🤔 Thought Starter: Jeff Tweedy
📖 Another chapter closed
⛹️♀️ Zone Offense: An Early Flare
🎶 The Playlist: A new Caamp EP!
🤔 Thought Starter: Jeff Tweedy
You have to sound bad to sound good, even if you’ve written five hundred songs. Being willing to sound bad is one of the most important pieces of advice that I can give you.
Writing a song will teach you that it’s OK to fail. And more than that, that it’s actually good to fail, and that you can come to appreciate the gifts of failure. Failure can be a kind of pain that you shouldn’t let go to waste, at least as long as you’re in the proper space mentally.
- Jeff Tweedy, How to Write One Song
📖 Closing another chapter
“The sting of losing two games is quickly erased by the accomplishments that led to a 14-win season and all the great memories (made) off the court. I LOVED beating (our league rivals), but I’m extremely GRATEFUL for the gift that will come every time I remember all the fellowship, joy, and laughter from the 20+ people at our team dinner on Thursday night.”
- Text to my assistant coaches after losing 2 games at the state tournament
Maybe I approach it the wrong way. If I do, I don’t care.
The grind of a basketball season will wear you down if you can’t separate the good from the bad when it finishes. More often than not, the season ends in a loss, not a win. It’s a tough reality of coaching — one that can blur the bigger picture: the lasting impact sports have on people, both young and old, over the course of the season.
Coaching takes courage, especially when failures are documented just as publicly as successes. A coach’s superpower is the ability to quickly recognize the positives and growth throughout the season and use them as your guide in the moments, days, and weeks that follow.
At season’s end, focus on the What did’s rather than the What if’s so you can truly appreciate the victories earned and lessons learned on and off the court. Remember things like when a bench player scored in double digits or that moment at a team dinner when you look down the table at your players and staff and think, This is why I coach. The players deserve that reflection — and so do you.
The last newsletter was at the beginning of January. Between teaching, coaching, and family, I haven’t had time to do things such as write or watch other teams. I’m excited to produce some content for the podcast and newsletter.
In the meantime, here’s some basketball moments that I’ve enjoyed so far in 2025.







⛹️♀️ Zone Offense: An Early Flare
We had the potential to face a few teams at the state tournament that primarily ran a 2-3 zone during the season. I love using an early flare screen to initiate the offense, so we spent part of a practice working on a simple concept out of a 2-guard front—a slot-to-slot pass followed by a flare screen for the passer. (This concept is also easy to run out of an odd-person front.)
Here are some clips from that practice. We started with 4v4 before transitioning to 5v5.
A few things I like about this action:
It’s a simple way to get players manipulating the defense early. While there were some turnovers, I love how the ball moves in certain clips.
The high post slips out from the nail to set the screen here, but you can get creative with who sets it.
Players are naturally incorporating counters—rejects and slips. At one point, we even see a push when the defense denies the initial slot-to-slot pass.
🎶 The Playlist: Caamp
A evening I will never forget was spent listening to Futurebirds and Caamp on the banks of the Blackfoot River. Caamp took a break from recording and touring shortly after the concert, but returned last week with the release of new EP titled “Somewhere.” Hope you enjoy!
Thanks William for this great post. Just finished my basketball coaching season, and your words definitely resonated!
"A coach’s superpower is the ability to quickly recognize the positives and growth throughout the season and use them as your guide in the moments, days, and weeks that follow." Well said. Critically important skill.