI“What does Attitude mean?” is the way I begin the most important talk I give to young boy and girl campers at my summer basketball camp. Most young athletes don’t know what the word means, and yet, without a good attitude most of them will have difficulty making their scholastic and travel teams.
What I try to impress is that coaches, who know how a bad attitude can hurt a team, decide an athlete’s future.Rather than try to explain Attitude in blurred, meaningless phrases, I’ll use a few examples:
A game ends, teams line up to shake hands, but one teammate makes a mad dash to the scorer’s table to calculate his point total. Sound familiar? Tommy throws a teammate a bad pass, but he spends the next 45 seconds chewing out the innocent receiver. A player dribbles down court on a fast break and takes a shot even though there was an unguarded teammate near the basket. The inconsiderate “hog,” as we used to call them, decided to shoot to fatten his PPG totals. But what happened to team play?
Basketball works best when all five players accept a team concept, and place personal interests on the back burner. Unfortunately, there are too many selfish players who are encouraged by family and friends to worry only about their stats, not team play. This is the stuff losers are made of and what causes coaches to pull their hair out. But it also forces coaches to make unnecessary cuts from teams. Kids don’t realize that as they journey up the sports ladder, play gets narrower, more competitive, and one of the main criteria coaches use to weed their teams is a player’s attitude.When Johnny plays in the neighborhood league, and his Dad is the coach, all is well with the world. He is used to taking as many shots as he wants, getting unlimited time, making the all star team, and never hearing criticism about his play. But when he goes out for the school team or a travel team, and finds himself cut, the youngster often feels that he might have been as talented or better than those that made the team. How does the coach determine the difference between equally talented kids? Often it’s by attitude.
What I try teaching campers is that the person they have to impress is the one with the whistle around his neck, and most kids don’t know what motivates a coach. Kids assume that shooting well is a sure ticket to making the team. But besides shooting well, good coaches want a player who relates with his teammates. Is he cooperative? Does he hustle? Is he a problem when the coach turns his back? Does he make a face when he has to complete a strenuous drill? These are attitude issues that help a coach make a final cut. Notice that none of them had to do with any fundamental skill. Kids today are at a disadvantage. Most have relied upon their parents to chaperone them from game site to practices. Often a parent is the coach, and training has been geared to make things cozy for the young athlete.But when parents are left behind , and the athlete tries for a competitive team, he often has problems.
Coaches don’t need additional problems. They already have to deal with community pressure from those who believe that political clout entitles their child to special privileges. The coach wants kids who love the sport and are willing to give the “H” word a run for its money. [“H” being HUSTLE!] Coaches love players who volunteer, give their best, never make excuses, and come fifteen minutes before the designated time ready to play.
When I coached, I had a special expression for my favorites. I called them, “Horizontal Players.” It described the way they aggressively dove for loose balls. The ball belongs to the player who gets to it first, and those diving, or “Horizontal Players” often accomplished the task. Coaches go out of their way for athletes who work on their own, stay after practice to work on skills, ask intelligent questions, but never make a smirky face when asked to do something unappealing, like run an extra lap.“Cream comes to the top,” was an old adage that applies today to all youngsters trying to play sports. If you’re good enough coaches will recognize it.
One of the problems with youth sports is that parents think they have to “close the deal” for their kids. What a mistake. If I were a young player growing up in suburbia, I would be careful what I say about the coach at school, even though negatives about him may be exchanged at home. Growing up in Brooklyn, my folks were more concerned with putting food on the table, than my sports. As I got older, I traveled by train and buses by myself to my games. They never saw me play a basketball game until the end of my senior year in high school.When I came home from a game, I never experienced “Third Degree” questioning. It was my game, my fun, not theirs.
“How did you do, Gus?” my mother would ask as I entered my apartment.
“We lost, Ma,” I remember answering.
She thought for a moment then ask an unlikely question by today’s standards.
“Did anyone get hurt?”
“No, Ma,” I said relieved.
“Then sit down and eat your supper,” and that was the end of it.
If I were a young athlete today, I would make sure that I loved a sport before I went overboard practicing it.But if I made a commitment to a sport, then I would put my energies into it. I would practice, hustle, and try to learn as much about it as I could. I would play against better competition in the park and when around a coach, I would be as cooperative as possible. Show the coach your passion for the game. Coaches love that. Always exude a positive attitude, just drip with it. Attitude is a huge word for most coaches, and unfortunately, many cut players find that out. I hope by now we have a better understanding of the difference between good and bad Attitude.
Gus Alfieri
631-265-7142
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