In The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, Leonard Mlodinow writes that “mathematical analysis of firings in all major sports, however, have shown that those firings had, on average, no effect on team performance” (p. x). In fact, in today’s era of quick hires and fires, some of the greats of the coaching profession likely never would have achieved greatness: John Wooden and Coach K likely would have been fired far before either won his first national championship due to the impatience of the administration and fan base.
Despite this analysis, the public believes strongly in the importance of coaching changes, even though nobody has created a good way to analyze a coach’s performance beyond wins and losses. Mlodinow writes “the human mind is built to identify for each event a definite cause and can therefore have a hard time accepting the influence of unrelated or random factors” (p. xi). If a team does well, the coach is regarded highly; if the team does not do well, the coach is regarded poorly.
Mlodinow introduces the law of large numbers, which essentially states that one needs a large number of observations to be confident in the accuracy of the observations. For instance, this is how Gallup decides how many people to poll to be confident that the results are within 5% of the population as a whole. He also introduces the (untrue) law of small numbers, which is applied in day to day life with inaccurate or biased results.
The (untrue) law of small numbers is obvious in a small sample of shooting. For instance, how many half-court shots does a player take in a season? One, maybe two. What if a player makes one of those two attempts? One could argue that because the player shoots 50% from half-court, he should attempt more shots from half-court. Is that a reasonable argument? If he took 100 or 1000 shots from half-court, how many shots would he be expected to make? With 100 or 1000 attempts, we would get a more accurate picture of his shooting ability from half-court. Of course, that does not mean that if he attempts only one shot from half-court this season, that he will miss it.
In terms of coaching, does one game or one season give an accurate account of one’s coaching? It depends on how one arrives at the conclusion. As I have argued previously, to evaluate a coach, we need to evaluate more than years of experience or won-loss record.
“It is more reliable to judge people by analyzing their abilities than by glancing at the scoreboard. Or as Bernoulli put it, ‘One should not appraise human action on the basis of results.’
Going against the law of small numbers requires character. For while anyone can sit back and point to the bottom line as justification, assessing instead a person’s actual knowledge and actual ability takes confidence, thought, good judgement, and, well, guts” (Mlodinow, 2008; p. 100).
As Ayn Rand wrote in The Fountainhead:
It takes two to make a great career: the man who is great, and the man – almost rarer – who is great enough to see greatness and say so” (p. 512).
How can we judge a coach by his or her abilities? What should a fan, the media, or an athletic director seek from a coach? If you eliminate the won-loss record, how can you evaluate a coach and his or her performance? How much does randomness affect our perceptions of coaches? How can we eliminate the effect of randomness in an effort to evaluate coaches without bias?
Surely you must have some catalyst for this line of thinking? Who? What?
Nobody specific. I just think our perceptions of coaches are flawed because we put too much emphasis on a small sample size and random events. When Gordon Hayward almost hit a half-court shot to win the national championship, would that made basket have made Brad Stevens a better coach? Would our perceptions of Stevens, had he won a national championship, change? I’d argue that the win would not make him a better coach, but I do believe that if he had won, he would be perceived as a better coach than he is today. And, the difference is a missed half-court shot!
How can you compare the head coach at Anaheim HS to the head coach at Mater Dei based solely on wins and losses? It’s not a far comparison. This doesn’t mean that Anaheim’s coach is better than MD’s or vice versa; just that there has to be something more than won-loss record when evaluating or comparing coaches.
I think this is an issue of great importance for coaches themselves. Am I a good coach? How do I make that judgement? If I don’t know whether I am a good coach or not, how can I expect to improve? If I can’t identify what a great coach looks like, how (s)he behaves, what characteristics (s)he has, how can I identify the steps to improvement myself. In my understanding, we try to solve this by talking about “coaching philosophies”, or athlete-centred/coach-centred. This helps, but surely there is more?
Good points about understanding how to improve. I’m not a big “coach philosophy” guy because it’s easy to write something on paper, but that doesn’t mean one follows it. Every coaching course has coach philosophy as its foundation, and I just find that the students in my courses write a lot without saying anything. Plus, I think you have to have coached some before you have an idea of what your philosophy is.
I know in high-school jobs, it seems the two things that concern athletic directors are one’s rules or discipline (what to do when they cause trouble) and sportsmanship. I think I have problems in interviews because my concern is not punishment but creating an environment where punishment isn’t necessary. I get the sense that ADs don’t believe me when I say that I never really have to punish players or teams, but I guess that I’ve been lucky with the groups that I have coached.
If ADs are asking about it, then you have to speak to it. Red Auerbach wrote that he didn’t like to have too many “hard & fast” rules, because they would trap him, rob him of flexibility in dealing with the particular player and situation. I’m not sure which book I found this comment in, maybe his “Basketball for the Player, Fan & Coach”, or maybe John Feinstein’s portrait of him, “Let Me Tell You a Story”. If you can find & nail down the exact quote, that might be one you’d like to trot out in an interview situation.
As few “automatic” rules as you can manage to have. You’ll need “automatics” for situations that are covered in school and district policies, for example ones concerning drug possession. But for other situations, you want to retain the freedom to respond flexibly.
Probably ADs want to hear that all kids are held to the same standard, and won’t be treated differently on the basis of talent. That’s true, but kids earn different levels of trust thru their track record of responsibility & trustworthiness. On the one hand, you have to be willing to suspend your best player before the state championship, if he committed an infraction. On the other hand, if a player is skipping Saturday morning practices, and you find out it’s because he’s taking an SAT prep course and was afraid to tell you — well, you need the flexibility to respond differently to that.
I would think that a short discussion like that, which then segues into your statement about “creating an environment where punishment isn’t necessary”, and how in the past you’ve been able to be proactive so that you’ve never really had to punish players or teams — something like that ought to satisfy any thoughtful AD.
I explain that I believe in using an empowerment coaching style, so I meet with the players to decide rules and consequences.
I had an interview one time where a principal asked me what I would do if a player was found to be drinking on the weekend. I responded that I thought that was more of a school issue than a basketball issue, and I would abide by the punishment set by the school (if he was suspended and missed practice, he would suffer whatever punishment had been set forth for missed practices).
I get the sense in some of my conversations with parents and administrators that they abdicate their responsibilities as authority figures and hope to find a coach tough enough to keep teenagers in line because they’ve lost control.
To me, underage drinking is first a matter for police (if involved), then the school policy, then parents, then the basketball team. I just wonder if band leaders and drama teachers are asked the same questions. When the lead violin gets in trouble elsewhere, do the administrator and parents go to his band leader to decide his punishment?
Former Dallas Cowboys head coach Tom Landry started his career with 5 consecutive losing seasons, then one season at 7-7, before he started winning.
Of course once he started winning, he didn’t stop for 20 years, compiling one of the great records in pro sports. But how many organizations nowadays would be patient thru a string of 0-11-1, 4-9-1, 5-8-1, 4-10, and 5-8-1 without concluding that they had the wrong guy? That takes something. Vision, patience, confidence, something.
Hi Brian. I am about to create my own youth club, I have a coaching qualification which basically involved turning up for a couple of days and conduct a drill for 5 mins… I learned nothing about teaching kids etc. I wondered if you could elaborate on your empowerment policy for rule making? My biggest fear is not keeping enough kids new to the game interested. In England bball is not particular popular and maybe a new outlook on discipline/rules may give me an advantage in building the club up.
Thank you.
Richard:
By an empowerment style, I mean that I try to involve players in the creation of the environment. Age and experience dictates how much control I relinquish. I tell teams up front that I will treat them like adults until their behavior proves that they deserve to be treated like children with more rules and consequences and less trust, etc.
In terms of rules, I don’t start with any rules. I meet with the team. I ask them what type of environment they want. What happens if a player skips practice? Does the excuse matter? What if the player is late? What is the punishment?
I’ve written about an old Harvard Business Review article about Coach K and Bob Knight that talks about the way that you view players dictates your treatment and expectations. If you believe people are good and try hard, you react differently to behaviors than if you believe people are bad and constantly trying to get away with things. I believe players want to learn and play hard. As an example, a couple years ago, I coached a J.V. girls team. It was a very high academic school and all the players were very smart. None was a future college basketball player, at least at that point. When players came late, there was no punishment. I didn’t even have them tell me why they were late. I assumed that they had a good reason for being late because I trusted them. I trusted that they wanted to be there, that they worked hard, that they wanted to improve, so it must have been something important to make them late. With freshmen boys last year, guys who were less motivated and mature, things were different.
Beyond just rules and discipline, I use the empowerment style on the court too. I often ask players how they feel using a basic RPE (perceived exertion) to measure fatigue, and I dictate the schedule based on their feelings. Again, they trust me and tell me honestly because I am not trying to put them on the spot or seeing if they are weak or other typical coach things.
When I coached pro players, I’d call a timeout and ask them what play they wanted to run late in games. I’d ask what they see on the court, what they think can work, etc.
Those kind of things.