The Best Things in Life are Free

The best things in life are free.  I hope you enjoy the list.   I tried to pull a variety of versions to make this as interactive as possible.  Pick your version and enjoy.

George Olsen:  The O.G. version.

Lena Horne: the sexy, classic, and if you see her at a bar you'd be too intimidated to break the ice choice.

Ink Spots:  the Mafia's  if you hear this come on you are probably about to be made or be whacked choice.  Listen with caution.

Bing Crosby:  The standard crooner version that a college guy could put on to impress the cute girl across the hall because she doesn't know any other option choice.  

Sam Cooke:  The cool cat social movement catalyst choice that isn't as good as some of the other versions but is forgiven for his Change Is Gonna Come classic.  

Hank Mobley Quintet:  The underrated saxophonist, light a full bodied cigar,  pour a glass of whiskey, sit on a leather couch, and pass a spring weekend with a long-lost friend version.   By the way, this is my favorite version.

Other Notables:

Jo Stafford   and  Dinah Shore  the classics that are undeniable, but both seem dated versions

Janet Jackson and Luther Vandross  the inspiration for the post, the I love the 90s, the I love spin-off movies like Mo'Money, and the "now that I discovered what you mean to me" high school dance moment version

The Muppet Show   the I vaguely remember this and it may get lost from our collective cultural psyches if we don't keep this floating around version

R. Kelly  the version that is really good and I really like.       But, he did pee on a 16 year old girl... 

Let me know if I missed any one's preferred version of The Best Things in Life are Free.  Thanks for reading and happy listening.

Lose to Win

Men's Basketball Coach Bob Walsh's recent post "Why Is It So Hard to Talk and Play?" got me thinking about how we handled this at Paul VI Catholic High School.  

Communication is a skill that most fourteen year old athletes don't have.  We had to provide our athletes with a vocabulary we wanted them to use, we had to show them when to use it, and we had to show them why they need to use the skill.  Lastly, we had to provide multiple opportunities in practice, in games, and in meetings for them to process the new material.

As we built the program, we needed to determine our benchmarks and we needed to determine what we would accept as evidence of mastery.  Here are some differentiated ways to assess your program.



Win/Loss Record

The win/loss record is the black and white standardized test.  What is your program's accepted level of mastery?  20 wins?  Top 4 finish?  Championship?

This is the most glamorous and the most emotional benchmark.  But this cannot be the only way to measure your program's growth, right?  Look at UConn Men's Basketball,  a national championship cannot be the only way to assess their 2010-2011 season.  If you are rebuilding and felt 15 wins would be a great benchmark, but only won 13 games,  is the entire season a failure?


Rank Film Clips/Games

Provide clips that illustrate different outcomes.  Ask them to rank the best to the worst.  You may be surprised to hear what they say.

When we were very young and did not have depth, we could not truly compete with some of the powerhouses.  So, here is what I did to assess our transition defense:

Clip 1 showed an outlet pass with the guard taking 3 dribbles to the rim, but had his shot blocked by our late-to-recover big man. 

Clip 2 showed a missed free throw into a secondary break that lead to a ball reversal and a made, open 3.

Clip 3 showed a successful defensive conversion that we negated with a hand-check as the opponent pulled the ball out to set up a set.

I intentionally picked three that did not end with a clean, successful stop.  I needed to know if the team mastered the objectives the coaching staff set out to teach.  Could they apply and evaluate the concept AND the physical execution, even though our youth could not physically compete with the 18 year old  high major seniors they faced every night?


In the off-season, have them rank their top 3 offensive games, defensive games, and transition games.  Have them rank the worst losses.  Make sure they provide reasons.


Pick Your Own Team

There is always a way to incorporate a scrimmage into a practice. 

First, this provides  the guys who may not see a lot of game time with a way to communicate with their team and to contribute to the success of the team.  We always had the last two guys on the bench pick and coach their own teams.

Second, it gives your main rotation feedback from someone other than a member of the coaching staff.   What does it tell you if your starters don't get drafted in the first round?  What does it tell them?

Third, it gives you feedback regarding sets in which your team believes.   Are they calling the same sets you would call?  Are they only calling one or two sets?  Are they not calling any sets?  This is all valuable feedback and an alternate way to assess your team's growth.

Even after the season, this could be a great way to debrief.   Each student-athlete  could draft their top 5 players if they needed a 3,  if they needed a stop, or if they needed to execute a set.  Play around with this to differentiate the assessments. 

Outside Feedback

I sat with the coaching staff at St. Andrew's School (MD) a few weeks ago.  They were despondent after a tough road loss.  The staff is in their first year and did not bring any recruits with them.  But, one of the coaches mentioned a few comments from the parents of their athletes.  The parents commented on the fight of the team and the decreased margin of defeat.  Rather than being down 20+ at half time, St. Andrew's is taking teams to the fourth quarter--with the same group from previous seasons.

I commented on the way their student-athletes tried to execute press breaks.  Physically, St. Andrew's did not have the athletes, the physical maturity, or the depth.  The other team pressed through the 3rd quarter until their lead swelled to 20.  The St. Andrew's staff burned timeouts trying to stop the bleeding, but I was impressed how their kids kept fighting, kept listening, and kept attempting to do all the right things. 


The differentiated instruction is the cerebral part of coaching and teaching to which I'm addicted.  I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.   Ready for March Madness?

Top 3 Whitney Houston Songs

Whitney Houston was sexy.  I loved her vocals.  I loved her quintessential 80s and 90s songs.  I might have stared a little too long at her videos, album art, and MTV appearances.  I loved Whitney Houston's unabashed love for Bobby Brown, whom I loved from his New Edition days.  For some reason, Cool It Now always finds its way onto my mixes.

Here are my top 3 Whitney Houston songs:

3. I get so Emotional

The jeans, white T-Shirt, and leather jacket made her seem like she could live around the corner from me.  I remember the older girls on the bus, if they were hot, dressed like this and *loved* Whitney Houston.  So, any smart prepubescent boy loved Whitney Houston to fit in with their big sister/babysitter tendencies.   I remember this girl, Melissa, used to let me listen to her Walkman and I would get so emotional when our thighs touched while we crammed into the back seat of the bus.

2.  I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)

Do you remember how all the girls started doing their makeup like this?  How could any boy concentrate at school?  Forget about that purple dress.  When this song comes on at school dances, you best find your way to the section of girls that dress and dance like Whitney Houston.  Without a doubt, this will always be in my top Whitney Houston songs.

1.  I Will Always Love You

This version urbanized the song and cemented it into the psyche of the children of the 90s.  Even Adam Sandler references it in the movie Bulletproof.  I love when Whitney is sitting in the chair.  When she snaps her head up and belts out the chorus...that is what made Whitney Houston great and that is what put this song at the top of the list.

Let me know what your top Whitney Houston songs are and here's to you, Whitney.

Movies I love...and my Mom Hates

There is a plethora (honorable mention: Three Amigos) of movie lists out there.  This is my list of movies that most influenced the weekends of the late 80s and that my mom never approved, never knew we we watched, or made her worry about who her two sons would eventually become.


1.   The Last Dragon

The movie came out in 1985, but my brother and I probably discovered it when it landed on HBO a year or two later.  This had everything we wanted: corny humor,  fighting montages we could imitate, and an obscurity only the boys on our street would know--like a secret handshake.  This also had questionable content that drove our mother insane: our affinity for urban culture, violence, and an over-sexualized Lady Laura.  

2.  Youngblood

A 1986 classic that we didn't see until its HBO airing.  This was another movie my brother and I would watch really early in the morning while my mom still slept.  This was also a movie my neighbors would have been watching at the EXACT same time and as soon as it ended, we would meet up on the street in the most uncanny of ways to reenact this scene.  We never were the biggest hockey fans, and we only played hockey when the lake froze over and the ice fishing wasn't hot.  We went through phases of loving and hating street hockey, but this was our model to copy for all of our sick puck skills.  We also modeled all of our goal keeping style on this guy too.

3.  Predator

By the 90s, she knew we loved the movie.  In the early morning HBO hours of the late 80s?  No way.  Funny how we used to have these Entertech Water Guns that my mom would buy for us: "The look, the feel, the sound--SO REAL!"  We used to call it "bang Gotcha! war."  We'd take turns being the Predator and hunt each other down.  Awesome 80s violence. 

Honorable Mentions:

Kickboxer.
 Mom never appreciated how we would beat each other with sticks, drop rocks on each other, and try to beat each other up.

Bloodsport.
 Why was Van Damme so good at making bad movies?  We loved this movie and would reenact all of the scenes.  We used to set up fighting tournaments and try to fight blind folded.  I think the title of this movie turned my mom off too.

Best of the Best.

Gleaming the Cube.
We never actually owned a skateboard.  We would use our neighbor's and try to shred.  Too many injuries and such a weird title that definitely turned my mom off from this movie.  




Let me know if any of these resonate with you and your mom, and if we are long lost soul mates.

13 Minutes to Go

Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick

I give my students 13 minutes to respond to the prompt: "Experience is the best teacher."  Decide whether you agree or disagree and provide at least one example. 

Here is my response:

Observation is the best teacher.  I feel people learn best when they can imitate something great.  I feel people learn best when they can watch and avoid mistakes.  Look for crowds.  Is the crowd flocking to a certain event, a certain painting, a certain star, a certain type of car?  Why?  What does that thing have that you do not?  Observe.  Study.  Practice.  Strive to imitate that model.  Perhaps there are features about that model you do not care for.  What are they?  Look at them.  Identify them.  Do not include those items in your model. 

There is something to be said for letting somebody else go first.  Ladies first!  Observe. 

Sometimes you may not want to follow.  Okay.  Trail blaze.  You may make a mistake, you may not.  there is nothing wrong with this.  Sometimes the end is unknown.  Maybe go on a walk-about.  This is good.  When you get to the end, look around.  Observe.  Take it all in.  It.  Take it in.  Then, then learning will occur. 

Reflect.  Reflecting is observing.  Take stock of what transpires.  Look in the mirror.  Study the face.  Observe.  Teach.  Coach. 

I looked at the clock--six minutes to go.  Can't stop.  I want to stop and observe my students.  Who is tirelessly writing?  Who is starring?  Who has their head down?  Who did not have paper out, or a pen out?  Is anyone else struggling with this topic?  Why do those NCLB people pick such topics?  There cannot be high school English teachers on this test creation committee.  As Richard Bach writes, "you teach best what you most need to learn."  Wouldn't a topic on something relevant to the adolescent mind get better writing?  Maybe their writing will be better than mine since my mind is a bit removed from adolescence...or so I tell myself.

A prompt I would really like to tackle in 13 minutes:  Hip Hop is the appreciation of the urban aesthetic.  Support or refute.

Or:  Should bars include domestically brewed craft beers in their "domestic happy hour" specials? 

Maybe:  Music is the dominant agent in cultural changes. 

Another:  A green lawn is indicative of a self-conscious man.

Boom!  Times up. 

Three Types of People

Maddock Douglass describes his Three Types of People to Fire for Businessweek.com.  I agree and anyone that works closely with any team knows that those three types of people crush innovation.

Cocoon's Bernie Lefkowitz

However, I feel like these people Douglass describes can all be lumped together into one category as the victims, the nonbelievers, and the know-it-alls are all in the same part of the pool (or not even in the pool)--like Bernie Lefkowitz from Ron Howard's Cocoon.  Bernie embodies qualities of all three.

South Park's Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski

There are two other groups of people on a team, though, that can contribute to or counteract innovation.  The second group are opportunists.  They enjoy status quo.  They enjoy routines.  They enjoy predictability.  They do their jobs and they do them well.  At times, they may fall into a funk and at others, they can be creative and innovative.  They are the contemporary everyman--they can be dynamic and altruistic, yet struggle with self-fulfillment.  Really, they are Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski.

Chris Chambers from Stand by Me

The last type is less common and not every team will have one every year--the Chris Chambers of the world.  This person has an uncanny ability to form goals and achieve goals while motivating those around them.  They fluctuate between confidence and over-confidence.  This person is driven, yet  discontented; they often accomplish the seemingly impossible, but also charge into problems without considering casualties.  They will inspire Bernie Lefkowicz, but they will also abandon him.   They will earn Stan's and Kyle's allegiance, but they will also isolate them for their hesitancy.



Most teams seem to have a lot of Bernies, a handful of Stans and Kyles, and find a Chris Chambers every now and then.  As their leader and manager, you need to identify all three types and evaluate what each type brings to your team.  What is each type of person doing for the current climate and what can they do for the future?  Know the personalities of the people around you and keep building a culture for success.