#Stopped eating at 11:00am and am doing a 24 hour fast into tomorrow | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

marianaeq · 8 years ago

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Day 1

6/21/17;11:30pm. No hunger pains. 21 hours in. Coffee, tea, acv, and water. Only. Going to decrease my aerobics, weights, and yoga to only one hour to maintain energy.

Day 2:

6/22/2017; 8:00am. So far only restlessness and sore legs. Still no hunger pains. I’m realizing that I barely allowed myself to eat to begin with. Also told my mom about it. So, that’s a weight off my shoulders. 12:02 am: Slight headache around noon but went away. Time seems to move faster. 3:27pm: realizing smoking is the only time I feel my body the most. I mean, always knew that, but it intensifies the emptiness. 6:25 pm: bubble water saves me from being hungry since it makes me feel bloated and bleh. 7:44pm: hunger pains initiated.

Day 3:

6/23/2017; 6:30am. Called out- on pay day. Woke up feeling like I was dying. Trapped in a hot room dehydrated and empty. Couldn’t even zip my mom up. Feeling weak and have a settled headache. Grabbed water, served some coffee ,and smoked a bowl. Read a few posts to remain motivated. Haven’t worked out or yoga’d since Day 1. Since I called out maybe I’ll do some of that. I feel a little better but couldn’t run around for an 8 hour shift without fainting. Can’t call my doctor for a note either. On a later note, I’ve been a lot happier. Only sour today. 12:36pm: headache wore off. (No meds at all through this process). Sparkling water with cut fruit and chewing on ice is super fulfilling. Going to work out soon. 6:58pm: worked out for an hour and realized I should stick to simply cardio right now. Found myself almost giving up but continued research and preparation. I feel okay. Just weak. Very weak. But it’s apart of the process and why I gave today to rest. Minus my intense work out over cardio that has left me utterly defeated. 9:10 pm: Got a boost of energy and was able to do low cardio ( 10min run). Which actually got me sweating and feeling good again. Hopefully this prolongs until tomorrow. 9:30 pm: my mom keeps asking me if I ate- even after I consistently remind her. She’s working with me but I don’t know if she seriously forgets or keeps thinking I’ll budge.

Day 4:

6/24/2017; 8:57 am. Definitely a more energetic day! Woke up and actually got ready for work. Feeling a little weak but that’s normal. Feeling grumbles here and there but nothing major. No headache. Feeling really good. 11:03am. I decided to track my steps here at work to see how much I walk and half way through my shift I’ve accumulated 7 miles. I definitely feel less bad for not being able to work out today. 1:21 pm: my legs are restless and sore. Can’t wait to lay down for a while. 4:55 pm: Elaborated why I’m doing this fast to my mom and she seems a lot more understanding and supportive. Which is so essential right now. She even wants to attempt herself. Of course I’d only allow her to do a few days at most because she didn’t prepare for it. Oh yeah, cramps are definitely a thing now. 8:44 pm: probably shouldn’t mix things- oh well. Mom is actually supportive now which provides motivation. Slight cravings. But shortly faded. Realizing the hard part isn’t giving up but returning. Just the texture is horrid currently.

Day 5:

6/25/2017; 11:23 am: Dreams are becoming more dramatic, mysterious, and vivid. Woke up multiple times through out the night courtesy of my pups and each time felt more light headed. My heart was racing astoundingly at one point but practiced my breathing and it subsided. It may have no correlation at all but I’ve come to find that when I don’t have my fan on while sleeping I wake up feeling hthe worst. I have a headache but using my previous remedy of weed, coffee, and water I’m feeling okay. Just need to get my wits together. It’s my only day off so I have to record how long it takes for my headache to subside post waking up. 11:54 am: headache gone. Feeling a little weird though. 12:10 am: feeling better. 9:00 pm: Broke fast. Binged. Heavy.

Day 6:

6/26/2017; 9:28 am: Worked off 1300 cals in today’s morning work out. Waking up energetic and ready for a full blown cardio work out to work off that binge was amazing. Even spent about 10 mins in the sauna cause that’s all I had. Definitely going to continue working out and merely eating less than the cals I lose. I can’t completely stop eating because I can’t stand the lack of energy when I love intense work outs too much. So I’ll split them. Days I don’t work out, I fast. And days I work out, I don’t. Which will most likely be weekend fasting and week work outs and low cal intake. I’m going to continue tracking and making this a weight loss journal.

Day 7:

6/27/2017;1:05 pm: probably the hardest day so far. Emotionally. I feel mad and annoyed. Smirky comments aren’t settling and I want to unleash on everyone. Want to take my meds. Want to be back on my meds. Anyways. Haven’t worked out today, already 5 miles in at work, and haven’t eaten anything.

Day 8:

6/28/2017; 7:42 pm: work was good. Actually maintained a good mood all day. Then hit the gym for a couple hours. Concluded with a shower, yoga, a few hits, and now relaxing in bed. Fasted today. It’s been a little over 24 hours since my last meal and this wasn’t even planned. Truly didn’t feel the urge to eat. A little grumble here and there but nothing crazy. Fell into my substance whole again last night. At least I feel good today and strong. Might snake on some ice while I watch this movie this call it a night.

Day 9:

6/29/2017;7:47pm: becoming more and more aware of my binging. What I binge on over other things and how much I do and why. I’ve even started questioning drinking and when to eat and not eat..everything is calories and exercise and fasting and binging and it’s all so much..and it’s crazy how it’s all in my head sometimes. Oh well..having a nice night tonight regardless and I’ll be back to means tomorrow.

Day 10:

6/30/2017;10:02 pm: I ate and drank quite a bit today but I feel confident. Probably the drugs. I’ll be back tomorrow x 2.

Day 11-12

7/01/2017-07/02/2017; 1:44pm: fat ass. Total fat ass. What a hard passed 4 days. Fasting starts tomorrow until Thursday. And working out.

Day 13

07/03/17; 10:41 am: I have to take this more seriously. I’m definitely smaller than when I stated but I’m staying stagnant. Woke up feeling tired but motivated. I could be so much closer to my goal if I stop having set backs. One month of seriousness. No binging, no excuses.

Day 14

07/04/17; 11:42 am: back on my meds! I’m eating now and plan on being at the gym for a few hours so I gotta fuel. Going to start forgiving myself about the little slips and realize this is the smallest I’ve ever been and I should be proud.

Day 15-16

07/05/17-07/06/17; 8:23 pm: got a weee bit too drunk last night and ate little to nothing. Same today, just snacks. No meals. Haven’t worked out in a few days. On vacation now..

Day 17

Must re-motivate myself! Just did an hour swim and about to start my day with some coffee and hydrate on water all day. Going to restrict myself heavily. Spent the last 12 + days maintaining my weight and that’s not the goal. Must refocus. I got this!

Day 18-21

N/A. Starting over.

Day 22

07/12/2017; 7:00pm. Successful day! Ate something this morning was able to run 5 miles without stopping once, put in work on the restraints and weights + swam about 10 laps to cool down with some 10 minute sauna time. I feel pretty darn good. Plus! I didn’t binge. I did have a second serving for dinner but it was already pretty low cal. And still able to reach my goal weight soon! It’s been a real roller coaster with my battle with binging this experience. I’ve never binged like this and I must say I think it was due to the fast. I hate to get my body right again and then I couldn’t stop!!! But I’m back from vacation and I have confidence! Hopefully it maintains.

Day 23

07/12/2017; 9:17pm. Worked off a good 1000 calories today during my work out. Added with the calories from running around at work all morning. I was pretty set to have a high calorie intake day. But still managed to stay in the positive. My current weakness: almond roca dark chocolate. It was on sale 1.60 as oppose to the original 8. Nowww I know that’s no excuse to have idk 6 little pieces throughout the day.. and a vanilla ice cream cone. Still in the positive though and no serious binges! Just couldn’t resist the little treats. I’m regaining my self everyday. I’m just becoming more forgiving with myself.

7/13-7/17

mentally fucked up- not gaining. Working 10 days straight, currently on day 6.

#lose

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keatonbelcher-blog · 8 years ago

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25 Ways to Enhance Your Basketball Program (Off the Court)

I did not invent basketball. I am learning daily on how to become a better basketball coach and lead our players to be put in position to be successful. I wrote this article to help coaches like myself see a different perspective of things. Our job as educators is to help people; and that does not necessarily mean “just kids.” The following article lists ways that have helped me become a better basketball coach. And none of these 25 ways have anything to do with X’s and O’s. Again, I have a career record of barely over .500 (49-46 to be exact), but doing these 25 things consistently from the start of my head coaching career has enhanced not only our basketball program, but more importantly, our student-athletes and our school. I was named head boys basketball coach at my alma mater, Pendleton County High School, on April 24, 2014. Our team won 9 games the previous season and three years later we have won 15 games, 16 games and 18 games respectively. The first home game I ever coached was against Hall of Fame coach Billy Hicks and the Scott County Cardinals. My high school jersey was retired that night and there might have been 250 people at the game (including the players!). Long story short, we lost 89-56 and I wasn’t sure if our fans would come back after an embarrassing loss. Fast forward three years later and we just finished our third season and we had a record of 18-12, we have an all-state player and all 11 home games were jam packed with Wildcat fans. In particular, a game on January 20, 2017 featured regional opponent Mason County (coached by my high school coach Buddy Biggs) and Pendleton County at our gym in Falmouth, Kentucky (capacity 1,500). It was alumni night and you couldn’t have squeezed another human in the gym that night. Needless to say we won an exciting, up-tempo game 111-91. As a fan, it was a great atmosphere to be at. The old saying is “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” People are right; it was not built quickly. It is a process. Building our basketball program has been a long, exhausting, difficult process. We still have a long way to go. We are not a state powerhouse, but we have established a competitive, fun culture that makes basketball games on Friday night’s fun. I hope that you enjoy the article and if you have any questions or comments please feel free to reach out to me.

25) Encourage quality “gas station behavior”

My college coach has been at the same school for 31 years and has won 750+ career games. He would always encourage us to be respectful at hotels, restaurants and gas stations. In fact, he often cared more about how we acted and represented the school than how we played in the games. Our staff currently emphasizes with our players “cleaning up after ourselves.” For example, after we leave an opponent’s locker room or bench after a game, we want to make sure we don’t leave a mess for someone else to clean up. My first year as a head coach (2014-2015 season) we won 15 games and won our district tournament. In my opinion we overachieved that season as we were picked pre-season no. 12 (out of 17 teams) in our region and we finished in the final four. On road trips that first season when we would stop at a local gas station or restaurant to let the kids get something to eat I would tell each of them as they walked off the bus, “Be respectful.” I was still trying to get them to buy into doing things the right way. I am now in my third year and I don’t have to tell them anymore. It is expected and for the most part they represent our community and school the right way. It makes the head coach’s job a little easier when you have respectful players.

24) Be involved with your youth teams as much as possible

It can be sometimes difficult to balance running your own high school team and keeping up with your 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade teams during a time consuming season. However, it is extremely important to have a positive impact on your future players. During the spring of 2016, one of my assistant coaches, Kent Monroe, came up with a great idea that involved a 6-week Sunday afternoon basketball clinic for ages 5-16. We opened the gym up for 3-4 hours for six consecutive Sundays for any kid (male or female) in the community. We had approximately 50-60 kids show up and all we worked on were fundamentals. We taught them the same fundamental drills that we do on the high school level every day. It was beneficial for our program to try to “spark interest” early on.

Every pre-season I invite our middle school players and coaches to attend a practice to watch our JV/Varsity team. I give each coach a practice plan and I always say to them, “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” What I mean by this is, “you don’t have to do everything that I do.” They can run different drills and plays with their own team. However, I do encourage them to use the same terminology that we use in our high school program. This way, when those middle school players get to high school, our vocabulary will not seem foreign to them. It is important to attend the elementary and middle school practices and games and have a good relationship with your youth coaches. They are developing YOUR future team. You should be able to predict your starting five (or close to it) for the next 6 seasons. You should know who the upcoming talent is.

23) Keep a binder for every season

If you were to ask my assistant coaches what my strengths were as a basketball coach, I would bet my golf clubs (saying a lot here) that they would all say I am organized. As a head coach you sort of have to be. It’s like running a business and you do a lot of behind the scenes stuff that nobody ever sees. In my office at school I have a shelf of binders labeled with every season that I have coached. In every binder it includes every practice plan, offense, defense, scouting report and statistic for that season. My practice plans are detailed so much that there is not one minute ever wasted at a practice. I am a big proponent of organization and preparation being two big reasons for success. Throughout a season I often look back to previous practice plans or scouting reports to help prepare for a certain team’s tendencies. For example, Bishop Brossart is extremely well-coached and disciplined on the defensive side of the ball. Coach Mike Code has been at Brossart since 2004 and has done a great job of building his program. Brossart players are taught to switch every screen on defense. They do it efficiently and aggressively. We were 0-2 versus Brossart entering this season and we do not win at Brossart very often so we felt like this year was the year to get over the hump. I looked back my old practice plans and scouting reports from previous seasons and I found both an offense and a defense that allowed our staff to come up with solid game plan. Our players did a great job executing the game plan and on February 2, 2017 we defeated Bishop Brossart 61-45. I am not saying this is going to be effective 100% of the time, but it was convenient to have organized notes accessible at any time.

22) Develop school pride

When I was hired as a head coach the first task I did was have a talented artist named Dustin Yelton paint the lyrics of our school fight song in the outside hallway of our locker room. I also had him paint our district and region championship years inside of our locker room under big bold words “WILDCAT TRADITION.” I did this for 2 reasons: 1) I wanted our players to feel a sense of school pride and that it was a privilege to be a part of the basketball team. 2) I wanted our players to recognize the tradition that has been built at the school by previous players and coaches and have aspirations to add championships to the list themselves. Before the district championship game my first year in 2015 I half-jokingly told our players in the locker room before the game that if we upset Harrison County that night (we were a big underdog) that I would have “2015” painted on our wall before tomorrow afternoon. We won 73-71 in a dramatic, unbelievable game and on the bus ride home, I called Dustin and put it on speakerphone for the players to hear and asked him if he could paint the new numbers on the wall. He said “no problem” and our players cheered. It was done by 9:00 am the next morning. Every single day our players walk by the fight song lyrics and the championship years. I see this as reminding them of why they are playing for Pendleton County and what our goals are.

21) Open the gym for your players at any given time

Good players make good coaches. Our players know that they have an opportunity to get some extra work in whenever they want. All they have to do is ask one of our staff members to give them access to the locker room, the basketballs in my office and the gym to get some extra shots up. Either myself or my assistant coach Tim Cooper opens the gym up at 7:00am every morning before school. We have a solid rotation down on what days who opens it up, but it is open every day. It has now gotten to the point where it is rare that no player takes advantage of this morning time slot. We often have players who like to stay after practice to shoot and we also open up the gym a lot on the weekends as well.

20) Have a great relationship with the band director, cafeteria workers and custodians

It is important to develop relationships with faculty members; specifically the employees above. When the school year starts every August one of the first things I do is I give our pep band director a home schedule of when I need the pep band to play at our games. If you know me, you know that I enjoy a loud pep band that plays passionately. The PCHS pep band is certainly that. Our players thrive to play better when our pep band is rocking. We have one of the best pep bands around. It is also important to show the cafeteria workers and custodians how much you appreciate them. I know how much time they put into their jobs so I try to go out of my way to converse with them and tell them how good of a job they are doing. Cafeteria workers and custodians have an underappreciated job. If your players see you go out of your way to talk to a custodian and ask how their day is going, then they may consider doing the same thing.

19) Name awards and drills after former players

We have a plaque in our locker room that represents the “Larry Price Memorial Mr. Hustle Award.” The Mr. Hustle award has been awarded to a specific player(s) at our school since the 1970-1971 season. Larry Price was a former Pendleton County player that died in a car wreck during his high school career. Larry played extremely hard and always gave his best effort. Our junior captain, Grant Walsh, won the 2016-2017 award and his name has already been engraved on the plaque. Grant is one of the most reliable players that I have ever coached, and he always gives great effort. The award is much deserving for him this season.

Robert Hall was a senior during my first year as a head coach. Robert is also my second cousin (so small town-ish, right??). His best attribute as a basketball player was his ability to take charges. Robert was a great teammate and a pleasure to coach because he was so unselfish. He cared more about winning and taking charges than scoring points. In fact, Robert’s senior year he almost took more charges than the total amount of points he scored. From knowing Robert, I know that he wished that he would have had more charges than points. Because of this, we have named our charge drill in practice the “Robert Hall Drill.”

18) Schedule accordingly to benefit your team

I am talking about your regular season schedule. I heard a coach say once, “Schedule 1/3 games as winnable games, schedule 1/3 games as a difficult games and schedule 1/3 games as 50% chance of winning.” At the school I coach at, I sort of liked that philosophy. It is important to put your team in position to be successful, but then again, you want your team to be challenged as well. What we do at PCHS is we compose a 30 game schedule that will help prepare us for the post-season. I like to play every team in our region. Outside of the region, we have an opportunity to allow our players to see different parts of the state, play against different types of teams and to see unique gyms. This past season we took our team to Hazard, Kentucky and we practiced at Memorial Gym. Our kids (and coaches) loved it. I have been to 100+ high school gyms in the state of Kentucky and Hazard’s gym is my favorite.

Scheduling challenging games is risky, but also beneficial for your club. For example, when I first got the job we were not very good. We had inexperienced players who had trouble closing out games. I felt like we needed to develop toughness (mentally and physically) so I called Scott County to set up a 2 year contract even though I knew it there would be a low percentage chance that we would win the games. The previous season Scott County was state runner-up to Covington Catholic and they are annually a state powerhouse. I wanted to our players to see what a championship program looked like. I wanted them to work harder after losing to Scott County. The first year we lost to Scott County by 33 points and the second year we lost by 12 points. Even though we lost, we improved dramatically in a one-year span and it was great experience for us to play at Scott County on a Friday night.

17) Focus a lot on bench chemistry

Every night we play a game we want to have the better bench chemistry and locker room chemistry than the opposing team. We talk about it a lot. It is something we take pride in. Our staff feels that if our teams pulls for each other on every possession then that it becomes contagious and it would be an integral part of our success. We try to give “more high fives” to each other than the other team. Our team chemistry is a big reason for our success in three seasons. In my opinion, team chemistry is vastly undervalued. We tell our players all the time, “you may not be a great player, but you can always be a great teammate.”

16) Take your players to a local nursing home

We tried something different this season. Our team visited the local nursing home in Butler, Kentucky and visited with the residents for 2-3 hours. Our players enjoyed it and so did the nursing home residents and employees. They set up a “meet and greet” and every resident wore PC jerseys and gear to help establish community pride. It was awesome! The director handed me a microphone and I talked about our season. I also introduced our players, managers and staff in front of everyone. Then we played Bingo with them. They served us homemade popcorn and sweet tea. We had a blast and it gave our players a different perspective of things.

15) After each season give each player a constructive criticism card

Once our season ends I usually take about three weeks to reflect on our season. As I begin preparing for our annual team banquet, I make a list of the players returning to our program the following season. I list what each player does well and what they need to work on. As soon as spring workouts begin (usually the week after spring break in early April), the first thing we do is meet individually with each player. Our staff gives each returning player a constructive criticism card. On the front of the card it has 3-5 things that the player does well and how it contributes to our basketball team. On the back of the card, it has 3-5 things that the player drastically needs to work on for the upcoming off-season to help make our basketball team better. Some players take it the wrong way, but most of our players embrace it and understand we are giving them advice so they know what to work on. We have a talented sophomore named Dontaie Allen. Dontaie is a 6’6” combo guard who had an all-state season this past year. Dontaie struggled with his free throws during his freshmen season (I say “struggled” but he shot 69% and he gets fouled a lot). When we met last spring, the number one thing I encouraged him to do was to improve his free throw shooting. He worked his tail off this past off-season on free throws and shot 79.5% his sophomore year. He averaged a double double this season with 29.1 PPG and 12.2 RPG and is being recruited by several major colleges. One of the main reasons for his success his sophomore year was his dramatic improvement on his free throw shooting.

14) Over-emphasize the importance of youth basketball camp

We try to promote our basketball camp for the kids in our county as much as possible. I will start shipping camp brochures to our elementary and middle schools in mid-April. Our high school players and coaching staff loves working basketball camp. We cannot afford to pay our players, but they are required to work it because it sets a positive example for the future of our program. We do fun things at camp to get the kids to have the best time. We do Popsicle breaks, feed them lunch, and give them opportunities to try to win trophies and prizes. We have even added some fun games and events so that the kids who are not the most basketball loving types of people to still stay engaged. We do a “joke of the day” contest. We do a “jersey/outfit of the day” contest. On the last day of camp, we do a dance contest while playing some music and the kids go bonkers over it. We do a new thing called “buzzer-beaters” where I will put :03 on the clock and each camper starts at half-court and dribbles as fast as they can to try and score before the buzzer goes off. When a player makes a buzzer-beater the whole camp goes wild! We do fun basketball games such as dribble tag, knockout, hot shot competition, free throw contest, 1 vs 1, 3 vs 3, 5 vs 5, etc. It is a fun week to spend with our future varsity players.

13) Set achievable goals for your team

Our annual goals of winning the 38th district and 10th region are concrete. Those goals never change. This season we added several goals to make the everyday process have more of a purpose. A few of our team goals were:

1) Have a winning record for the first time in 5 seasons (We went 18-12)

2) Win 20 games or more (We did not accomplish this but 18 wins was the most since 2012)

3) Have a winning record at home (We went 8-3)

4) Go undefeated district play (We almost accomplished this by going 3-1)

5) Have a winning record in six Christmas tournament games (We went 4-2)

*Even though we did not accomplish all of these goals I do not consider our season a failure, but I will say establishing reachable goals made our basketball team better.

We also had non-basketball goals that we accomplished this season:

1) Every player stays academically eligible for the entire season (We barely accomplished this)

2) Every player must become a better teammate (We accomplished this)

3) Our team GPA must be above a 3.0 (We accomplished this)

12) Talk to your administration about adding a 7th period weightlifting class

This is still in the works for us. I have been in the counselor’s office every day since the season ended to try to get this for the 2017/2018 curriculum. A last period weightlifting class would benefit our basketball program tremendously for numerous reasons. We start school every day at 8:05 AM and finish at 2:55 PM. I have suggested having a 7th period weightlifting class for our basketball team. The class would begin at 2:05 each day and we could start practice and weightlifting sessions then. This would be an advantage for our kids to get home earlier every night and/or if they have a part time job. This would be an advantage for our coaches so that they can get home sooner and/or if we need to scout we have more time to get to the games. Not to mention, it would enhance our team’s strength and conditioning tremendously.

11) Encourage students and faculty to come to games

Every game day I would try to meet someone in the school building that I had never talked to before and invite him or her to come to the game that night. A typical conversation usually goes like this; Me: “Hi, do you like basketball?” Student: “Kinda.” Me: “A lot of your friends are going to the game tonight. Why don’t you come hang out with them and support our team?” Student: “Ok.” It is usually not that easy and sometimes they do not end up coming, but you get the point. I also encourage students to come to the games by giving away free pizzas at the first home every year. I have our secretary, Mrs. Sheila Wright, announce on the intercom at school leading up to the game that, “Coach Belcher will be passing out free pizza to the student section during halftime of the JV game.” We had 80 students sit in our student section for our home opener this year. As a coach I want as many people involved with our program as possible, especially our students.

10) Summer basketball is important, but not that important

Every June we try to practice 5-8 times and play anywhere from 15-25 games. In my opinion, that is plenty. Summer basketball is overrated. It is an opportunity to let your players improve their skill level and attend team camps, but it is most important to let your players have some fun. Our summer practices are 90 minutes and it is mostly skill work. If we had 2 ½-hour practices year round the players would get sick of it and they would get sick of me. They are still kids. Summer is the off-season. The time off is important for your players, but it is also important for yourself and your coaching staff. I have golf to play and Cincinnati Reds games to attend. My college coach would always encourage us to “be regular students” during the off-season. In my 5 years at Belmont I only had only one individual workout in the spring and summer. My buddy who played high major NCAA division I basketball used to say he would sometimes have three workouts in one day! Coach Byrd’s message was to not put 100% focus on a game. There are more important things in life. God, family and academics should always be your primary focus; in that order. And then fourth comes extracurricular activities. Basketball is an extracurricular activity. We try to emphasize to our players on a consistent basis.

9) Fundraise. Fundraise. Fundraise.

We are a mid-size public high school in rural Kentucky (enrollment 750 students). We do not have a lot of money. We have to fundraise to survive. Our athletic department cannot survive on just ticket sales. Fundraising can sometimes be hard. I dislike asking people for money. We try to do three big fundraisers a year to help support our basketball program. The first one we do is every October we set up tents on a Saturday at our county festival The Kentucky Wool Festival. It takes about 7 hours to complete and they pay us a decent check to do it. It is hard labor. Our basketball team setting up the tents at the Wool Fest is a good public relations move for us. It is the biggest moneymaker in our county and our program is heavily involved. Another fundraiser we do is we host an 18 hole golf outing every summer. We host it at our local country club Northern Kentucky Golf Club (a hidden gem!). It is a quality event and we usually profit some decent money. Many businesses will donate as well for a good cause. Not to mention, we have many active golfers in our community so it is not difficult getting people to play. The third fundraiser we do is sponsorships. Each player in our program is required to get three businesses or family members to sponsor our basketball program. We call it Wildcat Sponsors and it always does fairly well.

8) Get alumni involved as much as possible

I have been working on an alumni email chain. I want to get to the point where I send out a weekly email to our former players so they can still be involved with the team. I would email our weekly results, upcoming games, stats, happenings and invite them to our annual events (golf outing, alumni game, etc.) Our school has existed since 1959 and we have had 58 varsity teams. There have been almost 1,000 players who have worn the red, black and white. They have paved the way for our players now and we would like to keep them involved as much as possible. Many of my former teammates still come to games. Former Wildcat Coach (of 18 years) Phillip Wood is a regular attendee at our games and that always makes me proud knowing he stills supports our team.

7) Use social media in a positive way to help promote your team

We live in a social media world. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. I try to promote our players and program on social media as much possible. We have a lot to be proud of in Pendleton County. Our community has approximately 14,000 people and almost all of them are basketball hungry. They want more. They cannot get enough. We have a basketball community and we travel well. Two years ago, we traveled to Hilton Head, South Carolina (a 10 hour drive) for a Christmas tournament and we had more fans in the crowd than any other team. I try to use social media as a positive way to connect our players with the fans. I use Twitter, Instagram and Snap Chat to do this. I have tweeted over 25,000 times and I would venture to say that half of those are about our basketball program. All of them are positive. I do not post negative things.

6) Get involved with local businesses and restaurants

I try to establish a relationship with our local businesses in our community. Sometimes for dinner, I will go to a restaurant in Falmouth by myself and try to get to know the owner. I want them to know that we will do what we can as a basketball program to help benefit their business. Many of my friends run successful businesses in our county and have for a long time. They are all supporters of our basketball team and I see them at games often. To mention a few Wildcat supporters: Peoples Funeral Home, Deluxe Cleaners, Snappy Tomato Pizza, Subway, Howard’s Place, El Paso, Edwardo’s, Wyatt’s, BB’s, NAPA Auto Parts, Xanadu Salon, Tim’s Kitchen, 5/3 Bank, Heritage Bank, Wilson’s Greenhouse, etc.

5) Attend coaching clinics, college practices, etc.

You can never stop learning. I try to build as many connections as possible, but I also try to be a sponge and absorb as much knowledge and information that I can. I have been to coaching clinics where I try to pull at least one thing from every single speaker. I love to learn. I am hungry to enhance my basketball mind. In 2013, I went on my own “college practice tour.” I visited college pre-season practices at Georgetown College, WKU, NKU, Belmont, Lipscomb, Kentucky and Cincinnati. I took notes at every practice and I still have each of the notes in my office to look back at for guidance.

I coached JV girls’ basketball for a year in Tennessee. People make fun of me for liking girls’ basketball. I tell them, “If there is a ball bouncing, I don’t care of the gender or age, I enjoy it.” And I mean it. Last week I attended four sessions of the girls KHSAA Sweet 16. I learned so much and gained so many connections along the way. Your players should know that you are trying to improve just as much as they are.

4) Hire quality student-managers

It is important to find good help. One of the first things I did before my first season was ask a young man to help our basketball team. It was August of his freshmen year and he has been with me ever since. His name is Tyler Wright. Like myself, Tyler is a basketball fanatic. Even though he is a student-manager, I treat him like one of the players. I want him to know that he is just as valuable to our team as our players are. I will often ask Tyler his opinion or his advice on things. He is a knowledgeable source and I trust his opinion. Tyler understands how we do things, and, specifically, he understands how I do things. He gets the system. During practices, Tyler runs our score clock. This is an important role for our practices because they are so detailed oriented. Every drill is timed and most of the drills we keep score. Tyler and the rest of our managerial crew make us a better basketball team.

3) Celebrate small victories

When I interviewed for the head coaching position in April 2014 I sat in a room at the board office with the principal, the athletic director, a former player and a former booster parent. One of the first questions they asked me was “Why should we hire you as our basketball coach?” I responded with two goals that I had in mind for our program. One was a short-term goal and the other was a long-term goal. The short-term goal was to “become competitive again.” The long-term goal was to “become the all-time wins leader at Pendleton County High School.” I wanted the hiring committee to know that I was all business about getting back to winning as soon as possible, but I also wanted them to know that I was going to be loyal and in for the long haul. That previous February we had been blown out by our rivals Harrison County in the district semi-finals 64-36 on our home court. When I took over, we were not very good. We lacked many things, but the thing we lacked the most was being able to close out and win games. I started my career with zero wins and three losses and during the fourth game at Lloyd Memorial High School we trailed by 12 points at halftime. I began to think to myself, “What did I get myself into?” I busted into that halftime locker room furious. I was extremely frustrated with just about everything that we were doing so far as a basketball team. My epic halftime speech (you will have to ask our former players what was said) triggered our emotion and inspired our team and we beat the Juggernauts 72-64 to give me my first career victory as a head coach. We celebrated for 30 minutes in the locker room. We acted as if we had won the state championship. There was a human mosh pit and I, the head coach, was in the middle of it. It was a lot of fun and we proceeded to win the next three games after that.

2) Give your assistant coaches specific roles

I am a control freak. I am the first to admit it. I like things done my way. However, and as conceited as it sounds, if the head coach was unsure of the purpose and goal and how to get there then there would be a lot of uncertainty. I hate uncertainty. My brother, Kane Belcher, is on staff and he reminds me often how controlling I am (ha-ha). I have learned you are only as good as your assistant coaches. I am getting better at distributing more of the work onto my assistant coaches. We try to have several staff meetings a year. The staff meetings are both sometimes formal and casual. We talk about things, try to experiment with new things, talk about the next opponent, talk about certain players, but it is important to stay positive. The season is a long grind. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Encouragement is necessary. Constant negativity will bring you and your players down. Make sure each assistant coach understands their role. We have a group text with our staff that includes constant reminders and suggestions.

Current University of Pittsburgh coach Kevin Stallings says, “Hire assistant coaches who are smarter than you.” That was not hard for me. I have staff members that see different things from what I see. They are hardworking and, ironically, they are all graduates of our school. I think the fact that they are working with kids that come from the same dirt that it means a little more to them. It does for me. I am proud to coach at my hometown school. When I hired each of them, I told them I did not want a “yes man” (someone who always agrees with everything that I say). I always tell them, “Guys, I want to hear your suggestions. I want to hear everything, but I may not go with what you say.” There are different ways to do certain things. I know that are always by my side in every decision that is made and they will always have my back. I want them to be a huge part of success, and they are. We won district championships my first two years as a head coach and they were a big reason for our trophies.

1) Build a great relationship with your players

This is the most important way to enhance your basketball program. You cannot be successful without the players. They must know that you care about them. If they do not feel that you care for them then you have no chance of being successful in this profession. I try to make a point to talk to our players every day at school or before, during or after practice. Sometimes I ask them things about other facets in their life. Sometimes I ask them about their other extracurricular activities. Sometimes I ask them about their family or girlfriends. Sometimes I will ask them their opinion on decisions that I made in the game last night. I want them to know that I care about them as people, and not just athletes. I want to know their opinion on things. I try to be fair and consistent with my decision-making. I have a tough job as a coach because I can only play five players at a time (and there are 15 players on the team). Even though they can sometimes frustrate me as a coach, at the end of the day they are teenage boys trying to find their way and figure things out.

I have to remind myself that I am 30 years old and am not perfect. When I was their age, I was far from perfect. We are all striving to do the same thing; to improve at this thing called life. We as a staff try to use basketball (a game!) as a tool to teach life lessons and enhance each player’s life. My number one goal when I was hired as the head basketball coach of our school was to make sure that the players enjoy their experience playing basketball at Pendleton County High School. It will never be easy for them. In fact, we have dealt with much adversity in three years (losing, parent problems, injuries, transfers, etc.), but I am always proud of the guys that graduate as members of our basketball team because of everything they have sacrificed. Playing high school basketball for PC is a huge commitment. Our players are giving up hours and hours of time to be told what to do all the time. I am thankful for our players have “stuck it out.” Pendleton County is a special place. Even when I went out of state to attend college I would tell people about where I was from and I was proud that they had never heard of it. Well, they know now.

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