Sidelines

Sidelines

Last night we went to the Raptors 905 game…shout out to big bro Clayton who’s sooooo good at looking out for me, but could be a bit better with the paparazzi shots 😂! As can be expected, the boys were fully into the game. Me…I was half playing attention to the game but fully paying attention to the lessons.

At dinner tonight, we chatted about what struck me the most during the game. Jerry Stackhouse, the Raptors 905 coach, seemed to be as much of a spectator as I was. I mean…the guys sitting behind us were coaching BOTH teams more than Jerry was coaching the Raptors 905 team.

So I asked the boys why they thought Jerry was so chill in how he coached. They had really good reasons:

1. He felt they were playing to the best of their ability

2. He felt they were running the plays as they should have

3. He trusted that they would know what to do if they got in a pickle.

I repeated these 3 back to them and simply said ‘I love when you guys run my teaching moments for me 😂’.

The truth is that watching Jerry coach was inspiring and terribly uncomfortable…for me. I mean…he IS the coach, he knows what to do, the ins and the outs, he was an NBA All-Star, he played like 18 seasons.

But he’s not a player anymore. He’s a coach, a private tutor, he instructs and trains these athletes and provides them with strategy. That friends…was MY teaching moment. Sometimes I want to help so much that, admittedly, I try to play the game for them.

1. I need to trust that they’re playing to the best of their ability

2. I need to trust that they’re using the strategies that we taught them.

3. I need to trust that they know what to do if they get in a pickle.

Basically I need to give them the guidelines and stay on the sidelines.