“Not all those who wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Since I graduated high school, only once have I lived in the same residence for longer than a year. While I rarely changed zip codes I’ve always been on the move; a journeyman’s mentality, a traveler at heart. Not the traveler that traverses the globe like that of my brother, but a restless spirit. Two months ago I began year two of my time at Otero Junior College. While I again changed the home of my futon and bed, the office chair in McDivitt 201 remains warm. The investment that Otero Junior College has made in me has allowed me to continue my tenure here, and my investment in coaching and in young people remains here at Otero as well. To say that last year as a team we faced our share of trials would be an understatement. It seems that those closest to you try to make the most excuses for your trials, and while I could lay our struggles on not having kids I recruited, on replacing a beloved coach, on having a group with conflicting personalities, or any other excuse, the bottom line is that the successes or failures of any group begins with the person leading the charge, hoisting the sword, and yelling the commands. If there is a lack of trust or respect for the leader, or a lack of preparation by the leader, failure is likely. My biggest mistake came with the assumption that individuals who compete at this level automatically invest themselves fully in the cause. I have come to learn that the mentality that I possess is rare. If I choose to involve myself in something I take it to the limit. Not only is a highly competitive nature not common among athletes, concepts such as love, truth, responsibility, and unity are not as common as I would like to believe. Because of that I have learned that such things must be taught, not just spoken about. They must be emphasized daily, and most importantly, they must be shown. 

The Brand New Gym Floor at Otero

I began last year with six sophomores. By the end of the season I was down to four. Of the sixteen that sat in uniform for our first game a year ago, only six of those will don an Otero jersey this November. In our final meeting of the last season I told my returners that my job as a coach was to find athletes better than they are. I made it exceptionally clear that despite our 17-10 regular season record, it was not good enough. With that I spanned the globe for the best athletes for my first recruiting class. Recruiting is both exciting and unnerving. At the junior college level especially, your season’s success rests greatly on the athletes you bring in right away, whether they are transfers or freshmen. In the end, I brought in fourteen new athletes. Six of them are played in the Colorado All-State Games, two others traveled across the ocean to get here. 

I have a girl from Spain and another from Hungary. I hadn’t spoken with either of them verbally until they arrived on campus. One I had corresponded with via email, while the other I worked solely through her agent. The first words I heard Celia (pronounced Thalia), my young lady from Spain, say was, “You speak fast.” While this is my second season at the helm it is still a season of many firsts. As I sat in my office preparing for our first team meeting of the 2013-2014 year I felt I was much more anxious than I did last year. I didn’t need to reinvent myself, but I did need to establish my teaching philosophies with my first words. Minutes before I was to walk across the gym up to our meeting room I thumbed randomly through the Bible in hopes of an affirming word. While this is not the most ideal practice for gaining insight from God, the point of my finger landed on Judges 3 verses 25-28. Judges 3 tells the story of Ehud who was raised up to deliver the children of Israel from Eglon the king of Moab. Ehud thrust a dagger into Eglon which led to the Israelites overtaking Moab. The commentary by Jon Courson reads that, “If you aspire to any kind of leadership, be like Ehud. ‘Follow me,’ he said because he was a man who knew the power of the Sword and used it effectively.” I hold the sword of leadership. I have to yield it in a manner that will both strengthen us and empower us. Yield it in a manner that will unite us. Again, last year I left much to assumption. As to not fall into the same trap I created a specific team philosophy and directly relayed to my athletes my purpose of why I’m here and why I want to a part of their lives. In preparation for teaching the culture of our program and teaching how our program needs to be represented I created four laws for our team: Love, Truth, Responsibility, and Unity. 

The Four Laws of Otero Women's Basketball Team

We act in Love; We speak Truth; We possess Responsibility; We keep Unity. Within these concepts are the embodiments of everything I want from a team. As I detailed what these laws truly meant I recalled the time I spent over the summer with my brother, sister-in-law, and little niece. I haven’t seen them in three years as they’ve been living overseas in Taiwan. My baby niece is less than a year old, and despite the fact that it was only a matter of weeks ago that was able to see her baby blue eyes in person, I couldn’t help but feel a deep, and overwhelming love for her, that I would do anything to protect her, that I would invest everything I have in her if she needed it. When I invest myself in something I invest everything I am. With my athletes the sentiment is the same as with my niece. If I can help them, be there for them, mentor them, help them become better in any way, I want to be there. The first law is love and their charge is to love one other. The second law is that of truth. There was once a time when a man’s word was his bond. Where contracts were never signed, because if someone said they would do something it happened, if a question was asked the true answer was given. In a culture that lacks accountability, and in a society where an individual is advanced based on how well they can talk themselves in an out of situations the spoken truth is a foreign concept. Like love, the truth is sometimes hard to say and hard to face. Love isn’t always easy, and the truth is sometimes not what an individual wants to hear, but for success, for growth, and for unity truth must be the basis of all we do. To possess responsibility is rare. There are so many distractions that can overcome an individual. The constant stimulation from media and the constant expectations from everyone in their lives can be overwhelming. To be responsible embodies a lot of work for a young student-athlete. They have a responsibility to their professors to be in class on time, to be attentive, to turn in their homework on time and to do it to the best of their abilities; they have a responsibility to their coaches and teammates to be at practice on time, to be intense at all times, to learn and understand concepts and philosophies, to work to better their game; they have a responsibility to their families to call home and to maintain a relationship; they have a responsibility to their friends to stand by them and be accountable for them. All of these things can weigh heavy on a young person. There is so much going on in the life of an 18 year old that we as adults and mentors often forget the pressures that keep them up at night. We as coaches though can’t simply tell them to be responsible, we have to teach them how to be responsible and ways to maintain responsibility and be successful at what they do. Lastly, they have to live united. Unity is not a simple task. To find a way to unite individuals who have never met each other, to get them to live a cause and to rely on one another, to defend each other, to do what’s best for the whole not best for the part is a process and not an instantaneous lifestyle. Self-sacrifice and reliance on others are concepts that are very foreign to many individuals. Nevertheless when life is hard, which it often is, they need people to stand with them and care for them and lift them up. Too many people are alone in this world. One day there may come a time when you need to make a phone call at 3:00 am needing someone to come to your aid; do you have someone to call that you know will answer and be there at a moment’s notice? These are the laws of our program. With them success isn’t guaranteed, but without them it does guarantee failure. 

Teaching the team about time management

As I finish writing this entry we are only on the brink of getting started. Much like I entered my first meeting with an entirely new sense of direction and purpose I am doing the same with the season: a different preseason, a new offensive system, new defensive concepts, and a more precise philosophy. Week one of our preseason was four days long and resulted in four different piles of vomit from athletes. There has been a sprinkling here and there since then, but I feel that it is going to make us tougher, stronger, faster, and quicker. With 22 athletes still fighting for roster spots things will look drastically different by the time I write again. By then we will be in the midst of scrimmages and trying to figure out how good we are, and how far we have to go.

Until then,

-          Coach Kyle

"We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future." ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

There is long standing belief that coaching, like business, is a cutthroat profession; every coach looking out for him or herself and willing to go down any dark and narrow path to achieve their goal, staking anyone along the way. To be perfectly honest I’ve never felt that. I know every coach wants to win and will go to great lengths to place their feet upon the highest of pedestals, but I can’t attest to having been taken advantage of by anyone in their quest. Granted I am still exceptionally green, and perhaps no one has felt the threat of me yet, but to this current point in my career I have been overwhelmingly blessed by the coaches that I have come to know. I still harken back to a snowy evening in Scottsbluff, NE where I sat with two JUCO coaches sharing stories and trying to soak up any ounce of knowledge they breathed. I was an assistant at Hastings College still and had journeyed 300 miles from Hastings to Scottsbluff with my JV squid to, quite simply, play ragdoll to two JUCO teams. I don’t think I’ll ever forget driving the bronco bus in the midst of a terrible snow storm. I had to pull over multiple times and climb up on the bus to try and free the windshield of the ice that felt the need to accumulate and impede my vision. I maintained a calm face for the sake of my kids, but my knuckles turned whiter and whiter with every turned over semi I passed. In the end the 5 hour drive turned to 7, but we arrived safely at the Lamplighter Inn, Scottsbluff. Teams like Hastings JV get invited to JUCO Classics for JUCO teams to get extra games in and games they can use to boost their record. Schools like Hastings send their JV’s to get abused because the JUCO teams give guarantees such as stipends and hotels. It’s quite the ideal set up for everyone but the actual JV team. Nevertheless, my girls suited up day one to play the Trojans of Colby Community College. It was ugly early. It didn’t get better. Following the game Colby’s head coach offered me an invitation to meet up with him and Coach Harnish of Western Nebraska at the Applebee’s next to the Lamplighter later that evening. Appreciative of the offer despite still seething from the loss, I accepted. That evening while talking and watching Coach Harnish drink his tomato beers I sat thinking that the Junior College route was one that was very enticing: high level of athleticism mixed with the coaching challenges of recruiting a new team every year and trying to coach fresh faces all the time. Coach Harnish had been at Western Nebraska for nearly 30 years, and Coach Jasper at Colby for 3. They had the opportunity to coach athletes from all over the world, and Coach Harnish had been to a number of national tournaments. We talked through most of the night about recruiting, fundraising, the challenges of coaching girls, and where we saw ourselves in the future. Amidst it all I never imagined that in less than years’ time I would be in that same Applebee’s, but with my own Junior College team.

The team with Holly during her signing to play at Olivet Nazarene in Illinois.

In building one’s own team one of the most grueling, yet most important processes, one which I’m still learning, is the art of recruiting. Having not been hired till August of last year I was unable to recruit the athletes I was to be coaching my first year at Otero. This coming year will be the first time the athletes I invested in bringing to Otero will be on display. It is an interesting feeling to consider as the athletes I bring in could make or break our team for next year. As a Junior College, we have to recruit at minimum half a team every year. We have to bring in 17 and 18 year old kids and expect them to play at levels that they’ve never reached before, and in a year’s time they will be expected to lead an entire team. Such heavily weighted tasks make the process of selecting and obtaining athletes so important. Throughout the year I have been calling, texting, mailing, emailing, and watching athletes from all over the state, country, and world. I’ve always looked at recruiting from a coach’s perspective. Having only been actively recruited by one school during high school I had little experience as the recruited. I didn’t understand the process to any degree and didn’t even fathom the sheer number of schools and opportunities that could’ve been available for me. I had misconstrued notions regarding schools, higher education, and really life as a whole. Now that I am in the position I am, I have the opportunity to educate young athletes and their families on life beyond high school. Nevertheless, because I didn’t fully understand the player’s perspective I learned a great deal about what goes through the minds of the 18 year old girls that I’m investing my career in.

A note that two of my new recruits and one of my returners left on my door for me.
The things that go through the minds of 18 year old girls.
I am going to have a talk with them about their grammar.

Now that all my recruiting is said and done for this year I signed 5 new athletes to National Letters of Intent (i.e. athletic scholarships): Three Colorado athletes and two international athletes. Each will bring different strengths to our program, but above all I feel I recruited great individuals. My international players reign from Hungary and Spain. One is a 6’0 finesse post player that is the stereotypical European basketball player. She has great touch with the basketball, is fundamentally sound, and has a great feel for the game. My young girl from Spain is a 5’11 wing player who can shoot, handle, rebound, and drive. A very all-around player that I may have to teach how to defend, but will be an exceptional skill. My three Colorado girls are all guards and all went to small schools: Trinidad (3A), Las Animas (2A), and Vanguard Charter (2A). All of them earned All-State honors, and competed in at least the first round of their respective 32-team state tournaments, with two of them reaching the elite eight, and one winning the consolation championship. While they are all guards by nature I see them filling different roles and being exceptionally complimentary. During my time recruiting one of my Colorado girls I had many long conversations with her father about recruiting, about environment, and about the pros and cons of Junior College. During one of our talks he made an interesting comparison to what he perceived recruiting to be like. He likened it to dating a girl. He went on to explain that in his mind when a coach is recruiting a player he says all the right things, tells her how much he wants her, offers everything he has, until he comes across a better girl, where he then “breaks up” with the old one and moves on to the new one. I was slightly offended by the perception, but I could relate to it. I long compared recruiting to asking a girl to prom. You want to take the best girl (the best athlete), but so does every other guy (school). There is a long courtship from each school who wants the girl to come with them, but she can only choose one. Often the girl will listen to each coach, think about who she should go with, sometimes get approval from her parents, sometimes not, and then make a decision to go with one and leave the others in the dirt. Some of the factors include who has the nicest car (offers the most money), and who will take her to the nicest restaurant (who has the best facilities). To try and put yourself into the shoes of a young person making one of the biggest decisions of their life, you have to take a step back and truly consider all of the feelings and concerns they have. It’s easy to slip into selfish mode and think that you know what’s best for someone. Most of the time we don’t do what’s best for ourselves so how can we begin to think we know what is best for someone else? Even though this fall I will have a number of girls that I brought in, there really won’t be much difference from having girls I didn’t recruit; I have to teach, build, and grow the young ladies that I have been entrusted with. I have to live a culture that will make this team successful. I have to love and be loyal. Coach Reed said something profound to me during the heart of the recruiting season: “No matter who you have next year, it will be the team that God wants you to have.” That alone makes this recruiting season a success.

A note that one of my graduated sophomores left for me.
Making an impact on kids is our purpose.

Till next time,

- Coach Kyle

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn" - T.H. White, The Once and Future King

I don’t even know if I can begin to list the things I’ve learned this year. To be sitting in my own office, the placard outside reading “Women’s Basketball,” and thinking about the fact that I am coaching my own college team is still such a shock to me. I know I don’t deserve such amazing blessings. Every time something happens that sends me into a state of immense stress and frustration I am reminded through some outside source that everything is ok, that I’m here for a greater purpose, and how much I love what I’m doing. There have been many nights this season where I neared the 12^th hour of having been in my office and the only thing I can do is bury my head in my hands and pray. There have been countless sleepless nights, and others where I fall asleep watching game film. My poor futon has been put to good use as I would sit in it with a notebook in hand watching clips of previous games and then it calls me to rest my eyes for a second which usually turns into a few hours and I wake up still in my Otero polo with my computer humming and the image of a title screen from game film glowing. The stress has been almost indescribable, and is beyond a state of understandable to anyone besides a teacher or coach. And yet while we all face high stakes situations that often seem to bury us alive, every day we find a reason to rise and when we actually take time to reflect we see why we do this, and remember that we wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. 



I leave my office for 5 mintues and this is what I walk into....



The note that accompanied the chaos
(I don't like that!)



On our return trip from the Region IX tournament we stopped at a Wendy’s in Limon, CO. After eating I figured it would be smart to go to the bathroom before we boarded the bus to finish the last stretch of the journey home. An elderly man entered the restroom and jokingly said, "Has anyone ever asked you if were a basketball player?" In his defense my recent hair cut makes me look 18 years old (some even say 12). I told him I was a coach now and he responded, “Thank you for working with the next generation.” I smiled as I dried my hands and said thank you as I walked out. This gentleman knows nothing about me beyond the fact that I’m a coach, and yet his words made getting beat in the region tournament more than bearable. I’ve had many other people keep my work in perspective and my frustrations in check. Like I said earlier, the things I’ve learned this year near countless, but the lessons are unforgettable and bring a smile to my face whenever I think of them.



My birthday fell on the day of our return trip from the tournament. The girls made me birthday cake - Hostess cupcakes with gas station matches in them.



Some of the grander scale things I’ve learned are that you have to define your goals and compare them with your priorities, and if they don’t match, something has to change. I’ve learned that in the midst of drama sometimes it’s best not to do anything. I’ve learned that you need to ask yourself what kind of legacy you want to leave and see if you’re doing things that will leave that legacy. I’ve learned that I have no idea what is and what isn’t a foul, but I do know that officials have ruined girl's/women’s basketball. I’ve learned that you need to tell kids that you care about them and that you love them even if you’re showing it. I’ve learned that the process is more important than the prize, and you have to coach both basketball and life as a process. I’ve learned that sometimes you make shots and sometimes you just miss shots (In the region tournament we just missed shots. 19% from the field in the second half of our region tournament loss). I’ve learned that you can’t handle life much less excel at it without help and without friends. I’ve learned that in basketball making jump shots makes or breaks a team. I’ve learned that you have to teach kids how to love each other, and that the world’s perception of love is beyond skewed. And I’ve learned that when kids show heart, show love, show passion, it has a tendency to overwhelm me, and when there is any outpouring of it like there was on Monday afternoon in Scottsbluff, NE it brings me to tears of joy and pride.

When the Region IX tournament came upon us I was in shock with how quickly the season seemed to have gone. There had been nights, weeks, and seemingly months that I thought would never end, but even as I write this it feels almost like a dream with how quickly the season started and finished. Amidst the drama, the joy, the pain of loss, and the relief that was winning it’s hard to think that it’s over for now. My white board no longer has scout notes and team depth chart, it now has notes for next season and a recruiting chart. The recruiting season is almost as cutthroat as the regular season. It is so much more than selling your school, or your program, or even you as a coach. Long road trips, nights in hotels, fast food on the go (I’ve learned eating pizza and fried chicken while driving is more difficult than it sounds), and selling kids the world hoping they’ll sign with you. I have found it interesting that I haven’t run into any of my fellow JUCO coaches on my road trips, but I do keep seeing DII coaches everywhere I journey. I’m not sure if that means I’m on the right track looking at talent, or I’m in over my head.

New Mexico State Tournament

Bottom line though is that we have to get better. I love my girls. All of them. But I wouldn’t be a good coach if I didn’t try to find athletes that were better than they are. As coaches we strive all season long to make our athletes and teams better, and even if we are one of the lucky few to win a championship that team will have player turnover, and even if they don’t, other teams will be working to be better and beat us. Within a game you work to be better half to half, time-out to time-out, play to play. You look to be better one practice to the next. The hard part comes with how the players respond to that. As I bring in players that, I hope, are better than my current ones will my returners elevate their game or will they be satisfied with where they are and hope they don’t get passed? Satisfaction is a dangerous sensation. Today's culture is on the hunt for satisfaction. To be satisfied with their jobs, satisfied with their financial situations, satisfied in their relationships. Does being satisfied though mean that we have reached the pinnacle and there is no higher pursuit, or does it mean that we have decided to no longer pursue something great. As a coach, I hope I never become satisfied with where I am. If a season passes where I look back and can't find something that I've learned or have something I need to get better at, then I need to walk away from the profession forever. 



The gift from my girls for turning an ancient 25 years old.

Till Next Time

-          Coach Kyle