“People, Ideas, Hardware–in that order”

The quote comes from John Boyd, the Air Force officer whose ideas reshaped the design of military aircraft, Marine Corps combat philosophy, and was the creator of the OODA Decision Loop. He’s a thinker people ought to know about, well beyond those who pay attention to military affairs.

I think about this stuff in relations to teaching and coaching. If I listed all of Boyd’s credentials or ideas, you’d see he’s right 99% of the time–at least. That means the odds are good that his priority order quoted above is correct…which is a problem, isn’t it? Because that’s not how we think of classrooms and schools.

We pay lip service to the kids–instead, adults talk about educational theories or bicker about terms such as ‘woke’ or ‘critical race theory’ (ideas) and then teachers get pressured to increase their usage of technology in the classroom, so that schools issue laptops and tablets to students and then expect teachers to use those, smartboards, etc. (Hardware) even if teachers have not been given anything more than rudimentary training on the technology during an in-service seminar.

Skim the news–does anyone actually talk about the children? Even in cases of school shootings, you get statements of “think about the kids” given as platitudes before launching into bromides about gun control or the damage of ‘wokeness’–that aren’t about the frickin’ kids.

Alas, all that–it’s not in our control. Think global, act local. How we coach IS in our control.

In terms of coaching–how often do you think about ‘ideas’ rather than the people you are coaching? Coaches are perpetually looking for a better system, better (standardized) techniques, the perfect drill to solve ___________. The unspoken assumption behind this is that something that worked for me will automatically translate to other people. The thing is–they don’t. My system may work because I have a HOF libero passing while you may have someone brand new to the sport. My drill/technique won’t work for you. A 6’4 kid will have an easier time hitting than a 5’8 kid…or my drill for the shorter hitter may be irrelevant for the 6’5 college all-American…but we STILL insist that there are superior systems–forgetting that at the core of what we do are people. Each person is distinct and different and if you do not treat them individually within the team, in the end, you will have failed. Failed? Yup–not necessarily on the court but with their emotional and physical development which should be the first priority of youth coaching.

Treating each player as an individual is challenging. It means a lot of conversations, a lot of working through emotions, and it requires a WHOLE LOT of adjustment by the coach to become better him/herself…and because coaches don’t want to really change, a lot of coaches give up on kids. And that’s sad because there are great players out there who don’t fit preconceived notions...and I’m all about getting better at that