I love learning. I can honestly say that it’s one of the things in my life I look forward to the most. I only know what I know, so in order for me to learn more I listen more. Sounds like a simple enough concept, but you’d be amazed how hard it is for people to not only listen but learn from what their hearing.

So that being said last week I went to visit some colleges and high school practices in Virginia last week. My thinking is even if I only take away one drill or one play from a practice, it’s one more than I had the day before so the trip is worth it. After three days and a whole lot of hours in the car I headed home back to new jersey. I was satisfied with my trip, I learned some new drills, and got a chance to see some friends that I haven’t seen in a while. On my ride home I was talking to my friend Amanda on the phone.  She’s one of those people that always believe the glass is half full. She’s also someone who I have “life” talks with on a regular basis. It’s important to have friends like that I think. To have people you can talk to about what’s going on in the world, where you’re going, and what you feel is up next. Well this particular day right before we ended our conversation Amanda told me the story of how bamboo grows.

You plant the seed. Every day you water that seed, and then you wait. Year one nothing happens. Year two same results nothing. Year three passes and after all this watering and nurturing still nothing to show for it. Year four the same as the previous years. Then at some point in the fifth year it happens. You might see a tiny bulb, and for the next six weeks the tree grows as much as three feet per day, until it grows to be ninety feet tall.

This story really struck a chord with me. As I was driving I told Amanda that it was one of the coolest things that I’ve heard in a very long time. Most people after the first couple of months would of given up on the tree altogether. Imagine those who actually had the patience to wait five years to see the results? In the case of the bamboo tree, it takes that long to develop because the whole time you’re waiting it’s developing a mature long reaching root system that would be able to sustain and nurture its explosive growth. Makes a lot of sense. The tree has to have a strong foundation, if not it would surely die in the end.

To be an owner of a bamboo tree would be a test in itself. To have the patience to work at nurturing it without getting immediate results would be a true test of one’s character. How often do we give up on things before we allow them to develop? That’s a part of our everyday lives. Everyone wants the get rich scheme. We want the easy way out. If you drive in any city (in NJ it doesn’t matter its everywhere) you’re almost getting ran over by people that are in a rush to go nowhere. No one in their mind has the time to sit back and let that one car go in front of them during rush hour traffic. Because if we can save that extra second then that’s what we’ll do.

“It doesn’t matter how long the road is, most of the time the destination is well worth the trip”

Patience is an attribute that very few of us have. Coaching at the college level is a very tough business to get into. There have been plenty of quality coaches that get looked over for someone else with less credentials or basketball i.q. The other candidate might know someone affiliated with the program or played for the college etc, whatever the case may be it happens a lot more than it should. So what you see happening is some coaches will give up on it. They know sometimes the playing field isn’t fair and they don’t want to wait for another opportunity to pass them by. This in my opinion is the easy way out. I don’t worry about when my time will come because I know that it will. If its next month or next year eventually it will happen, and the journey is what I will appreciate even more than reaching the actual destination.

“Always be ready when your number is called, opportunity knocks quickly and then it goes to the next door”

I’d say the next lesson in the story of the bamboo is building your foundation. Continually learning more about yourself and what’s going on around you. When your chance comes you want to be ready for it. The bamboo tree needs its foundation in place to live. Are you trying to learn as much about your area of expertise as possible? Do you go out and seek knowledge from people that have done it longer than you have? Or are you content with what you know? I steal basketball plays and drills from different coaches all the time. If someone’s doing something that I like I ‘ll try to use it, and it doesn’t matter what level of basketball it is. If I go to a middle school practice and they do a drill I like, I ll try it out with my guys. You can learn from anyone at any given time, but you have to be open to it.

Out of all the practices I went to last week the best one was at a high school in Richmond Virginia. I learned more in that hour and a half then I did at both the college practices I went to combined. If I concentrated on the name of the school instead of what was being taught I probably wouldn’t of written down a thing. Thankfully I know that my foundation has to be strong for me to truly grow.