Stats are changing the way a lot of coaches examine basketball. This can be seen in the NBA with the new analytical statistics that are being used and have led to some coaches being fired and hired. The main example of this was when Lionel Hollins got fired from the Memphis Grizzlies after leading the team to the Western Conference Finals so the organization could hire David Joerger. Hollins was seen as an old school coach who wanted to pound the ball inside while Joerger was said to be of the new school analytical coaches who relied on new stats to coach his team. I do not necessarily agree or disagree with the Memphis Grizzlies because they are being successful with Coach Joerger as well as with Coach Hollins. I think that stats are changing the game of basketball and all other sports with the amount of stats that are available to coaches for use in evaluating their players. I think it is very important for a coach to be able to use stats to help and understand what they mean. However stats are just one of the tools a coach must use and cannot fully trust stats above all else.
I think both tools are very useful in creating a professional portfolio. The pros of LinkedIn are being able to connect with all types of people from all over the world and communicate back and forth with them. The personal website does not make this as easy as LinkedIn does but the beauty of the personal website is having a simple button to press for viewers to get to your LinkedIn page. The personal website can give a more information than LinkedIn. I think the most important part of having a professional portfolio is to connect all of these tools that are available. One possible con of a personal website is that there can be too much information on it and makes it harder for the boss, employer, or who ever may be viewing the page to find what information they need.
I think the best professional networking in my field, trying to be a college level basketball coach, will always be face to face meeting and making an impression. In my little experience in coaching, getting jobs and moving up seems to be who you know and how successful you are, and I am not sure which is more important. I have been to a couple events where hundreds of coaches are in the same gym recruiting and I try to talk to as many coaches as I can and get their business card to write them a letter, email, or call them after to try to make a meaningful relationship. I think that is the best way for me to create a network and then keep in touch with these coaches through recruiting, newsletters, and even just running into them on the road during the season. I think that a PWP can help and is not a bad thing to have by any means, but it seems to me that more meaningful relationships are made face to face with a firm handshake and the ability to hold an intelligent conversation with a superior. The other strategy is to work as hard as I can for each head coach I work for as an assistant because they will have a professional network of their own and I can find my way into the head coach's network by working hard.
To quote the great Michael Scott from the popular television show The Office, "Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information." Wikis are the wave of the future and it is a simple way for people to get all the information they want. The discussion in schools of course is can the information be trusted without all the proper citations. I think wikis can and should be trusted. All information from these sources with proper citations and proof of where the information came from might all be made up anyways. If I become a professor I am going to advise my students to use wikis for information because if I assign a paper I want to hear what the student thinks not what information they can find and cite. Wikis and Weblogs are how most people think now in our society. These are the two easiest ways to get large amounts of information about a random subject. I think that today's society want things easy without having to work so if I can go on Wikipedia and get all this information I am not going to go through the trouble of going to a scholarly website or go to the library and pull out an encyclopedia. Whether it is a positive or negative I feel that is how our society operates today.
LinkedIn appears to be a more professional version of Facebook. It is essentially the same idea, the user creates a profile and then finds friends with common interests and connects with them. However on LinkedIn, the goal is to get a job or professional connection out of the "friendship" while on Facebook the goal is perhaps just the "friendship". There are many similarities between the two that I see.
I think a few ways I can enhance my profile is to add a few documents that explain me. I think I can add my resume and coaching philosophy to start. I think these two documents would give people that see my website a quick overview of who I am and what my experiences are like. I think I could also add some of my coaching history that would give people an idea of the level and different teams I have coached for. I can probably add more pictures of myself as well.
I think the Jawbone Up24 would be the best wearable technology for my situation. As a basketball coach my players cannot wear a big or clunky wearable that would get in their way while playing or working out. The Jawbone is just like a small bracelet that they would be able to comfortably workout in. They would not be able to wear it in games however due to rules that do not allow bracelets, but they could put tape over it and still wear it if I really wanted in game data. Other positives for the Jawbone for me is the sleep tracking. One thing our coaching staff is always on the players about is how much sleep they are getting. We want them in bed early and up early in the morning for workouts and for them not to take long naps during the day. This will allow me to track the players sleeping habits and confront them about it. Another big quality for what I focus on with my team is the ability to track their diets. Our coaching staff tries to emphasize the importance of eating healthy and this will allow us to track what they are eating. A con is that it does not give in the moment data but the player would have to connect it to a device to review their information after the workout or practice is over.
I believe apps are extremely helpful in teaching. In physical education I believe that apps can speed up the learning process for many students. I think that a lot of students learn better when they can see themselves doing something wrong and then explain to them how to change it. An app like Coach's Eye can do exactly that. If I am teaching a weight lifting class and trying to teach a technique to a lift, I can record a student's attempt and then show the student exactly what they are doing wrong and how to fix it. This is just one example of a useful app. There are many other apps out there just to make a teacher's life easier like apps to take roll, make teams, organize brackets, and countless others. I think as a coach and teacher I will find what works best for me and use apps to better enhance the learning of the students.
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