Every week we will highlight a coach/principal/educator/business leader/performance coach that is bringing change to their community! The first installment of this series comes from a dear friend, a phenomenal husband/father, basketball coach and athletic director, Nick LoGalbo of Lane Tech. I hope you can learn from him, celebrate his wins and take something that you can apply today!
How our past season went:
Since I took over as our program’s head coach in 2008, one of our “big picture objectives” has been to make our basketball program competitive with the top programs in our state and to “put Lane Tech Basketball on the map” of the landscape of basketball in Illinois and Chicago. This season we took a big step forward by getting our program ranked in the top-25 for the first time in over 20 years, by beating multiple state-ranked teams, by competing at a high level in what many consider to be the top conference in the state, by winning our holiday tournament, by reaching the championship of our Thanksgiving tournament, and by reaching our first IHSA regional final in over a decade (we haven’t been to a regional final since the IHSA realigned to four classes and accomplishing this feat is much harder to do now because of the re-alignment). Obviously, there is still so much work to be done and every season is its own journey, but as a coaching staff we are proud of what we accomplished this year and are excited about what’s ahead.
USA Basketball Involvement:
Again, what an incredible honor! Over the past five years or so I have been very fortunate to serve in several different capacities with USAB.
On the Youth Development side I have been a lead clinician for several youth clinics for USAB in the Chicago land area. I also served as one of the coaches at the first ever USAB Regional Camp in Houston in 2016. I was a lead coach at a regional camp last year as well. I was asked to speak at two of the USAB Coaching Academies, once in 2017 and once last year in 2018 that we actually hosted at Lane Tech, which was obviously very special for me.
On the 3x3 side I am one of three regional coordinators that helps USAB by putting on qualifiers that lead to the 3x3 National Championships at the Olympic Training Center. With the game becoming an Olympic Sport, it has really garnered a lot of attention as of late and it has been fun watching it grow.
On the Junior National Team side I was lucky enough to be asked to be a court coach this past April at the Final Four for the JMNT training camp.
Tip for utilizing the off-season:
I think it is important to really evaluate your season and assess your “excellence gaps”. From there, my tip is to search your notes and make your summer about learning how to fill those gaps to grow your program. Make it a priority to dive into how to turn a “gap” or a weakness into a strength. For me, this means working camps and networking/learning from other coaches. It means going to college or professional practices and learning from top notch coaches/staffs. It means getting to as many clinics as I can, especially when I see that the topics being discussed align with my targeted excellence gap. I think it is so important to remember that anyone can be a teacher and to be open to treat every experience as a learning experience. I think so many guys have some success and all of the sudden become too big-time to learn. As Coach Wooden always said, success and failure are impostors and it is a problem to get caught up in either one. Be process driven and keep your passion to learn a part of your daily routine.