Page 278 - How to Create a Winning Organization

Wooden on Leadership
260
CATNIP AND THE IMAGINARY BALL
Practice—that is, the process of your preparation—is where cham-
pionships in any context are won. How you practice is how you
“play.”
One of the challenges I faced with the Bruins during practice
was dealing with the distraction caused by a player’s natural instinct
and desire to score baskets or grab rebounds. Either urge is such a
powerful siren song that it’s hard to make them pay attention and
learn the “dull” fundamentals that ensure success in scoring and
rebounding—such things as pivoting, hand and arm movement,
and routes on plays.
The same is perhaps true with your team. It’s only natural for
those under your leadership—perhaps even you—to focus on
the end result rather than learning and doing what it takes to get
there.
I attempted to solve this particular problem at UCLA by occa-
sionally removing the siren song; specifically, I made them practice
and play basketball without the ball. Without the basketball, a
player can neither score baskets nor grab rebounds. Without those
distractions, he was better able to fully concentrate on what I was
teaching.
You’ll see that in these notes to myself on “Rebounding,” I listed
such things as three-on-three drills, the three-man pass-and-move,
the five-man back and forth over basket, and other drills.
You’ll also see listed at number 8: “Imaginary ball.” That was the
drill that removed the siren song and made players concentrate on
the fundamentals of scoring and rebounding.
I’ve also included a list of Practice Drills: “jump shots” (number
7) and “offensive tipping and defensive rebounds” (number 8) are
both done with an imaginary basketball. In these instances, we
worked on the fundamentals of jump shots and rebounds free from
the distraction of a ball.