Insights from Coach Jerry Petitgoue: Essential Tips for Coaches

The legendary high school coach Jerry Petitgoue recently offered some advice on defense worth your consideration and overall coaching that I want to share with you today.

(Before we get there, here's a bit of context on Jerry's incredible coaching career in case you don't know: He's won over 1,000 games at the high school level in Wisconsin and has won 3 state championships.)

Here's his advice in his own words:

First of All - Be Adaptable

Never get pegged in one defense at the high school level...

A really good friend of mine, Steve Klaas, coached at Adams-Friendship forever, and he ran the 1-3-1 defense, which is a dynamite defense–but you must have the right personnel to do it. Like a 6'5" out on top with long arms.

My philosophy is to change whatever it takes to give my kids the best chance to win.

Most of the time our freshmen and sophomore teams are playing man-to-man defense to learn those concepts first...

But I don't make it an absolute rule because a sophomore coach wants to win, too. So if he can win in 1-3-1 and that works better for his specific team, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that.

How Often He Works on His Defenses

I sometimes hear coaches say, "Well, it takes about a year to get my defense in." And I say, What the heck are you doing?

You teach the drills. You teach the concepts.

We work on the 1-3-1, the 2-3, and the Triangle & 2 once or twice a week.

But we work on No Middle Defense EVERY DAY.

And if you're working on your defense every day, then there's simply no reason why you shouldn't see massive improvements very quickly.

How Baylor & Texas Tech Influenced Their Main Defense

I reached out to Mark Adams, the new head coach at Texas Tech. At 65 years old, it's his first major college head coaching job, but he's the architect behind the Texas Tech "No Middle Defense."

Texas Tech is ranked in the top 10 right now...and they play the best defense in the country.

Then I became good friends with the associate head coach at Baylor. They also play No Middle Defense. (Man Left Defense is another great option!)

So I'm on the phone or I'm emailing those people a lot...just getting their ideas on how you play no middle defense.

Coaching, at its best, is a collaborative environment.

Continue to Learn From Others

People ask me what keeps me going. I think as a coach, no matter where you coach at or who you're coaching as long as you're improving each and every day. The day that you think you know it all is the day that you better go to the recliner...because you don't.

I can't tell you how many times I've gone on the Breakthrough Basketball site to look things up.

And you know, I might be going on it again because there's a team that we play next week, and they just might play us a triangle. I don't want my kids to be surprised by it. What do we need to do to overcome that?

You continue to learn each and every day.

Back to Joe here... Coach Jerry Petitgoue is a coaching legend and I hope you enjoyed his advice as much as I did!

As you evaluate your coaching this season, I recommend that you try to implement at least ONE of these principles. As we like to say, "small hinges swing big doors."

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