Teaching common sense

It's funny all of the things we think we just always knew. As a teacher and coach, you can't just assume that the students know what you know.

For example, in practice today, we talked about where to stand during a time-out. That may sound silly, to have a time-out play, but that was a lesson I learned the hard way. Late in a game one year, I call a time out and one of the girls didn't know I had taken her out. When we went back on the floor-6 players=technical foul. So now, the only people allowed to sit during a time-out are the people who are in the game. If I have 6 sitting, then I know I have a problem.

We also practiced our warm-up. Now, you may find it silly to practice something like that, but if you don't they'll trip all over themselves and not get anything done.

I remember an old Bill Cosby routine where he talked about telling his kids to take a shower. He said you had to tell them to get in the shower, turn on the water, get wet, wash your body with soap, rinse off the soap, turn off the water, and use a towel to dry. If you left out any of those steps, there was no gaurantee that the job would get done right.