Providing Insights on Leadership and Success. Coach Bechler is a John Maxwell Leadership Team Member.
(originally published on March 20, 2013)
This is the time of the year when there are a lot of open basketball coaching positions. Most good athletic directors should have some kind of a working list of potential replacements if they should ever have an opening in one of their sports. Yes, they can accept resumes but they should have some names and ideas of people that they might want to go after. This is the same whether you are a DI athletic director or a small college athletic director.
All of us sports fans have heard it said that “Defense Wins Championships”. Though that axiom has a lot of legitimacy, it is hard to say whether it is 100% true. Lots of things go into winning a championship. However, I must say that this year, it seemed that I noticed more winning coaches praising their team’s defensive efforts as the main reason for their success. This has gotten me to thinking about my team and whether or not we should emphasize defense even more next year. It probably can’t hurt. Regardless, here are some of the examples that I am talking about when it comes to defense helping a team win a basketball championship.
(originally published on March 27, 2012)From March 10-20, I spent time serving on the NAIA National Tournament Committee. It was a bittersweet experience. Meeting all the coaches, watching all the games, observing many practices and helping the tournament run smoothly was great. However, it was difficult watching the teams play knowing that we had been fairly close to qualifying ourselves. If only we’d won 1-2 more games, we might have been one of the 32-teams that earned a bid. I must say that Rob Edmission’s Oklahoma City University team was extremely impressive throughout the entire tournament. They beat Union University in the championship game, which is no small feat. As I watched the games and thought about how to get my team to the tournament, I came up with some observations. In no particular order, I have listed them below.