College Coach calls on 12 year old during a game.

Texas Tech Coach Pat Knight, (yes, he is the son of infamous college coach Bobby Knight), called upon a small boy from the crowd to teach his team a lesson during a game recently. Last week, while the Texas Tech Red Raiders were playing Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks and missing as many as 15 easy layups, Coach Knight scoured the crowd and found a 12-year-old boy and invited him into the huddle during a time out. In the huddle, Coach Knight asked the boy if he could make layups and he answered “yes”. “I was just tired of having 18- or 21-year-olds miss layups that a 12-year-old could hit, so I brought a 12-year-old in to let them know that he could hit layups,” Knight said. “He’s 12, and he can hit layups, so why can’t you when you’re 18 to 21?” This tactic seemed to work as Texas Tech went on to win the game 69-55. Of course doing this Coach Knight made a strong point to the players that it all comes down to fundamentals and most college and definitely most pros are not fundamentally sound. Even though Coach Knight seemed to get his point across with his young helper, I am sure it embarrassed his players, but if that is what it takes to get them to work on fundamentals, I don’t see a problem with it. It is all about fundamentals in sports and lately the trend is to throw the fundamentals out the window and play like you are on the playground. Good teams win with good fundamentals, it is all about fundamentals people!

My former coach would be proud to hear me say that last statement! (see the post from 12/30/08 to learn more about my old coach)