This Weekend's tourny and next practice

All,

From my drive home Saturday from Whitewater until right now sitting here typing, I've been wondering what to say in this email. I think of myself as an employee of you, the parents, for the benefit of you daughters. I am responsible for the growth and progression of the girls through this summer session, which is now 3/5 over. Personally, I feel that I can do more to help the girls. I understand most of us are frustrated. Frustrated in losing games we should have won, and frustrated in getting blown out when we should have been competitive. As the coach, your employee, I have to take a stand and do what's right for the team. I think I've been too nice; I haven't challenged your daughters enough as individuals or as teammates. Moving forward here is what you can expect from me: I will push your daughter to be the basketball player I think she can be, I will challenge your daughter to do what's right for the team as well as their individual growth as a player. I will be more direct with my constructive criticism. All of your daughters bring things to this team that the team needs, all of your daughters have a place on this team, this team needs to learn how to work as a team. My yelling and screaming from the sideline hasn't helped us to play better team basketball, so my direct approach will.

My coaching will only get harder starting this week as most of your girls' basketball time will be spent with their regular season school teams. Maybe your daughter will be on varsity, maybe JV. I can't control what offense they run there, I can't control what plays they will run. What I ultimately have to be reponsible for is how your girls do when they are on the court in a Swing jersey and in my practice. I won't enable a good team to not play as a team, but for letting that happen in the past, I apologize and now I'm stepping it up as a coach because I am responsible for our 2-10 record. I can handle losing, kind of, but I can't handle getting blown out and seeing the look on your daughters' faces like I saw at half-time of our last game.

~coach g