What I Learned from Coach Errickson

Well, it's been WAY to long since my last post. But that's what happens during the season. Just not enough time in the day to teach, coach, update this etc. But plan on more updates coming now that the high school season has ended and am not doing AAU this year! I'm going to miss coaching AAU because I had a blast last year, but I am also glad that I have some down time to focus on LEARNING the game better. I just want to improve every year.

This year I was lucky enough to be the sophomore coach at Tartan High School under Coach Mark Klingsporn who's a coaching legend here. I learned a ton of stuff from him this year, and those nuggets will be coming in blogs down the road. For my return to the blog, however, I wanted to write some thoughts about what I learned from my assistant coach Art Errickson this season. The fact that Coach Errickson even came to be my assistant is crazy. The guy was a head varsity coach last year and also coached at the college level. He has a high level of knowledge and was way over qualified to help me. We didn't always agree on everything, but having him around definitely made me a much better coach. Below are some important things I learned from him:

1. Shot Selection is Key
    -Everyone says this, but Coach Errickson charted it and constantly preached it
     in games and practice.
    -He charted it in games and used it at half time to reinforce our offensive goals.
    -Reinforced it in practice by making shot selection a rule in our SSGs.
    -Helped us do a great job of getting all our shots either in the paint or kick out threes.
     By the end of the year it was ridiculous.

2. Stats are Powerful Motivators
    -Coach Errickson was good enough to take stats on the bench and use those stats to
     educate our players.
    -Monitored shot selection and used statistics to really help sell our players on the
     "Three or Key" mentality. We had a very good 3pt/FG ratio because of his
     constant use of stats to teach our players. Without the stats our players wouldn't
     have been nearly as good in their shot selection.

3. If you think you are playing enough games in practice, you are wrong.
   -I've always been a fan of small sided games in practice, but Coach Errickson helped
    me take that to the next level.
   -Greatly improved on defense and offense because of the way we used SSGs.
   -Showed me even MORE ways to modify and change SSGs.
   -Also put me onto a "ball clock" that limited how long players could hold
    the ball in practice.

4. I need to run more sets.
    -I don't run enough sets. Luckily coach Errickson showed me some good
     stuff, unfortunately I didn't run it enough.

5. It's vital to check your emotions at times as a coach.
    -I'm an emotional coach and it was great to have a guy with a Sports Psyc Masters
     to remind me to keep my head.

I could go on with several more things, but these are five of the biggest things that I got out of my experience with coach Errickson. I was blessed to have him and couldn't have been luckier!