M.A.N. - U.P.
How To Coach A Male Into Manhood
Bryant K. Smith
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Bryant K. Smith
ISBN 978-0-9823833-4-6
Discover other titles by Bryant K. Smith at Smashwords.com
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Foreword
It was just another basketball game to me. I had coached so many with mixed results that I had sworn not to lose my cool and get emotional again. With 15 seconds left in the game the leading scorer on the other team backed my post player into the lane and scored a lay-up with ease, they were up by two points. I called a time out. I gave specific instructions on what my team needed to do and how to do it in order for us to win. I broke the huddle with a positive “Our time on three”. As the team turned to walk back on the court I heard one of my players on the bench yell to my post player “man-up ya’ll! We got this”. That’s when I knew I had to write this book.
It’s a simple phrase on the surface one that is spoken in every setting that I have ever been in. Whether it’s the halls of corporate America, the ivory towers of academia, or the hallowed hardwoods of the basketball court, “man-up” and all of its connotations are there. Almost spiritual in it’s ability to pull one in, Zen like in the way it forces the person who hears it to respond, “man-up!” commands attention in every respect. Upon hearing those two seemingly innocent words the listener will attempt to summon energy, faith, mental and physical fortitude and do battle against any and every obstacle. To do anything less would be considered an embarrassment, a failure and bring into question one’s manhood.
I am writing this book because there is a part of me that is fed up with hearing “man-up” as a means for motivating a male, or expressing camaraderie. I thought that I could write a book or even a series that would help people understand that we have got it wrong. I want to help people see that the problem is the collective. We who give license to and validate abusive phrases like “man-up” by saying it is okay.
There is a part of me that is accepting my inability to alter enough perceptions so that we could eliminate the phrase from use. I can only hope to give us time to pause, and reflect on what it means to “man-up”. To this end I offer the following replacement acronym for those who still see it as necessary to use the phrase “man-up”. The next time you feel a need to motivate a male into being better than he is presently demonstrating, instead of being derogative to our women and asking him to stop acting like a bi**h, why not really offer him a helping hand? Ask him to Master And Nurture (his) Unlimited Potential! Remind him that he is a being with unlimited potential and regardless of what he is experiencing at present he is only a thought away from tapping into his unlimited potential and having or becoming whatever he wants. I want us all to M.A.N.-U.P.!
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The Game
“The game” of basketball is usually played with two teams of five players on the court at the same time. Each of these teams tries to score points by placing the basketball into the basketball goal. The winner of the game is the team that has successfully placed the basketball through the basketball goal the most times thereby scoring the most points in a predetermined amount of time. There are rules that govern player decorum, coaching etiquette, and penalties that address rule violations. The game is designed to be played indoors’ but can and is often played outdoors as well.
Now if I took these rudimentary instructions to another planet where they had never heard of nor seen a basketball game in their lives, the aliens might be able to play but in all likelihood it would be a far cry form “the game” that we are so familiar with. Before we could play a game that would resemble the ones we play here in the United States each rule would have to be explained to the aliens in more detail. The height of the goal, the look and feel of the ball would all have to be described so that “the word” basketball would be “the game’ basketball that we would recognize.
It is similar with “the game” of developing into manhood. I could give you the definition but I doubt if that would be enough. I could give you an example, but without the rules to go along with the example the average male will probably not be able to develop into a man. “The game of manhood” would not be universal in its representation. This lack of consistency in defining, evaluating, and displaying manhood have made it almost impossible for us to find a universally acceptable means of helping males develop into men. “The game of manhood” means something different to each one of them. Some believe “the game of manhood” to be situational, while others see “the game of manhood” as conceptual. For the purposes of this book I am defining “the game of manhood” as the conceptual understanding of the process by which one continuously develops into a man. This book will attempt to use the game of basketball as a metaphor for the development process that a male undergoes as he journeys into manhood.
“The game of manhood” has an unofficial beginning, an unofficial training period, an unofficial starting time, and an unofficial ending time. The journey into manhood is different for each male however the processes involved can be systematically observed, studied, and managed so that a consistent result can be predicted and produced. The result being a process that can be duplicated throughout the country regardless of race, creed, religion or country of origin.
This book is designed to compare a male’s development into manhood with “the game” of basketball. Deciding to use basketball as opposed to some other sport was an easy decision for several reasons. First basketball is fast becoming one of the most popular sports on the planet. Second, it is a game that is inexpensive to play. Even if you don’t have a real basketball or a goal you can still play makeshift versions of the game almost anywhere in the world with very limited resources. A wad of paper rolled into a circle for a ball, a trashcan or a bicycle tire rim with the spokes removed for a goal. Third, at the time that I was writing this book I had witnessed the explosion of what I call pop basketball culture, an era where we make icons out of people just because they can play this game. The marketing of basketball is global and the marketing of its players as the people you want to be or date is fever pitched. The athletes that play this game both as amateurs and as professionals seem to be collectively in need of the type of reflection the book calls for. The book is my attempt at getting them to revaluate life using the very tool that helps them view life as being worthy of living. Finally I have selected basketball because for the past 12 years I have been part of the problem as an amateur coach of “the game” and now I want to use “the game” and my experiences with it to help reduce if not eliminate a problem. I want to help create healthy, loving, giving, nurturing, respectful, men. I want to use “the game” of basketball to do so.
In reading this book and understanding “the game” you will see terms that may seem confusing. Just as it would be confusing to an alien from another planet that is exposed to the game for a first time, I will be exposing the game to you for the first time. I will be asking you to step off the court and into the journey a young male would undertake, a journey into manhood. How will they travel on this journey? Where will they stop? Who will guide them? I hope this book will help answer those questions and many more. I hope the questions the book does not answer will at least create the dialogue and bring to the forefront an issue that has been taking a back seat for far too long.
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Practice
I don’t care what you do in life athletically, academically, socially, or professionally it can all be enhanced through practice. In school they call practice “homework”, at work they might call it an “internship”, for marriage you practice by dating, and in basketball and other sports it’s simply called practice. The point being that anything you are going to do and want to be good at it will require practice. You will need to arrange your schedule so that you have time to prepare yourself to be able to do that which will be required of you come game time. The time you spend in transition from boyhood into manhood is game time.
“How does one practice for manhood?” is a question that many boys and some adult males struggle with daily. While I don’t think manhood is as easy as following an instruction book, I don’t think it is as complicated as rocket science either. In writing this book I am deliberate in starting with a chapter called “practice”. I need for you as a reader to begin where all great teams begin, and that is with practice. In case you are thinking good teams begin with “recruiting and tryouts”, you would be right as well. However, the fact that you have this book means you have already been recruited, and have made the team. Now it’s time to show you how to use everything that has gotten you to this point for the betterment of the team. We need to practice.
The first thing we need to establish is that on our team we all have roles the main roles being coach and player. No practice can be successful until everyone understands that basic element. I don’t care who the great athlete is nor which sport they have excelled in they did it with the help of a coach. They needed someone who saw things in them that they may not have seen in themselves. They needed a guide to help them navigate the waters and emerge the best athlete they could be. The same is true of your development as a man. You need a coach and you have to understand the coach may not look like you they may not have lived your life. Your coach may not even be a man, a point we will discuss in more detail in a subsequent chapter. Regardless, your coach is the person who possesses the necessary skills to help you become the man you need to be. Once you understand whom the coach is and what his or her job is, you will not be side tracked by unimportant issues such as race, gender, or socio-economic status of the coach. You won’t insult your coach by asking him or her to be your friend. That is not their job or priority, they are there to guide you in practice and during the game. They are in charge of your development they are not there to be your friend. Friendships may form but they are not the basis of the relationship.
You are a player. You are there to practice, learn, and perform up to your talent, ability and the coach’s expectations. Your team is depending on you to learn your role and to play your part on the court. As a player you have to come to practice eager and willing to learn. You have to be in the best shape mentally and physically in order to get the most out of practice. To this end practice begins the day before, you have to eat, and get the proper amount of rest that will allow you to perform at your peek during practice and ultimately during the game. It may be tempting to come to practice and fall into one of the three pitfalls of practice.
Pitfall number one is forgetting that you are the player and thinking you should be the coach. If you do this you will attempt to tell the coach what you believe you should be doing. Sometime you may be so bold as to tell the coach what you will or will not do, what you can or can’t do. All of these have the same negative consequences. You will either have to run more, get cursed out and have to run some more or be told that you are no longer on the team and never complete your development.
Pitfall number two occurs when you settle for doing less than your best because everyone else is not performing at their peek. This is known as “the Jones’s syndrome”. You are in effect trying to keep up with or in this case play down to “the Jones’s” level. “The Jones’s” are those teammates who have talent but refuse to apply themselves. They are contempt with being mediocre and want nothing more than for you to be mediocre as well. If everyone around them is mediocre it’s hard to tell who the real slackers are because there are no real producers. This is also known as “monkey see, monkey do”. You see one teammate not running so you decide that you are not going to run either, instead of thinking like a monkey you need to try and act like the man that you are trying to become not the monkey you are observing. Remember you are practicing for your own development and future. You are practicing because your ability to perform is directly related to the effort you have exerted during practice. Instead of doing less in practice push yourself to do more with the hope that your teammates will see your efforts and want to duplicate them.
Pitfall number three occurs when you believe you don’t need to practice because you know it all already. This pitfall is the most dangerous of the three because you have over stated your own ability. You have become conceited. Sometimes you confuse conceit with confidence. Confidence is a firmly demonstrated belief in your ability. Conceit is an exaggerated statement of one’s potential. When you are confident it shows it does not have to be stated. You are confident because of the work that you have done. You are conceited because of what you claim you can do. Confident people are supported by their deeds conceited people are exposed by their lack of work. Pitfall number three is also the most dangerous because it teaches you to see your talent level as a destination instead of a journey. If you live to be one hundred, you should still hope to be learning and trying to improve or at least maintain your skill level. “Trying” is the keyword you need to focus your attention on. When you come to practice you are coming to “try” and learn more, to “try” and improve your performance, and to “try” to make certain movements, thoughts, and actions second nature. We all need to practice.
In sports your coach has the title “coach” but in your life your coach may have the title “mom, dad, teacher, professor, uncle, Mr.”, etc. The same rules apply. These people are in your life to help guide you into manhood. They are qualified based on their experiences, and eldership. While playing against the best players is an excellent way to judge your skills in your peer group, using a coach can help elevate your game to the next level. You may be tempted to strike out on your own and test yourself against other players however, without a coach you will never surpass them. One of the things working with a coach will teach you that just playing with other players will not, is how to adapt and be victorious in differing and difficult circumstances.
Since you never know when a game will be difficult until you are often in the midst of playing in it, the best preparation is to work as hard as you can at every practice. This will elevate your game, and challenge you and your teammates physically and mentally. A good practice regimen requires consistency in your approach. The majority of the problems you will encounter on your journey into manhood and beyond will not be because of hate, lust, anger, or ignorance it will be because your actions are inconsistent with your values and words. Practice uses repetition to teach you how to be consistent with your decision making during the game. This is why practicing your way into your manhood becomes so important because you will learn to be consistent on your journey and not wait until late in your life to decide to try consistency. Most males who never become real men fail to consistently match their actions, words, and values. They say one thing and do another. If they do become consistent they usually settle for being consistently poor examples of being men. This is not intentional it is a consequence of not practicing and having the discipline of a coach to practice consistently.
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Game Time
“What time is it? Game time! What time is it? Game time! What time is it? Game time! One, two, three, game time!”
This ritualistic question and answer session is repeated on courts all around the world. Just before the game begins the coach or the captains huddles the team and makes sure everyone knows that it is game time. In your development into manhood you need to declare just as vehemently “it’s game time!” No it’s not time for you to play, it’s time for you to perform at your peak. It’s time for you to focus on the objective at hand. You need to decide each and every day that “game time” is the time you choose to focus all of your energy and effort into your becoming a man. By declaring that it is “game time” you empower yourself to do those things that developing men engage themselves in. You are also giving yourself permission to believe that the outcome will be well worth the effort you put into yourself. It is an investment in your own abilities, and future.
Even though “game time” is present tense, it requires that you be concerned about the future. You have to be concerned about your future as well as the future of those who will come behind you. By taking a moment and declaring that it is “game time” you begin to understand that manhood and your development into it are a cycle that repeats itself whether you are prepared for it or not. Saying that it is “game time” is just one step in your being connected with that cycle. It is you reaching out and accepting that your development can be beneficial to future generations or that your lack of development can be detrimental to them as well. You have to be concerned about people you have never met and those you may never meet as well. By declaring it is “game time” each and every day before you step out to interact with the universe you are preparing the universe for the best that you can offer it. You are programming yourself to do great things and to excel beyond what may typically be expected of other males.
Just as when you play basketball you hope that the fans will see a good game, you don’t want anyone to leave the gym and say that you didn’t perform well. You may have never met the coaches, scouts, reporters and fans that are in attendance, yet you understand that “game time” is your chance to impress them. You step onto the court with a mental determination that may exceed your physical abilities or preparation, but declaring that it is “game time” allows you to concentrate on what you want and what you need to do in order to have it. You are smart enough not to waste your time thinking about any shortcomings that you may have in your game. You know that you can’t afford to show any signs of worry or weakness because those feelings will not serve you well in the contest you are about to be engaged in.
In your development into manhood declaring that it is “game time” can have a similar effect on your actions. Your declaration activates an inner strength that enables you to go out into the world ready to face challenges that you have never faced before. Declaring it’s “game time” will empower you to overcome obstacles that you have been preparing for and those that are just sprung onto you. Every day that you wake and step out into the world has to be viewed as the start of a new game. It’s “game time”! By declaring it is “game time” you are also giving yourself permission to release the past and any pain that is associated with it. Refusing to live in the past is not the same as refusing to learn from the past.
On the court what you do the day after a loss is just as important as what you did in order to prepare for the game. It will serve you poorly to come to practice after a loss and continue to relive the old game. No matter how many times you say what you should have, could have, or would have done the reality is it’s too late now. The past is over. Examine what you did wrong in the previous game and prepare yourself not to make the same mistakes again in the next game. Imagine if you went to the free throw line in your next game telling yourself how many you missed from the free throw line in your last game. Your mind is powerful, what you envision has a way of coming true. It matters not if your thoughts are positive or negative the main thing is that energy that is created by both positive and negative thoughts will be released into the universe. Your mind will put negative energy out that your body will in turn ingest, and negative results will come from that.
When you are working hard on your development into manhood you cannot afford to have your mind generating negative energy that your body can consume. It is unhealthy and unproductive. Stress plays a major role in the reason there is a difference in the average life expectancy for men and women. Stress is often the result of your body’s physical reaction to the negative energy that your mind creates. Reliving the life games of yesterday is one of the main conflicts your mind creates that your body finds difficult to process. This inability of your body to physically control the negative energy that your mind creates is what can lead to high blood pressure, obesity, and males trying to escape their mental issues by overcompensating with drugs, alcohol, sex, and other false remedies. Once seduced by these unhealthy coping mechanisms it is a short journey into drug, alcohol, and or sexual abuse and ultimately a heart attack, a stroke, jail or all of the aforementioned.
Producing negative energy can be unproductive for the developing man as well. Reliving yesterday’s life game can become an obsession that is paralyzing. You could potentially spend so much time thinking about the past that you are unable to live in the present or prepare for the future. The time you used to spend practicing and preparing for the next life game, you spend remembering and regretting your actions in the last life game. If you were involved in a relationship and it did not work out, you could become fixated on trying to understand why it didn’t work instead of making sure that you are ready for the next relationship that you find yourself in. Perhaps you failed a major test and become so depressed by failing that one test that you stop studying for your other classes. It’s unproductive and all a result of not understanding the power of saying it’s “game time”.
Once you declare that it’s “game time” you are saying hello to a fresh start. You are saying that you are ready for a fresh start. You are declaring that not only is today going to be a fresh start and that you are ready for it, you are saying to yourself and the world that you expect the best outcome. It’s “game time” and you believe that you are going to win. No one ever declares it’s “game time and I think we are going to get beat today”. Everyone that says, “it’s game time” always believes that it’s their, “game time”, not the opposing team’s “game time”. The power of the statement is not in saying that it’s “game time” it is in knowing what it means to declare “game time” and in your belief in the concept of “game time”. Now declare that for your manhood it’s “game time”!
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Your Team
Who is on your team? You have been practicing but do you really know who is on your team and what their roles are? Do you know whom you can count on when you need a clutch three pointer versus who can get into the paint and make a play out of nothing? When you think about your team do you count the Athletic Director, the trainers, managers, bus drivers, janitors, ticket takers, ushers, security and everyone that is involved in your being able to play in the game? Most of us only see the players on the court with us but give little thought to the supporting cast that help make a team a true collective of players working for the good of the group as they strive to meet a common goal.
It is the same way with developing into manhood. Many of us only see those in our immediate circle as having a role in our development. Sometime we base our ability to transition into manhood on who we don’t see in our immediate circle instead of all of the supporting cast that are trying to help us in a broader spectrum. Whose job was it to inflate the balls and clean the hardwood, or paint the stripes? Whose job is it to make sure you have laws that protect you, your classroom is clean, and the immunizations you received as a child are the right dosage? All seemingly unimportant but each piece is part of a whole. Take for example the basketball games and practices where someone on one team throws the ball to a player on the opposing team mistaking him for one of his teammates. This happens and the player who throws the errant pass feels terrible for not knowing better.
As you attempt to grow into manhood you will often think someone is on your team who in reality is an opponent. Most of the time you rarely realize it as fast as you do on the court, but the lesson is the same. As you develop into manhood sometimes you will mistakenly believe that someone is on your team when in reality they are not. Sometimes they will misrepresent themselves as a teammate, other times it will truly be your fault for seeing something that was not there. You thought it was a red jersey, when it was really blue. You thought she loved you when she really just liked your car. You thought he was your post player when in reality he was the other teams post player. You thought he was your best friend when in reality he was a gang banging, car thief just trying to get you to join him because as they say “misery loves company”.