The Basketball Podcast: EP350 with Sharman White on High School Coaching: Culture, Strategies and Success

Sharman White Quotes:

“I spent plenty of time at clinics, I spent plenty of time studying and reading over different guys, watching your stuff. I think you have to be fully vested as a coach and committed to what it is you want to accomplish. And then, when it gets to the players, what you emphasize is what you get.”

“As a parent, you see your kid.  As a coach, you see 12 players, you see the team. And so. But you’ve got to understand that a parent is investing into this with their kid. And so, you have to be cognizant of that.”

“With parents, I’m very, very direct.  I try to be very truthful with them because it’s a truth business. And the more truth-tellers that the kid has and that the parent has, it makes everything a little bit better.”

“Your biggest challenge is to make sure you’re organized so that parents are informed and that your lines of communication are clear. I send out a season-long calendar . . we plan it all the way out day-by-day so they’ll know because [they have] their family outings, their vacations. But if they know it [the schedule], they’re going to be more in tune to whatever it is you want to do.”

“My non-negotiable for my players is . . hard work. I’ve lived it. I’ve watched my parents work hard. I had to work hard. Hard work is a non-negotiable for me. You have to work hard. I think that’s a life lesson and a life value that they all can benefit from . . You’ve got to work hard, whether it’s on the court or whether it’s off the court, because hard work is going to carry you a long way in life.”

“I don’t really discuss playing time [with parents] because I feel like the players determine playing time. Of course, everybody wants their kid to play every minute of every game, but that’s not the reality. I don’t discuss playing time because I feel like it’s up to me and my staff, based on what we see every day, to determine that.”

“As a coach, I always want my defense to be ahead of my offense. And so those are things that I really emphasize early on – how we move and how we rotate and how we communicate, all those things. Those are the things that I try to lead off my first few practices with, just to establish that.”

“When you have expectations placed on you as part of what you’re doing, I think you have to attack expectations. You cannot let expectations attack you because then they become a burden . . We have a pretty good team this year, and there are some lofty expectations for us out there. I told our guys we’re not going to back away from the expectation, we’re going to attack them . . It’s a sign of how you go about attacking the situation and trying to be the aggressor . . I believe in that for my teams. We want to be the aggressor.”

“There’s an ebb and flow to it [coaching]. We tell players all the time you have peaks and you have valleys. Same thing for you as a coach.  I think your approach to the highs and your approach to the lows has to be similar in how you approach it. I tell guysdon’t act like it’s your first time or your last time. What I tell myself too is, regardless of what happens, you got to live to fight another day.”

“We are all in. The guys who work at the varsity level with us and even at the JV level, we always go down and help out and be a part of [the lower grade program]. We go to the games, and we have our players to go to the games, and they are a part of the practices. We do those things so that everybody that comes through that door, starting in the sixth grade, they feel a part of not just a program, but a family. And I think that’s big for our kids in our school.”

“When you play against other countries, you can see the evidence of skill being taught at a young age and how to play.  I go back to my middle school coaches and I always tell them, ‘We can teach them plays, but I’d rather teach them how to play.’  Also, one thing you can pick up on, international teams pride themselves on execution.”

“Find the identity of your team and what’s going to make you successful and then also make that a part of . . how will it help them for the next level if they’re fortunate enough to play? How can you help put them in position to be successful at the next level? Which is part of, I feel, my responsibility as a high school coach.”

Sharman White Breakdown:

Sharman White Selected Links from the Podcast:

Sharman White
Scott Fitch
Jay Wright
Cooper Flagg
Dylan Harper
Ace Bailey
Kevin Durant
LeBron James
Steph Curry
Jackson Ferry
Danny Ferry