Ball hog or team player? Lessons from the court of Sir Kobe

By Lori Tippets
Jacksonville News

The media screams out the headlines, “Kobe Bryant scores 81 points against the Toronto Raptors,” and “NYC Girl scores 113 in high school game.”

While these are amazing accomplishments, one wonders what it does to the psyche of young players who look up to older players as their heroes and role models.

Many a young player tries to duplicate the moves, and yes, even the scoring of their heroes.

How detrimental is being a “ball hog” to the young player’s development not only in basketball but in developing the overall individual?

Ricky Whaley, who has coached over 30 youth teams for the Jacksonville PARD, and has been coaching since 1980, feels that being a ball hog is a bad thing. “The problem with ball hogging is while it may look good; teams with ball hogs seldom win championships unless they have other players that play a role.

Whaley said he gets excited about watching unselfish well-coached teams execute and play aggressive defense. “Parents and coaches should teach players to put the team ahead of themselves. In addition, players should be taught the fundamentals of the sport and good sportsmanship,” he said.

Whaley also believes young people should be taught that athletics is more than winning; it is about physical and moral growth as well as discipline and character development. “When these things are taught, winning will come,” says Whaley.

Charles Burkett, head coach for both the Saks girls and boys high school teams and former basketball standout at JSU, feels that if there is a ball hog on the team, it should come about as a team concept.

“Ball hogs are produced through team concepts,” commented Burkett. “As a coach, you determine who shoots and how often they shoot. If a player did something different than what you want, you decide if they continue to play. I think coaches should be responsible.”

Coach Dave Dagostino, head coach of the JSU women’s basketball team, is adamant about the team concept and about his players conveying that idea to younger players.

Coach Dagostino is quick to point out that you can’t take away from the accomplishments of Kobe Bryant because he is a great player, but that the media should spend as much time showing the picks that allowed him to take the shot, or the assists that led to the basket. This type of play, total team play, is what Dagostino emphasizes.

Dagostino stresses to his team the importance of doing away with singular pronouns and adopting more “us” and “we” in the players’ vocabulary. “When I ask the question, ‘Who’s player is that?,’ then the correct answer the team should give is, ‘That’s our player’”, explains Dagostino.

“In a team environment,” continues Dagostino, “a screener is just as important as a shooter.”

Coach Dagostino explained that when a shooter scores, they should know that they are just the finished product, that another player got the rebound and someone else made a great pass to get them into transition. Scoring should be a team concept brought about by a total team effort.

Those that score should be quick to acknowledge the screen, or the great assist that made the basket possible.

The camps that JSU holds also stress the team concept, doing away with keeping score and promoting less dribbling, more passing. “Everything is about the team,” says Dagostino. “I teach this to my team and they teach it to the youth they work with. The team concept trickles down to the youth.”

Dagostino feels that at the college level, he and his team have the power to give the correct message about basketball to the youth. “Team play is a concept and a tool that will relate to every aspect of their lives, how they relate to their classmates, to teammates and to coaches. The team concept will relate to everything they do in life.

“Don’t inhibit the kids that are good,” points out Dagostino, “but if they are that good they can help and uplift two to three kids around them and help them to be better.

“A ball hog plays for stats; he isn’t all that concerned about the outcome of the game but with how well he did. A good player will look at how the team did and what he did to uplift his team.”

Lori Tippets is a sports writer for The Jacksonville News.