Bleacher Banter:
Drive: That’s What It Takes

Red Auerbach, legendary coach of the Boston Celtics during their domination of the NBA in the ‘50s and ‘60s was known for his ability to sift through mountains of information relative to anything basketball, and sugar it off to a few poignant observations.

When asked once which quality he most valued in a basketball player—height or speed—he observed that "speed gets tired but height never gets shorter" or words to that effect.

I suppose that was true then, but in today's basketball, be it professional or collegiate, if you don't have speed, you're not on the roster. To a lesser extent this holds true even at the high school level. That having been said, every coach in the country would find playing time for a seven-footer whether or not he can get out of his own way. Heck, there are high school coaches who will put a 6'2", uncoordinated, skinny kid on the roster just in the (unrequited) hope that he's a diamond in the rough. (The latter example I can attest to, first-hand.)

Of course the height versus speed conversation completely overlooks other important physical qualities. Hand-eye coordination comes to mind, as do skill development, peripheral vision, conditioning, upper body strength, and so on. Then there's the mental aspect of the sport in question.

In today's sporting lingo there's talk of "basketball IQ." Whether it's hoop or baseball or soccer or lacrosse, or whatever team sport, coaches appreciate, and often cultivate, those players who seem to have an awareness of what needs to be done, of what the team needs to be successful. Such presence of mind is hard to come by, and chances are that those who have it will need less of the aforementioned physical attributes.

But even this leaves one element out of the equation. Some call it desire, determination, or will to succeed. Others refer to it as commitment. Vermont AAU girls' basketball coaching legend George Huntington calls it "drive." To illustrate his point, he told me recently of kids who would drive three hours to take part in his team practices, practice for three hours, then get in the car and go back home, fully expecting to get up the next morning and do it again. Willingly. Cheerfully. Now that's commitment.

Drive takes commitment to the next level. Drive leads the motivated player to the gym earlier than most. Drive has them taking extra shooting practice after others have left the premises. Drive gets kids to work on their ball-handling skills and footwork when no one else is looking. Drive finds them playing pick up ball under the lights, or when there's no light at all. Drive has aspiring players seeking out the best of competition without fear.

Huntington speaks of having produced more than 30 scholarship basketball players. There is little doubt that his teams attracted many of the most intelligent and most physically gifted players for miles around. But more importantly, his program attracted kids with drive, who weren't content with their abilities or accomplishments. They wanted to do the work to get to the next level.

What coach, regardless of sport, wouldn't want to work with such individuals?

Chuck Cassidy, former coach at Whitcomb High School and Vermont Technical College, once told me that college basketball scholarships typically have nothing to do with the kid's high school hoop schedule. By his reckoning, it is AAU hoop to which college scouts and recruiters pay most attention.

Thus, Huntington's teams have taken on grueling 64-game schedules and traveled, in some cases thousands of miles at considerable expense, to take on the best. In Vermont his younger daughter, Jazz, was a very well-known quantity, earning headlines all around the state with her roundball prowess. But it wasn't until the AAU team she was on nearly beat the best teams from Iowa and Georgia, as she recorded 30-plus point totals, that the scholarship offers really started to flow.

Now this is not to say that a spring/summer AAU team is the definitive answer to any kid's basketball prayers. It might be and it might not be. There are plenty of high school coaches who aren't at all thrilled with high-powered AAU programs. But every coach probably would be thrilled to have players with the drive that is cultivated in programs such as that run by George Huntington.