Editor’s Note: Zach Harper is a basketball writer. While PublicCEO.com is not usually a space for sports talk (other than stadium/arena issues), the following piece of writing is a valuable lesson to those in local government.
The message: Be the city or county that continues to improve itself and make adjustments rather than the city or county that sticks to the same old system just because it has worked in the past. As further disclosure, PublicCEO Editor James Spencer is the head coach of the team the article references.
I’m a high school basketball coach. To be more specific, I’m a high school basketball junior varsity assistant coach. I have been since the summer. It’s one of the more fun things you could ever do as a hoops nerd like myself.
Back in the summer, our mission as a team was simple: become better basketball players. Maybe that seems too basic right off the bat but when you consider that many high school programs go into the summer in order to win tournaments, it’s a bit refreshing to know that we just taught them the fundamentals of basketball and our school’s program. We didn’t really have many plays. We didn’t have a press or a press break. We went in there to grow as basketball players. Considering these things, the fact that we went 17-4 during the summer shows you just how talented our junior varsity team was/is.
A local, affluent high school didn’t take that approach. They had every weapon and scheme that they’d use this season ready at their team’s disposal back in June. They went into the summer tournaments for free t-shirts and tournament titles. In one of our four summer losses, our team lost to this affluent high school. Let me rephrase that; our team was annihilated by this high school. We ended up losing by around 40 points because they pressed, zoned, and came up with every trick they had to blow us out and embarrass our guys.
Our head coach of the JV (and good friend/future groomsman of mine) told the team after that loss to not hang their heads. He said that the goal of the team that beat us was to win the tournament in the summer and that when we played them in a tournament during the season, we’d be better off for this experience.
We had our first tournament of the season this past weekend. Due to scheduling confusion, we forfeited our first game of the tournament, which took us immediately out of tournament championship contention. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding and unfair to our kids. But we had to live with it even if it wasn’t our fault. So we told the team to prove to the rest of the teams moving into the winners’ bracket in the tournament that they dodged a bullet by not having to face us.
Well, wouldn’t you know that in the last day of this tournament (because of the scheduling issues) we ended up playing this affluent high school that had previously blown us out in the summer. We jumped out to an early lead behind some hot shooting from a ridiculously talented freshman guard that we have and smacked them in the mouth early. We were up 17-6 after the first two minutes and looked like we were going to blow them out, like they had previously done to us. Everything we were running was working and our press breaker was making their press a cute afterthought as we flew up and down the floor. But as in every competitive basketball game, they made a run.
In fact, they made a couple of runs to put us down by about six points with five minutes to play in the game. When we jumped out to our early double-digit lead, the cockiness in their expression was completely wiped away. You could see that not only were they taking us seriously (which they hadn’t planned on doing) but also they were afraid they couldn’t keep up. Now, with them looking to close the game out, we were the team with the thoughts of not being able to keep up.
But then something happened to our team. I can’t describe it as a switch being flipped or a strategy of basketball being implemented to correct what was going wrong. It was more of a general understanding throughout our 12 guys that we were better than this team, had already proven it and we were going to prove it in the final five minutes. All of a sudden offensive rebounds fell our way, jumpers crawled over the rim and in, and our first step was a little quicker than their defensive slides.
We stormed back into the game by forcing turnovers, running our offense correctly, and playing big on the boards despite having our two best big men in foul trouble and their big men towering over our guys. Our system of basketball was being executed perfectly. We found ourselves up six with one minute to go with our improved basketball players outlasting their same basketball schemes. With about 56 seconds left on the clock, our formerly hot-shooting freshman guard stole the ball at half court on an errant pass, he took off up the court and began to gather himself as he went up for a sure fate-sealing transition bucket to sure-up the win for us.
As he gathered himself, both the head coach and I thought to ourselves that he shouldn’t try what he was about to do but at the same time, anticipation was rising within us. His steps slowed, his dribble became deliberate, and his body coiled, ready to explode. This allowed a kid on the other team to catch up with him, not knowing what was about to happen.
Within the blink of an eye, we saw a 14-year old kid launch himself towards the basket, cock back the ball in his hand and rip the ball through the rim with a ferocity I’ve never seen out of someone so young. He punctuated the win with a fast break, tomahawk dunk over an unsuspecting defender that was arguably the biggest Eff You moment I’ve ever experienced in a live game. The place erupted. I lost my mind and jumped off my seat in unison with our bench. The game was ours, the summer was forgotten, and the future of our team was one to be feared by opponents.
And in reflecting on this, I can’t help but look at the current state of some local governments who fail to adapt or make adjustments. Innovative officials who are making adjustments are passing up those local officials who continue to stick to the status quo.
Editor’s Note: Zach Harper is a basketball writer. While PublicCEO.com is not usually a space for sports talk (other than stadium/arena issues), the following piece of writing is a valuable lesson to those in local government.
That message: Be the city or county that continues to improve itself and make adjustments rather than the city or county that sticks to the same old system just because it has worked in the past. As further disclosure, PublicCEO Editor James Spencer is the head coach of the team the article references.