Happy New Year! Life Lessons from a High School Coach

Thank you to Westlake High boys basketball coach Jeff Huber for a great New Year’s message published on his blog as we greet 2020!

We think you will agree that his observations have meaning for all of us, no matter our arena in life.

New Year, New Opportunities

‘Happy New Year!

‘As we embark on a New Year, it’s a great time to both reflect and look forward.  With regards to our team, we can improve greatly if we do both of those things. We have been fortunate enough to have some early success and also have suffered a couple of losses recently.  Both offer great lessons. Our first loss, against Berea-Midpark, was a game where one play could have made the difference between winning and losing. As we watched the film, we saw numerous plays that we could have made, any one of which likely would have swung the outcome.  One lesson of that game is that every single thing matters. Whether it’s a boxout in the first quarter or a closeout in overtime, failure to do the “little” things even once can make the difference between winning and losing. Momentary lapses in physical or mental effort can have huge consequences.  A second lesson dealt with preparation. We did not practice well in preparation for that game. To then play at a subpar level reinforces the idea that ‘failing to prepare is preparing to fail’. The second loss, against Perrysburg, was not a close game. Yet, it still offered great lessons. Unfortunately, the first lesson of that game was the same as the Berea game – poor preparation leads to poor performance.  We practiced very poorly the day prior to the game, which made it not surprising that we would then play poorly. A second lesson is that you always owe it to yourself and your teammates to compete. Even had we played great, we would not have beaten Perrysburg. However, we did not play to our potential. As we try to instill in our players, it’s not who we play, it’s how we play. Outcome aside, we did not play in a way that we could be proud of at Perrysburg.  Finally, Perrysburg showed us what we aspire to be. Watching them play, it was clear that is an excellent program that expects to be successful and does the things necessary to be successful. It is my goal that Westlake basketball reaches the same point. 

‘I am always disappointed when we do not play as well as we are capable. However, those losses do not have to be failures.  Yesterday we watched a video of Kobe Bryant talking about failure. In the video, he said failure doesn’t exist unless you let it exist.  He explained that events only become failures if you don’t learn and grow from them. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js8OfeEL4jI). I couldn’t agree more. 

‘The exciting thing for our team is that we still have the majority of our season ahead of us.  We still have a great opportunity to improve and become the best team we are capable of. This is where the balance of reflection and looking ahead enters the equation for our team, just as it does for individuals making New Year’s Resolutions.  It is crucial to reflect on the past year and where we succeeded (what allowed us to win our first five games?) and where we fell short (detailed above). Once we have analyzed that, we have to get busy getting better. Knowing the problem is part of the process, but if you don’t take action, that knowledge is meaningless.  For us, we need to recommit to doing the things within our control that allowed us to have success (sprinting the floor, valuing the ball, communicating on defense, etc.). The great thing is that all of those things are within our control. If our team can adopt a growth mindset and know that every day offers chances for improvement, we can and will continue to get better.  

‘As I think about it, the process our team is going through is really the same process many of us go through individually as we try and become better versions of ourselves in 2020. I have great belief and confidence in our team that they will rise to the occasion.  I am very grateful for the support of the Westlake community throughout the early part of this season. It is our goal to be a team that the school and community can be proud of, both for how we play but also for how we conduct ourselves (on the court, in the classroom, and in the community).  We will continue to do everything in our power to be that team in 2020 and beyond!’