Ep 2885 Jay Wright on the State of Youth Basketball: Why "Attitude" is the Only X and O That Matters ( Part 1)

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Welcome to or welcome back to the Coaching Youth Hoops podcast.

I'm your host, Coach Bill Flitter.

Coach, welcome to the show.

Good to be with you, Bill.

Hey, so we're going to, before we get started talking

about basketball, let's say, what?

I've always been curious.

I've read a lot of your stuff, followed you.

If you come to one of my practices,

you'll be like, wait a second, that was mine.

You're implementing that at the youth level.

I stole that stuff too.

Right, it's like a Frankenstein of different coaches.

But what do you think coaching kind of forced you

to become as a person?

Interesting.

If it forced me to be much more of a mentor,

in my career more than an X and O coach,

I think when I first started, I liked the relationships with players.

But I loved the game and the X's and O's

and the teaching of skills and fundamentals.

And in the beginning, I thought, really, that was the key.

And I've realized the more and more I coached,

how important mentoring and developing trust

with the people you work with and the people you work for

was more important than the X's and O's and the fundamentals.

And I really, in my first head coaching job at Hofstra University

when we weren't winning.

But I sensed that everybody was giving me everything they had.

And I had really good people.

And we just weren't good enough yet.

But it wasn't that we weren't giving great effort.

It wasn't that we weren't committed.

And we were all down because we were losing.

It made me realize, you know, my job is to make sure

everybody feels good about themselves and being mentors.

Even my assistants who were working their butts off,

we were doing the right things.

It was just going to take time.

And from that point on, I really understood that it was much more

my relationship as the leader, the mentor,

that was going to allow us to build fundamentals

and build X's and O's and build execution.

Yeah, and I think that carries through the matter

at what age you're teaching.

It's more than just the X's and O's.

Definitely, 100%.

You know, there's an old saying they don't care how much you know

your players care how much you care.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's really true.

Like, the coaching is getting someone to trust you

and then teaching them the right things so that they understand

eventually what you were telling them is something they should listen to.

You know, it used to be probably your era.

You're probably still younger than me,

but it used to be your coach was your coach,

whatever he says, whatever she says,

just do what she says because she's a coach.

And we were just all taught that.

And it was a simpler process back then.

But it's not that way now.

You have to earn that trust, develop that trust,

and really maintain that trust.

You have to allow you to be their mentor.

And what?

Because I guess why did that change?

Because you're right.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, coach says, you just do it.

Like, you don't question it.

And just go, why did that change?

Or how does it work?

When you said, though, coach says, so you just do it.

Yeah.

And you'd come home and say something to your parents.

And your parents will say, well, what is a coach say?

And you tell your parents what a coach says, I'm wrong.

And then your parents would say, well, then you're wrong.

The coach says you're wrong.

You're wrong.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's over.

I think our society, as a whole,

has stressed branding the individual much more

than being a part of a team,

being a part of something bigger than yourself.

I'm not saying it's all bad.

It's just, you know, I think our society has changed.

But I still believe, and towards the end of our career,

maybe the last five years, we took on the assumption that

when we got guys at the division one level at Villanova,

they had never been taught about the concept of team.

They had never been taught that you could actually commit

to the team, commit to your teammates.

And that could actually be the best path for you

to have the best individual brand,

and be the best version of yourself.

And we would just, initially, when they would first get

that we would ask them to just think about that possibility.

And think about that.

And that's something that we're going to treat,

that we believe in, and we really want you to be your best.

But we really believe your ability to be your best individually

is to be a part of something bigger than yourself

and to actually think about how your actions affect others.

So it was a long process,

later in our career, where you had to get guys

to actually think about it, use their intelligence,

talk to their parents about it,

and get them to accept it at some point

during their four-year career.

Whereas early in our career,

you just apparently need them over to you and say,

hey, if you have any trouble with them, you let me know.

You'll do what you say.

So you're saying that towards the end of your career,

you sub players just in it for themselves

and not bringing this team thought process

that the guys around me are going to make me better?

I don't want to read too much into that,

but is that telling what you're doing?

Yeah, definitely.

And it wasn't their fault.

It wasn't selfishness.

It was just the way basketball,

because we were getting the highest level players

who were potential professional players.

Right.

Not definitely professional players,

but potential professional players.

Well, I shouldn't say that way.

They were going to be professional players.

It was either going to be internationally

or in the NBA, but they were good enough.

But the way they had gotten there was most of them,

not all of them,

but most of them had gotten there

through a process of playing the game

to get raided highly

to get taken by the best AAU program

to get a scholarship to high school,

to get a scholarship to college,

to get to the NBA,

not to win a championship,

to be a part of a team,

to develop trust with your teammates,

to learn to be coachable.

That wasn't part of the process.

But we would explain that to them in recruiting.

And so we kind of knew if they chose us,

we knew they were being recruited

by other schools that were saying to them,

hey, we're going to make you the star.

We're going to let you knew.

And that can work for some too.

But that wasn't the way we did it.

It was, hey, you're going to be a part of something bigger than yourself.

You're going to respect who came before you.

You're going to think about how your actions impact your teammates.

You're going to play the game to win.

And we're all going to work together

to develop each one of you

to be the best you can possibly be.

If you trust that process, come here.

So if they came to us,

they were going to try it.

It wasn't.

They were going to get a job.

Yeah. Well, that happens too.

I mean, again, it's at a different level.

But, you know, I've said,

in the club program,

it's, you know, parents coming up saying,

well, they're promising me this at this other club.

They're promising me to, you know,

my, my son or daughter is going to play up one level, right?

And that's a, you know, that's always the big deal

if they can play it up one level, right?

So it's, it carries through to that.

And that's probably where it starts.

But on that same vein, you, you know,

again, over your career,

the youth basketball,

the youth basketball has definitely changed evolves.

Good, bad, right?

Yeah.

I guess what worries you most about the state

of youth basketball,

at least in the states today?

Oh, there, there are a lot of good things.

Great organization.

Yeah.

There's a lot of good coaches.

No, unfortunately on social media,

you know, we'll see the crazy coach

that goes and punches.

Right. Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, that's one of thousands of

really good coaches out there.

I think what concerns me is,

is what we talked about earlier is using

the process of youth sports

to emphasize individual development

and individualism over team play.

I always, I always thought

guys that were on our team

that won state championships

in high school,

that they're AU programs,

won championships.

They were part of winning.

You know, to do that,

they'd had to have some level

of sacrifice for the team.

Yeah, for sure.

And we even liked guys on highly talented

AU teams and highly talented

high school teams that weren't the stars

that would know how to play

with other players.

And if we got a guy that was

from a team that wasn't that talented

and he was the best player,

what we always looked at was how did he treat

the other guys on his team,

the best player,

how did he treat the coach,

how did he treat the other players?

There's a responsibility there

of being a leader that some of the guys

would really take on early in their careers

and you like that.

And other guys you would see they were the best player

and expected to be treated differently

because they were the best player.

So they were all things

that we looked at in youth basketball.

It really at young ages,

you'd see that.

And I just think there are a lot

of good youth programs that stress

being a part of the team and the team

better than the bigger than the individual

and then everyone's got a sacrifice

for the team and some of those teams,

a lot of those teams still have

really good individual players.

Yeah, for sure.

One of the arguments, too,

is the amount of games that we play

in the States versus say Europe,

it's actually split,

where we play a lot of games,

less development in Europe.

They play a lot of,

are they practice more than they play?

Is one model,

do you think that's true?

Is one model better than the other?

Or if, and maybe the third question to that, too,

is like, if you had to map out

the ideal youth player development,

what would that look like?

It's interesting that I feel like,

okay, we're talking in generalities here.

So there's some really good youth programs

that emphasize the development of skills

and fundamentals at a young age

and practice maybe two to one,

you know, two practices for every game.

You know, at a young age,

you can't go the other way.

You can be a good practice player

and not have a good feel for game situations.

So the games are good.

I'm all about the games.

And if you play a lot of games in a day

and you use that as a way to get everybody on the,

I'm talking about youth sports,

to get everybody playing time,

that's a good thing.

But if you're playing three games in a day,

a young kid,

and the same guys are playing,

you know, 32 minutes in every game,

you know, that's something that I think

should be looked at differently.

But I was remiss in not saying

that the development of skills

and fundamentals the way they do in Europe

is missing.

I would say in a lot of the youth programs,

because you're trying to get a lot of

the best players together.

You know, you're trying to get a lot of time

recruiting the best players.

It's been taken the guys they have

and trying to make them the best they can be.

And then that leads to

having a lot of players have like their own individual coaches.

Individual coaches teach them their skills

and then the team coaches teach them the game.

So if those individual coaches

are working together with the team coach

and seeing what does the team coach emphasize

and I'm trying to make my young girl or guy

the best he can be within that system,

then it could be helpful.

But it's usually not that way.

Individual coaches got his philosophy.

Team coach has his philosophy.

Well, you know, which then, you know,

I think about this a lot, which is,

you know, there was a...

I came across this.

It was a Facebook update.

And this organization is coming out

with the top players by age group

all the way down to nine new.

And, you know, I'm thinking,

okay, if I just old school,

thinking that's like,

you need to rank players at nine new,

because as you know,

their bodies change,

their interest change, right?

So much changes in the next three or four years.

You know, why are we,

you know, why are we doing this?

It's like, you know,

and I think, okay,

we just have to roll with it,

because that's what's happening,

versus like, you know,

the train has left the station.

You know, and how do we,

just like, you know,

I don't know what though,

you know, like,

slow things down a little bit,

like, you know,

there's a time and a place for rankings.

Yeah.

I do think,

I do think the train has left the station.

I think there's,

again, I think it's,

it's far society.

There's so much,

there's just so much information out there,

you know?

Yeah.

Social media.

Everybody's looking for content.

Yeah.

And everyone's looking for

followers and hits.

And I think most of that is done.

Most of those rankings are done for followers and hits.

And I think it puts more responsibility on the parents

and the people,

which is tough,

because I think a lot of people,

I would say,

blame parents for not doing a good job

of being to enter their own child's rankings

and hype and recruiting.

But there's,

there's a lot more responsibility put on the parents now, too, where

those rankings are going to be out there.

The parents that I've seen that have handled the best have explained

to their child that,

hey, this is,

this is all kind of fantasy.

Like, you know,

you're nine years old.

What kind of basketball player you are,

really not what's important to us.

What kind of brother you are,

what kind of son you are,

what type of man you develop into,

what type of husband you are,

what type of citizen,

what type of teammate,

that's what's important to us.

So it gets,

all that gets now put on the parents

because no one else is doing that.

The reason parents used to trust coaches so much

because the coaches would do that.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

The coaches would say,

you know, we don't,

you know, there weren't ranking.

We're not, we're not ranking you.

We're,

we're teaching you how to be the best young man,

the best young woman you can be,

through team sports.

Well, that's,

that's not happening as much.

So it all comes back on the parents.

And of the,

I can tell you,

the best players we've had,

I can tell you to a man,

have parents,

good people around them,

have kept them grounded.

And,

and,

and I can go through every one of them.

I can,

and there's not one

that has been very successful.

I'm talking about as a student,

as an athlete,

and as a young man,

that had bad people around them,

that were just in rankings,

or their individual success.

Yeah.

Good point.

We've had good people around all of our really good players.

And you prove that it works.

I mean,

a couple of national championships too, right?

That you can win

in that,

in that type of environment.

If you look,

what is that?

That help.

That help.

That help.

Honestly,

honestly,

before that,

before that,

before we won national championships,

there were a lot of really successful guys

who went on,

had successful careers,

went to sweet 16s,

final eights,

one big east championships.

You know,

never made a final four,

but got their degree,

played professionally,

became great husbands,

role models.

Those guys were just as important to me

as guys at one national championships,

or guys that went on to the NBA.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, that's the thing about coaching, right?

If we look at it through that lens,

that that's our job, right?

And our job is,

like you said,

to win a national championship,

it's to,

it's to,

nurture human beings

for the rest of their life, right?

This is a small blip in their time, right?

In their timeline.

So,

so,

you're looking,

like,

you're going back to what you said before,

with the rankings,

and the, you know,

there's so much video now,

and so many apps coming out,

where you can just do clips,

and, right,

and break,

you know, break the kids game down,

or highlight reels,

and all of that.

As you look at your last few years,

where a lot of that tech started to come into play,

did you use that kind of, you know,

maybe go to their social media accounts,

how much was that?

I mean,

an emphasis as a

college recruiting tool, so to speak,

and follow up question to that,

maybe it's even deeper.

It's like,

if,

and again,

we're speaking general,

because you can't speak for all college coaches,

but what are those

intangibles that,

that we can,

that you can confidently say that most coaches,

look for in a player,

the non,

the non-athletic ability things, right?

You know what, Bill,

I can tell you what we did,

and I would think,

most guys did this.

But we use social media,

those highlight films,

all the posts,

you know,

they're Instagram accounts,

they're Twitter accounts.

We would use that

to analyze their character.

You know,

not ever

to evaluate them as players.

We never,

we never trusted a highlight film ever.

But I like them, you know,

and with the best players,

a lot of times,

we wanted to go see them play to see,

how did they handle situations

when they were not playing well?

How did they, you know,

what were they like going back on defense

when they missed a shot?

What were they like at the end of a game

when they weren't having a good shooting night,

and they were losing?

The game was tight at the end.

How were they in their huddle?

How were they in their teammate?

With their teammates?

We used live evaluation,

the most,

I would say,

one of the years that we probably

did our worst job of evaluating,

we got kind of lucky with some guys,

but they were not,

they were not what we thought they were going to be,

but they,

they turned out to be pretty good,

was the COVID year when we couldn't go out

in a valuable,

interesting,

we had a recruiting class just off a video.

And the guys,

we were lucky,

the guys turned out to be really good guys.

Yeah.

They were not,

by watching film,

they were not the players

that we thought they were going to be.

Now, we were,

we did a great job on character.

Yeah.

They were good character guys.

But we didn't,

we wanted to see on social media

where guys talking about their teammates,

were they talking about winning and losing,

were they just talking about their individual statistics

and,

you know,

what were they showing you,

what they did off the court,

you know,

what were they into

off the court.

That's really,

and never trusted a highlight film.

You might see one of my catcher eyes,

they're like,

okay, we,

we,

we got to look into this,

give more,

never trusted that.

Never trusted.

So, okay, we,

we have coaches and parents listening right now,

and, you know,

they're all at the edge of their seat.

They got,

they got a special player, right?

And let's say,

we'll, we'll say they're early in their high school years.

They're a freshman right now in high school, okay?

And so they got four more years of development.

And they're,

they're showing signs, right?

What,

what do we tell those

coaches and parents

to focus on for the next four years?

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