Game management isn’t some advanced coaching secret. It’s three simple things: 1. Know your why before you use a timeout. Stop a run? Fix a breakdown? Calm the room? If you can’t name the reason, don’t call it. 2. Pick ONE thing to fix. Your team can only absorb one message at a time. Five corrections means zero get fixed. 3. Tone beats content. Calm coach, calm team. Panicked coach, panicked team. They’re reading your face before they hear your words. That’s the foundation. Everything fancy gets built on top of it. New coaches: what’s the toughest part of managing a game? Let’s talk it out below. 👇

The best drill is the one you scrap halfway through. You planned it for 20 minutes. Your players are lost, or bored, or crushing it way too easily. Most coaches push through because “it’s on the plan.” The great ones read the room, blow the whistle, and pivot. The plan is a starting point. The players are the real information. Agree or disagree? Tell me below. 👇

Everyone assumes it’s genius plays and timeout speeches. Here’s what’s really in mine: 1. A lineup that’s been crossed out four times. The final version is always the one I wrote in the last 90 seconds before the first whistle. 😆 2. “Ask everyone how their week was.” Not a drill. A reminder that the people come before the game. 3. One drill I stole, with the original coach’s name next to it. Good coaches borrow. Great coaches give credit. 🤩 4. Half-finished sentences. “Tell them that...” and then nothing. I’m sure it was important. 5. A coffee ring. Sometimes two. Proof of a long planning session. 6. Things I said that landed. I write these down so I can say them again, on purpose.🤓 7. Things I said that did NOT land. I write these down too, so I never say them again. 8. A tiny doodle of a court with arrows going everywhere. It made total sense at the time. 9. One line from a player that stuck with me. Usually the best coaching lesson of the season, and it came from them, not me. 10. A question I don’t have the answer to yet. The best pages in the book. The notebook isn’t really about the plays. It’s where you catch yourself learning. Your turn: what’s the one thing in your notebook that nobody would expect? Drop it below. 👇

Keep One. Change One. I had an interesting conversation with a player recently during practice. We were working on changing a technical skill. Rather than giving him a list of corrections, I asked him to focus on two things as the drill progressed: Keep one thing. Change one thing. Keep one element of the skill that was already working. Change one element that we were trying to improve. That's it. As the drill progressed, we could evaluate the adjustment, reinforce what was working, and gradually introduce another change. It got me thinking about how we coach skill development. As coaches, we often see five things we'd like an athlete to correct. And because we see them, we want to fix them. But does giving an athlete five corrections actually accelerate learning? Or does it create five competing thoughts when they're trying to perform a skill that needs to become instinctive? There's a difference between understanding a correction and being able to execute it. And there's an even bigger difference between executing it in a controlled drill and trusting it under pressure. I think our job as coaches is to make the next adjustment clear enough that the athlete can explore it, feel the difference, and eventually own it. Not every rep needs another correction. Sometimes the athlete just needs another opportunity to figure it out. Keep one. Change one. Repeat. I'm curious how other coaches approach this. When you're helping an athlete change an established skill, how much do you introduce at once? And how do you know when they're ready for the next adjustment?

Weeks before the first Premier tournament are some of the most important, and most misunderstood, weeks of the season. This is when coaches feel the pressure to: • Fix everything • Add more systems • Run harder practices • “Get ready” fast But this phase isn’t about adding more. It’s about tightening what already exists. Right now, the biggest gains usually come from: • Clear roles • Repetition under light pressure • Emotional stability from the bench • Teaching athletes how to reset after mistakes Your team doesn’t need to look perfect yet.They need to look connected. A good question to ask this week: Are we practicing to perform, or practicing to learn how to compete together? Curious how others are approaching this stretch: What’s one thing you’re intentionally not changing before your first Premier?