Are you Better than the starter?

Admit it, you played on a team once where you thought the starting guy at your position sucked. Or at least you thought you were better. I'm convinced that most of the world's athletes are the average people hoping to sniff a few minutes of playing time. Some get a whiff while others...well...what's the opposite of a whiff? Team Manager maybe? Here's a 6ixth Man lesson: If you're a bench rider, YOU MUST LEARN THE GAME BETTER THAN THE GUYS ON THE FLOOR.

Are you good at remembering names? Maybe you are an auditory learner. Can you watch someone do something once and then replicate it? Maybe you are a visual learner. Do you need to physically do something before you feel confident with the activity? Maybe your learning style is what is known as bodily-kinesthetic. Knowing how you prefer to learn is important. What is more important is that you engage your learning style once you know what it is.

I can't speak for sports other than basketball but in the game of hoop, you are probably not playing in practice scrimmages if you're getting DNPs (did not play) next to your name in the paper. This was the case for me during a stretch of my career. Our practice uniforms were black and white. Starters wore black and the second team was in white jerseys. I was in and out of the white group and did not elevate to black status until my senior year. So, being a bodily-kinesthetic learner, I had difficulty mastering concepts because I could only hear them taught and/or see them demonstrated. I am a learner who needs to “do it” first. The result was that when it was my turn to do a drill or run a play I made mistakes. It looked like I was not paying attention and coach usually commented on these things. Comment is a euphemism for… “He blew up at us for not paying attention.” At such a rate I could never become a better player so I did what any struggling student does. I got a tutor.

We had ex-players(alumni) who assisted my head coach and I had them literally walk me through plays in slow motion from as many positions as I could conceivably find myself in a game. You know what happens when you pursue a tutor? The tutor teaches and tells the coach how much you want to learn. Not only do you master offensive and defensive schemes but you gain the respect of the head coach. Whether he plays you in the next game or not, your stock with coach goes up. And I realized I valued the respect of my coach more than minutes on the floor though the two eventually will intersect. Your tutor needs three things:

• The respect of your coaching staff
• Knowledge of the sport
• The ability to teach what they know (Some of the best players are the worst teachers)

When you're done reading this and posting a comment, make a list of people who could tutor you into the rotation on your team.