Mark Swasey: The Pyramid

This week in basketball has always been my favorite. Since 1985 and the creation of the 64 team basketball field by the NCAA, I have always felt a surge of excitement and anticipation for this great tournament. Over the years, I have been blessed to personally experience other great tournaments and their unique structures. In 1989, as a manager at the University of Southern Maine, we travelled to Whittenburg University for the Men's Division III Final Four. In 1999 as a part of the Black Hills State Men's Basketball Program, I experienced the NAIA Division II National Tournament. 32 Teams from around the country, 3 days of basketball, culminating in a Champion on the final day. It was a thrill just be a part of the opening ceremonies and the tourney wide photo, which included every team in the field in one picture. As a women's coach, I was able to experience the NCAA Division II Elite Eight experience. Just as thrilling, and held over 4 days, the knowledge that you were 1 of 8 teams left in the country, whose season still had meaning and purpose, was exhilarating.

It is so easy to get caught up in the emotions and thrill of such an event. As a coach, we often get totally consumed by our passion and desire to get to that level. The simple fact is some teams just aren't capable, some are capable, but never get the breaks. Every once in a while all the necessary ingredients come together and your team makes it to that stage. Whether it's a city championship, a state championship or a national championship, the excitement of that experience knows no boundaries.
Building championship teams starts with the creation of a certain type of culture which is unique to the school and program. For an example of what I mean by this, I'll start with the bus driver. It was always my opinion that the team bus driver was a part of the team. That person should always be greeted upon entering the bus and thanked when exiting. It is a simple act of respect and was an important piece of the culture I tried to create as a coach. Strength of culture in a program is predominately about unwritten expectations. Most of us begin with written expectations as every year we draw up our rules and our codes of behavior etc. But it is the unwritten expectations, that once fully ingrained into the program, create systems that either work or are doomed to fail. As coaches are we creating cultures of respect? Do we care about that or more importantly what do we feel respect looks like? What are our systems and cultures based on? The best programs, which are consistenly competitive, have more than just good players. Those programs have a culture of expectations that becomes unwritten, remains consistent and is unique to each team. When we see the teams who are playing at this time of the year, we can most likely see bits and pieces of that unique culture which has been created within their program.

My first step in building a culture always starts with a written document. I like using something called a Pyramid for Success which allows for player and coach collaboration in the creation of a written document containing the aspects of what we feel are important to our individual and team success. The Pyramid includes the stages of the season (pre-season, regular season etc. with our post season goals ending at the top blocks) and then outside the Pyramid, in each corner of the page, the team would choose the different attributes which would require focus and attention in order to be successful. Those would broken down in the following 4 areas.


Athletic

Academic

Personal (including hygiene)

Social

The first Pyramid session is where we break the players up into groups of 3 or 4 and have them brainstorm as many different examples as possible, for each of the areas, which they felt were necessary for them to be successful that season. We would tally 6-7 of the consistent examples and put them on paper. Some ideas were great, some were funny and some foolish. Regardless of the group and how seriously they took it, they best part of this Pyramid was that they came up with it. And periodically, throughout the season, I could go back to this Pyramid with them and see where we were at. It was a great way to maintain accountability, primarily, because it was again, their idea. These are the areas which are mutually agreed upon by the team which must be focused on and given effort to. As a coach, if I felt a slide or a certain plateau happening, we would go back to the Pyramid. It was a great way to get us rebalanced and grounded again as a team.


The Pyramid can be as complex or as simple as one would choose. I always liked putting at the very bottom of the page, our team defensive and offensive goals. For instance, Rebound Margin and say Free Throws attempted as an example. The Pyramid would be posted in the locker room, and each player would receive a copy. I always kept one in my office as well and would compare our actual stats to the team goal stats throughout the year. What I liked best about it, was that if we were slipping in a certain area, I would go back to the Pyramid and say, for example, "ok, we agreed that we would need to average 22 defensive touches each game to be successful. We are only getting 16. What needs to happen in order to get up to 22"? Now the player is engaged and involved. They have to take some ownership and investment in focusing on attaining that goal. Again, it was a simple document, it could be easy to go crazy with it and have a zillion different stats and goals. I like the simplistic approach. Keep it manageable, and simple. 3-4 defensive and offensive goals is all I personally felt was necessary.

As it is March Madness, I'd like to conclude by coming back to the bus driver. During an Elite Eight tournament in San Antonio one of my Franklin Pierce teams were at, we were lucky enough to have a very charismatic bus driver. At that tournament, each team is designated one driver for the duration of your stay, and this policy always lent itself nicely to our general team culture in that they were a part of the team. Prior to our National Championship game, our driver handed me a hand written note, which I have kept to this day. I suppose their were many lessons to be learned from this exchange. But being open to it and showing this person the respect he deserved, allowed for a certain bond to be developed. This relationship added to the overall experience of our tournament in a positive way. I will end this blog post with the poem he wrote on that piece of paper.

"Championships are the final destination of an athlete. Athletes are born, but Champions are made through proper planning, hard practice, long training, confidence, skill sets, desire, goals and opportunities.
Today you all have afforded yourselves with just that, a chance, to make history not only for your University, but also for the archives of your mind and lives.

If you believe that you will or can, along with an honest effort, you will be rewarded with that of a championship and a place in history forever. So without fear of your opponent, the time has come to compete and most of all use the attributes and go claim your place in history in the Women's NCAA DII Championship. Go RAVENS Go" LB Herring "A True Champion"

The Pyramid