Where Are All of the Girls Basketball Players?

As women’s basketball is on the growing rise in popularity in America, thanks in large part to Caitlin Clark, in Alaska there is an interesting contradiction to this trend. In the last decade there has been a palpable decline of girls basketball players in urban areas and, contrarily, a substantial increase in volleyball players.

A necessary disclaimer, this statement is based on a decade of experience as a basketball player development coach and strength and conditioning coach in Alaska. There currently is no research to support this claim that is not the opinion of myself or others; and with that I’m thinking this would make a great thesis for a University of Alaska Anchorage college senior.

We really need to identify if there is an actual exodus happening, and why.

As a basketball player development coach, I train athletes of all ages primarily in Anchorage and around ninety percent of the kids across all ages are boys.

I am also fortunate to be able to do basketball camps all across the state of Alaska. While the 90% trend does not apply in these cases, it does help highlight the reality that basketball is Alaska’s primary sport.

Many non-Alaskans think it’s hockey.

While we do play hockey here, it is an expensive sport to play and manage logistically. In poor rural areas across the state, the ability for a community to have a hockey team is less likely than you growing another big toe.

What is easy to play anywhere is basketball. You don’t even need shoes. I’ve been to several communities in Alaska where kids show up in socks because their family, for whatever reason, hasn’t been able to get them gym shoes, and after basketball camp, they’re at it again shooting outside on hoops at parks.

Ballet shoes and boots at basketball camp in Point Hope, Alaska.

Thus, in rural Alaska, basketball is alive and well for both genders and I don’t see that changing any time soon. But, in urban areas like Anchorage, there appears to be a significant downward trend in numbers, and here are my three main theories as to why:

Volleyball is the pretty girl, popular sport to play

In volleyball, you can sparkle not sweat, and for teenage girls this is a much more appealing reality than becoming a human swamp sprinting up and down a basketball court.

Being a great basketball players requires a level of ruthlessness and aggressiveness that isn’t ingrained in what we as society typically value for our young girls. Most of the time, when you meet a young girl who is unapologetically emboding these areas of toughness, a male role model in her life (and sometimes female) is not far away encouraging her to grow these qualities, and most often has a background in athletics.

Basketball is mentally and physically demanding

In the weight room I’ve trained collegiate volleyball players, and currently at the Sweat Lab we work with the high school level, and with all due respect to all the wonderful volleyball athletes out there, there tends to be a general lack of tolerance to intensity.

By design when comparing volleyball to other sports, it’s one of the least intense by nature. While it challenges athletes to have excellent hand eye coordination, vertical jump, hitting power, reaction time, and be excellent at volleyball skills, the need for a high aerobic threshold, muscular endurance, and ability to create and take physical contact, is not like it is in other sports.

This doesn’t mean volleyball players don’t have or need a level of toughness, my argument is that the toughness needed for volleyball is simply much different than that of basketball. And, different isn’t bad, but I am guessing that it’s a deterrent for a lot of young girls out there to continue with basketball as they get to a middle and high school age.

Her basketball experience was a bad one

The number of young ladies who have ended up at my skill development sessions because they need to, “rebuild their confidence” is very disheartening. I’m not trying to point fingers or offend anyone who takes on the responsibility of coaching a team because that’s certainly no easy task, but there are a few bad eggs out there who unfortunately have misguided priorities and are more focused on winning instead of building players love of, and character through, the game.

Having played volleyball and basketball myself in high school, I will say this, volleyball is an extremely fun and valuable sport, and this article is not intended to take anything away from that.

What it is intended for, is to bring awareness to the possibility that this is happening at an accelerated rate and my question remains:

Why is this actually happening?

What are your thoughts?

The Intentional Decision to Change is the First Step

It wasn’t until age 19 that I realized in order to achieve something I really wanted, my habits were going to need a big overhaul. I wasn’t doing anything egregious like drugs behind the stairs at school or eating cake for breakfast, but I had just finished my first year of college and realized that how I was spending my time was not optimal for my success as a student-athlete.

In school for example, procrastinating studying and then compensating by staying up late cramming for next day exams was normalized, so I followed the crowd and struggled because by the time it came to taking the test my brain was cerebral moosh.

In athletics, it surprised me that my teammates would either come an hour early to practice or stay an hour late to get up extra shots, conditioning, or treatment for their injuries, which I thought strange as I had never seen that from my teammates during high school.

It struck me after that year of mediocrity, that maybe my habits and decision making had not been my own, but a product of not knowing a better way and a conditioning of my environment and lack of experiences.

I could no longer do the minimum and expect to excel.

Like a computer, I needed to restart my system and replace bad habits with better habits.

If that Sounds Familiar…

For many of us, getting the opportunity to be guided and shown the way to what it truly takes to be successful, is a rare luxury. Even more mystical is having that opportunity interwoven with how to become successful and retain your sanity.

However, eventually that day comes for all of us. The day when we realize we aren’t happy with where we’re at.

Once we wake up to the reality that we want more for ourselves, we can stop ignorantly denying that our present situation is not serving us and accept that it’s time to change our circumstances and conditioning.

This intentional decision to change is the first step.

Next, what and who can we identify as important and adding value to our lives. What and who is not? In truth, identifying these is exponentially easier than the necessity of phasing them out. Some things are truly addictive, ask anyone who has been a smoker or in a toxic relationship.

Okay, so now that we’ve identified and filtered out the unhelpful, let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

Why most people fail at long-term habit change, is that because it is a long, tedious process and you can’t approach it like a sprint, you must approach it like a marathon.

It does not happen in the instance you decide to make the change, it happens in the repetition of making that decision over and over again. Just like when you lift weights, in order for your muscles to get stronger you can’t just workout once, you have to sweat and feel the pain over the course of many workouts in order to feel and see change.

Stick with it friend, if it’s truly important to you, you’ll find a way to overcome the fleeting urges to go back to your old ways. Future you will be glad you did.

Simple Swaps

Not sure where to start? Here’s a few simple swaps that can help you get on track:

• Hit snooze vs. put your alarm on the other side of the room and get your butt out of bed

• Roll out of bed and leave it a mess vs. make your bed and high five your pillow for a job well done

• Take a comfy hot shower or don’t even bother to shower to start your day vs. take a shower and then end it with a minute under cool water focusing on breathing normally

• Not pack any snacks or lunch for the day and come home ravenous, eating all in site like the Kirby video game character vs. plan ahead and pack food because you’re not a cute pink cartoon, but a human who needs energy throughout the day

• Get minimal fresh air, as in going to and from your car and house vs. getting outside for a 10 - 20 minute walk and sunshine in your eyeballs

• Listen to background music as white noise vs. take a moment to actually listen to a full song and be present with the music

• Pop your phone open when bored or uncomfortable vs. really look at your surroundings or strike up a conversation with a person near you

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Leading from the Bench

In most cases, it’s easy to put all of our attention on the people in the spotlight. In athletics, this is typically the player who is scoring the most, the coach or team with the most wins, the 1 percenters.

Shining the spotlight only on these outliers can leave the rest of us feeling like catastrophic underachievers, when in reality that couldn’t be further from the truth. Should the outliers be celebrated for their uncommon excellence? Absolutely. Should we admire them and try to incorporate some of the methods that have made them successful? For sure. Should we compare and shame ourselves for not achieving the same level of excellence? Not if you want your sanity!

In basketball specifically, guess the number of collegiate coaches at the Men’s NCAA Division I level who have won 80% or more of their total games in their careers.

Answer? Two. Hit this link for the full list.

Or, guess the number of men’s collegiate players across all levels who average more than 20 points per game (in 2023)?

Answer? 105. Sounds like a lot… until you realize that’s out of a pool of 18,816 players… or, 0.005%.

The Wooden Way

John Wooden, one of those two coaches with the 80% + winning records, was well known for how he defined success. In his autobiography, Wooden, he talks about how he was just as proud, if not more, of the success of the teams that didn’t win national championships as those that did, because for him, winning games was not what it was about.

“True success is attained only through the satisfaction of knowing you did everything within the limits of your ability to become the very best that you are capable of being. Success is not perfection… you can never achieve perfection as I understand it. It’s giving 100% of your effort, body, mind, and soul to the struggle. That you can attain. That is success.”

— John Wooden

The important take away is that you’re not a failure if you don’t don’t arrive at the level of the 1 percenters. You can be an expert at something without being a superstar.

To become an expert, a person needs countless hours (10,000 and more they say) practicing, preparing, struggling, succeeding, obsessing, and repeating this process over and over again.

And you must love the work.

That type of relentless dedication certainly isn’t for everyone. It’s for the committed few who at whatever point in their life, found and fell in love with their passion. They knew that without it, their reason for existing felt a little less important. And they knew with it, that they would do whatever it took to be great at it.

The Devine Way

We most often celebrate the people who have made it already, not those who are currently in their struggle, working to overcome and make something of themselves.

As an athlete development coach, celebrating the struggle is one of my favorite things, second only to getting to be in the struggle with that individual.

It is uncommon to find a person who also thrives in the struggle, and rare to find someone who is so selfless that they are willing to do whatever it takes, from handing water to their teammates to working to be as uplifting as possible, without any expectation of anything in return.

Luke Devine cheering for his teammates at a home game in Anchorage, Alaska.

One individual in particular who all of us, from the starters to the bench warmers, from coaches to fans, can learn from, is Luke Devine. Born in Wasilla, Alaska to a family of athletic royalty, Luke is the third of his family to put on a Seawolf jersey for one of Alaska Anchorage’s basketball teams.

In fact, he is the fifth in his family to play a college sport. That is an incredible feat of its own given that only approximately 4% of high school athletes will go on to play at the collegiate level for the NCAA (for basketball specifically).

Having had the privilege to coach Luke’s older sister, Alysha Devine (now Anderson), who was an incredible competitor, selfless beyond belief, tough as nails, extremely coachable, and an amazing human being, her younger brother is a spitting image.

The Devine’s are a clan of classy winners, whose impeccable character is on generational display, even in the most unideal of situations such as playing limited minutes as a walk on.

Coming off of a year off from playing, Luke made the decision to walk on to UAA. A bold choice, given that, again, the chances of playing at the next level are so limited. With just being on the roster, Luke is already quite literally a 1 percenter, as only 1.0% of high school players will move on to play at the DII level in men’s basketball.

As many of us may know and have witnessed, it’s horribly easy for a young person to mope and be a lemon drop on the bench because they’re not playing.

That said, one of the most impressive qualities about Luke as a player is not his stat line, it’s the way he selflessly gives to others from the bench. The way he leads from the bench.

“I want to do what I can to help my team win, and if that just means cheering as loud as I can and giving my brothers advice from the bench, then that’s what it takes.”

— Luke Devine

If you are currently in the process of working your way to more playing time, consider the golden lessons Luke shares in the video below. Drop a comment or a question for Luke or Coach Alysa and we’ll get back to you!

And last, but not least, make sure you get out next season to watch Luke and the University of Alaska Anchorage Men’s Basketball team!

Defining the Win

Negative coaching in some athletic circles has become an endemic issue affecting young athletes. One of the saddest things I hear from parents and athletes these days is that a young athlete has lost all interest and love for a sport because their coach is a bully.

Coaches are incredibly influential voices in a young persons life, and too often it seems that power gets abused with the expectation that more intensity will elicit positive outcomes. Ironically, the opposite is more often true.

In a competitive environment, too much emphasis can be placed on the literal score at the end of a game, on the literal win or loss. This is especially prevalent at the professional and collegiate level where it is the coach’s job to win. This can sometimes result in confusing, bullying behavior, that is then modeled by coaches at lower levels.

The Biggest Winner I Know Has Terrible Ethics

My own college coach for example, who Anchorage revered for his amazing winning record (it was the highest for any coach at the Division II level at the time), was actively cheating and emotionally manipulating his players.

This man, in a very impactful leadership position over young women, was such a master manipulator he was able to walk away from what should have been career ending violations. He certainly shouldn’t have been allowed to ever coach women again, but guess where his next job was? That’s right, coaching the Colorado State Women’s Basketball team.

Yet, at the time, no one believed what he did could be true, winning had covered up his despicable behavior and true character, and the University ended up sweeping the internal investigation into his case under the rug and let him resign.

Summiting Blindfolded

To make winning the primary focus is like hiking a beautiful mountain blindfolded and taking it off when we arrive at the top. To do this, is to miss everything there is to see, learn, and experience along the way.

On the journey, we are going to see some really cool stuff, but also struggle, stumble, and fail. What we learn from these experiences are the true wins.

In my younger years, I cut out magazine letters in ransom letter style to form the following quote by Confucius:

Adult me is slightly impressed that my teenage-brain had already recognized that failure was going to be an integral part of success, and now 15 years later that quote still acts as a mantra to keep going when the metaphorical climb is hard.

Ultimately, how we as coaches choose to use the power of our position, or as players you choose to respond to the way you are coached and how coachable you are, helps us define true winning.

True winning happens between the lines, and is not what shows up on the scoreboard. It comes in the priceless moments of seeing someone overcome a difficult moment or situation, in building lifelong relationships, in seeing someone inspire those around them, in preparing harder than your opponent, in having incredible energy even if you don’t get to play a minute, in inspiring your players to believe in themselves, and the list goes on.

Be a winner, not a bully.

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P.S. if you truly are struggling with your coach, or a teammate, here are some tips on what you can do.

So… You Don’t Like Your Coach or a Teammate

Learning to deal with difficult people is a right of passage in life, and whether we like it or not, we will encounter many different people who challenge us in this way our entire lives.

Sports provide a unique opportunity to learn how to deal with this at a young age. In this article, we’ll break down several methods to help you reclaim your power when having to deal with a difficult coach or teammate.

Without question, one of the most egregious human atrocities in our recent history was the Holocaust. Survivor Dr. Edith Eger, who also has recently authored the phenomenal book The Gift: 14 Lessons to Save Your Life, is one of the most profound works you can read.

It is akin to the popular Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, who was also a Holocaust survivor. Both Eger and Frankl survived a hell none of us can possibly imagine, but on top of that, both have expertise in psychology, making their writings some of the most valuable tools we can use to handle our modern problems.

I mention the Holocaust not to contrast against and thereby minimize our own problems, but to present three questions as they relate to a common mistake many of us make:

1. What is the severity of this issue really?

2. Am I making this particular situation worse by the way I am choosing to respond to it?

3. Is there a better way I can respond and handle myself, which ultimately is all I can control?

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It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens that hurts us.

Our character, our basic identity, does actually not have to hurt at all.

In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.

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With over 24 years experience in athletics as a player and now development coach, here are a few strategies I recommend for dealing with difficult coaches or teammates:

#1: Avoid a rigid perspective

It’s way too easy to get caught in thinking something either good or bad, when in reality, there is no such thing as good or bad, only how we choose to view and respond to any given situation.

So you feel like your coach plays favorites, and you’re not one of them. Or the way they speak to you is demeaning, constantly negative, or they don’t play you as much as you think they should; the important question to ask yourself is not “why me?”, but “how can I best respond and handle this?”

“Suffering is universal. But victimhood is optional.”

— Dr. Edith Eger, Holocaust survivor & author of the gift

Try one or all of these:

1. Have the courage to establish more frequent and better communication with your coach. Typically in any relationship, when both people can gain a better understanding of one another, things tend to work out more positively. If you have a burning question for your coach (what can I do to earn more playing time?), or concern (I don’t like the way you talk to me sometimes), then go talk to them about it! And if you’re sitting over here feeling like they should reach out to you because they’re the adult and authority in this situation, think again, few coaches will do that, especially at higher levels.

2. The head coach too intimidating? Reach out to an assistant coach or teammate you trust. Someone else intimately involved in the ongoings of your team is a much better resource than consulting with a parent or friend outside of the team because they will always have a biased opinion towards you. Also, be mindful to only speak positively about others! Use these conversations more like an informal interview to get the other person’s take on how they would recommend the best way to deal with this particular difficult person.

3. Therapy! I’m not joking. Emotions are challenging, and learning how to cope with them in a healthy way is an extremely powerful tool! It’s unfortunate that our society views therapy as taboo, we can all benefit from it, even if we think our mental health is on point.

#2: Be Very Careful with Who You Choose to Listen To

Not everyone has good advice, especially if they have no experience in your situation. For example, if you are wanting financial advice, you wouldn’t ask someone who is broke and living in their car. The same goes for sports. If you are wanting advice on how to best get through a certain situation, you wouldn’t ask someone who has never played or coached the game.

This is a mistake I see a lot of players making!

Even when players ask me for help, I still encourage them to specifically address issues with someone directly involved on their team.

As we subscribe to human nature, it’s much easier to go to people who we know are going to tell us what we want to hear, and comfort us through our difficult experience while we vent and rage about someone not in the room.

The more difficult and courageous act is to go directly to the person you want to vent and rage about, and confront them directly in a positive and productive way.

#3: Don’t Blame, Including Yourself

Eventually, if a person endures enough negativity from another, a self-destructive unraveling of confidence can ensue. We want to avoid this at all costs! Not only are we allowing another person to vampire suck our own power away from us, but we kill our chances of rising out of this situation more quickly.

Whatever is happening, try to take yourself out of being the focal point or victim. Do your best to view things from as unemotional perspective as possible and reframe the situation to something that is happening for you not to you. Under this perspective, the situation is now a gift and opportunity to help you grow, rather than something you need to beat yourself up about.

Likewise, don’t blame anyone else for your situation, including that difficult coach or teammate you see as being the cause! Instead, work on taking ownership for the way you chose to respond.

Remember, This person is Happening For You

Reclaiming your control in a situation is the byproduct of recognizing how you are letting someone affect you, and what steps you can take to courageously reclaim your power.

Take ownership for your thoughts, behavior, and actions, and I bet you will see a tremendous difference in your interactions with the person you originally deemed as difficult. Shoot, you may even become friends!

The Free Super-Supplement: Sleep

Believe it or not, there is a free super-supplement accessible to everyone that has colossal positive effects on every aspect of your life. What is it? Sleep.

Before we dive in to the why’s and z’s of sleep, I’d like to ask you to do something a little strange: put your tongue to the rough of your mouth, and now imagine right above here is a ticking clock. There is actually a group of neurons here, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) that controls your biological clock.

This biological clock is known as your circadian rhythm and is defined as the physical, mental, and behavioral changes your body undergoes during a 24 hour period.

Now, this is very important for us to understand because of the alarming impact this can have either positively or negatively on our daily energy levels, athletic performance, overall quality of life, and aging.

SUPER-CHARGE PERFORMANCE

A study done on the Stanford Men’s Basketball team published in 2011 revealed incredible findings about how sleep directly impacted athletic performance of the eleven players who participated. Important to note, because the study was done between January and March, all of the participants self-identified as being in “peak shape” as they were in-season.

The findings of this study were incredible.

Participants were required to increase their sleep duration per night, but not exceed 10 hours per night. This ended up averaging to 8.5 hours per night for 5 - 7 weeks, which resulted in the players dropping nearly a full second of a 282ft sprint (baseline to baseline, baseline to half court), and improving their free throw percentage and 3 point percentage both by 9%.

That is an unbelievable improvement in performance over less than two months! With results like that, if sleep could be bottled and sold it would be one of the leading sales supplements in the world!

“These improvements following sleep extension suggest that peak performance can only occur when an athlete’s overall sleep and sleep habits are optimal.”

— Mah, Et Al.

On top of the significant improvements in their sprinting and shooting, the players also reported less daytime sleepiness, better mood, and had better scores on a reaction test.

Academically, another study published in 2019 involving collegiate athletes across the nation, shockingly revealed that “The presence of sleep difficulty was associated with a 47% increased likelihood of a B average, compared to an A. Also, sleep difficulty was associated with a 118% increased likelihood of a C average and a 111% increased likelihood of a D/F average.”

Studies have also linked lack of sleep to an increased likelihood of concussions. This could be a result of lack of sleep affecting coordination and decision making. In general, the risk of injury as an athlete goes up 1.7x if you are getting less than 8 hours of sleep.

Over-Worked, Under-Rested

In our culture, we are often programmed to believe that in order to be successful we need to work harder, and to do so, sleep less. This lack of respect for sleep has directed our culture to a strange dichotomy regarding hard work that reduces our overall quality of life and lifespan.

When you don’t sleep well, you utilize only a fraction of what you’re capable of, and underperforming, like your lack of sleep, becomes your norm. Many of us then compensate with pharmaceuticals or caffeine (which, though delicious in the form of a cup of coffee, is still a drug), to keep ourselves functioning.

With drug use, there are of course side effects, which makes dosing sleep like medicine even more appealing, because there are no side effects.

You inject more sleep in your life you end up better protected against depression, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease. Furthermore, if you’re trying to lose weight, optimal sleep is a mandatory supplement to be taking.

Read on for six clutch ways to boost your energy starting today.

Move Over Sandman, Summon a Sleepicorn

ENERGY HACK #1: LIGHT IT UP

Light, specifically sunlight, helps our bodies release day time hormones and neurotransmitters that help regulate our biological clock. Our sleep cycles, or circadian timing system, is highly impacted by the amount of light we get during the day. Too little daylight exposure, and too much artificial light exposure during the day, results in poor sleep at night.

“Many of us are not aware that we are light deprived and suffering from the effects of light deprivation. Because of our eye’s extraordinary ability to adapt to changes in brightness, we tend to not be aware of how little light we actually receive when indoors. Typical indoor lighting is 100x less bright than outdoor light on a sunny day. Even a cloudy day delivers 10x more brightness than ordinary indoor lighting.”

— Jeffery Rossman, PHD

Serotonin in particular is a powerful neurotransmitter known to make us feel happy and is a major player in sleep.

Production of serotonin is influenced by our diet, activity levels, and you guessed it, sunlight exposure. Sunlight exposure also promotes vitamin D production in our bodies, which shares the burden with serotonin or our mood, immune health, energy levels, and sleep health.

Daily Do: within the first 30 - 60 minutes of waking, if possible, get sunlight exposure to your eyes.

• On a clear day, you want to get sunlight exposure to your eyes for about 5 minutes (no sunglasses). Obviously, avoid staring directly into the sun and burning your retinas.

• On cloudy days, you especially need to get outside and view sunlight. You’ll want to get about 10 minutes of sunlight exposure to your eyes on these days. Rainy, or very densely cloud covered, you want to get as much as 20 - 30 minutes of sunlight exposure. As you may expect, it doesn’t count if it’s through a window or windshield.

• If we don’t have access to sunlight (even through clouds), turn on artificial lights, but once the sun has risen you want to get outside and view the sunlight. Artificial light does not, unfortunately, replace the sunlight. Contrarily, artificial lights specifically from our devices are enough to disrupt our sleep by messing up our circadian rhythym.

“Light viewing early in the day is the most powerful stimulus for wakefulness throughout the day and it has a powerful positive impact on your ability to fall and stay asleep throughout the night.”

— Andrew Huberman

Energy Hack #2: Be Consistent AF

The quality and depth of your sleep is greatly enhanced by keeping a consistent sleep schedule, even on the weekends. Your “money time”, as Shawn Stevenson, author of Sleep Smarter, likes to refer to it as, is between 10pm and 2am.

This is when the secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), melatonin, and other hormones are at their peak. And trust me, you want as much of the “youth” hormone, as HGH is commonly referred to, as possible due to its restorative, anti-aging properties.

If we habitually stay up late (past 10 or 11pm) then we are robbing ourselves of the super-supplements golden powers. A sign that you are not benefitting from money time is if you feel fatigued in the morning even after a “good nights rest”. This further expresses the importance of hormone production our bodies experience during these hours for nighttime recovery translating to energy throughout the next day!

This is absolutely terrible news for overnight shift workers and a main reason why it has been classified as a group 2A carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. This is the same group that fried foods, lead exposure, chronic salon or barbershop chemical exposure, and red meat consumption are in.

This is a terrible and ironic reality, as many shift workers are on the job protecting the health of others - doctors, nurses, law enforcement officers - at the expense of their own. Though true money time may not be available for shift workers, keeping your sleep schedule as consistent as possible (even if that looks very strange on a day to day basis), will still make your biological clock happier than catching z’s at random opportunities.

Daily Do: Keep your bedtime and wake time as consistent as possible. On weekends, avoid sleeping in beyond an hour past your normal wake up time, even if that means getting less sleep than normal.

Athlete Bonus Fact: Have trouble sleeping before a big game or event? Good news is that if you bank a couple weeks of normal and optimal sleep before this one night of bad sleep, your performance won’t be that affected.

Energy Hack #3: Collect That Sweat

Time to stack two free super-supplements on top of each other by focusing on a routine to get the medicine of movement in your day on the regular. One mechanism that exercise provides our body is the increase in core temperature, which is an excellent way to stimulate wakefulness and energy early in the day. This in turn comes full circle and translates to sleepiness at night!

With strength training, the wonderful byproduct of muscle is a reservoir of anti-aging hormones. This is no exaggeration, other variables aside, you can stay younger longer if you have more muscle on your body.

Ironically, when you workout you are breaking down your body, so that money time regenerative sleep we discussed earlier is the frosting on the cake.

Daily Do: Evidence indicates that morning workouts are ideal for getting the best sleep at night, so if you can, get your workout in around 7am and watch the rest of your day unfurl like a sleepicorn farting a rainbow.

Energy Hack #4: Eat Early, Not Late

What you eat and when you eat are two equally important considerations in optimizing your sleep and energy. If you eat early in the day, you trigger an increase in metabolism and body temperature that make you more alert.

On the other hand, eating too close to bed, specifically food with high amounts of sugar, can cause sleep disturbances, including nightmares!

Certain foods, and this is likely highly individual as there is still quite a bit of research being done in this area, can wake you up during our lightest form of sleep, REM sleep, where we dream more.

Energy Hack #5: Time Caffeine Strategically

Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman highly recommends that you wait 90 - 120 minutes after waking to consume caffeine (cringe!) because it minimizes the afternoon crash or dip in energy later in the day. Sub out your caffeine with a glass of water with a sprinkle of natural salt and you will feel better all day long.

Furthermore, consume your final caffeine dose earlier than 6 hours before bed. A study done at by Drake et al., exposed a hidden harmful misnomer of consuming caffeine within this window. Through analysis of brain activity from headband sleep monitors, the study revealed that participants lost a full hour of sleep, even though subjectively they thought they slept normally. Thus, even if you fall and stay asleep fine, caffeine can still negatively affect the architecture of your sleep.

Energy Hack #6: Stop with the blue light

In Sleep Smarter, Stevenson says that “Avoiding screen time at night is likely the number one thing you can do to improve your sleep quality immediately.”

The artificial blue light emanating from our devices confuses our body’s biological clock by making it think it’s daytime. In a nutshell, the bluelight makes it harder to fall asleep, creates shorter REM sleep, and results in feeling less energized the following day.

SUMMON YOUR INNER SLEEPICORN!

If you are suffering from poor energy, attacking your sleep habits is one of the quickest, and potentially easiest ways to set yourself on the right path. It’s free, painless, and produces near immediate benefits.

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The Hard Work Dichotomy

Training human resilience is a delicate balance between finding a person’s limits consistently, while also staying within healthy mental and physical boundaries. This can feel like a walk on a tightrope, because we all know that to improve we must stretch outside of our comfort zones, but what is enough and how much is too much?

Mentally transport yourself to the hallways of every American educational institution you’ve ever been in, and the attempts made to motivate it’s young prisoners with a cringey barrage of cliche "hard work” posters that now also unfortunately saturate all corners of cyber-space.

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

Or my personal favorite,

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.”

This is not necessarily bad advice, however at large it is actually quite unhelpful. What needs to be emphasized, taught, and inspired is how to work hard and how to be a master learner.

Is there a Perfect Level of HARD WORK?

Admittedly, yes, you already know you have to work harder than the average person to achieve above average things, not exactly rocket science.

Neither you nor I know of any Chief Netflix Binge Watchers who are also Chief Executive Officers. Again, we’ve been conditioned to understand this our entire lives (remember the posters?).

So, if we all understand that hard work gets us the things we want in life, and we are all capable of working hard, then why do so many of us still struggle to do so? Contrarily, why do so many of us struggle to not over work?

It’s very easy to identify when someone is lazy, but the different ranges of what “hard work” looks like makes it ambiguous to define, and the outliers that exist can sometimes trick us; for example, there are a lot of lazy, successful people. There are also a lot of people who work really hard for very little return on their efforts. Either of those situations can make us feel like we lost the genetic lottery.

Click for some reel talk (get it?)

Then there is our personal favorite in American hustle culture, and it is those who work so hard, who are constantly redlining, stressed, and on the brink of a mental breakdown. These folks can often be found with blood shot eyes and a 20 ounce Starbucks coffee in their hand shouting “I’ll sleep when I’m dead!” and heading back to the office with one eye involuntarily twitching, because if you’re not exhausted, you’re not trying hard enough.

In my 20+ years in athletics I have seen this represented in various teammates and players I’ve coached:

• The lazy player who never works out, eats fast food, but looks absolutely yoked.

• The less talented or less athletic player who is often injured because they are constantly pushing themselves to the edge just to keep up.

• The entitled player who thinks they can do the bare minimum and be the best player on the court/field/ice.

• The obsessed superstar that can also be found with the 20 ounce Starbucks in their hand and their gym bag in the other.

Social Media Disilluisonment

If there is one thing social media is elite at, it’s making things look better than they actually are… to a toxic degree. The saddest part is, we don’t even realize that it’s poisoning our perceptions of reality, especially Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and now) and Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012).

When consuming social media, ruthlessly rude little self-deprecating demons can really go wild if you let them. We start to compare our own status to people who we desire to be like, yet who are only showing 2% of their own reality.

I wish I could be as carefree as @yolo1lifehappyhippy.

I should be working as hard as @hustleandgrind365.

The fame, wealth and success of @10xlife is something I will probably never have.

You get the idea.

If we aren’t careful, we can fall into this trap so easily. That’s why so many people end up deleting social media all together, I mean, I’ve done it.

Social media is a great way to repeatedly feed ourselves the wrong message and remain perpetually unsatisfied with the work we are doing. Is it enough? Shouldn’t I be doing more? @hustleandgrind365 is!

“It’s easy to convince yourself that things need to be hard, that if you’re not red lining, you’re not trying hard enough. This leads us to look for paths of most resistance, often creating unnecessary hardship in the process. But what happens if we frame things in terms of elegance instead of strain, sometimes we find incredible results with ease instead of stress, sometimes we solve the problem by completely reframing it.”

— Tim Ferriss

Alternatively, social media can be a powerful tool for accessing positive and productive information if we use it properly by following accounts that we recognize as healthy sources of information for our own unique needs.

My favorite accounts: @brendonburchard | @tacticnutrition | @drewhanlen

I’d be remise not to mention my own @makeyourselfak

the Wisdom to Know the Difference

Though I am not a religious person, there is a powerful prayer you most likely have heard before. I love this, and used to recite it before every basketball game, it goes:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

— Serenity Prayer

If you don’t jive with the word “God”, simply take it out or replace it with whatever higher power you believe in. This simple statement gives us a powerful mantra on navigating life and it’s many obstacles.

Mindset ReCalibration

Now the difficult part, don’t click to another tab or app, especially instagram. For your own self-respect, actually answer this question, and if you’re feeling real saucy, do it again in a week.

If I were living the greatest version of my life that I could possibly imagine, what would it look like?

Oof, deep huh? Grab a piece of paper and write as much or as little on this answer as you’d like.

Now, answer this one:

What are the biggest differences between that version of myself, and the version I’m currently living? What do I need to have serenity with, and what can I impart courage to change?

Remember, keep those rude little self-deprecating demons locked away while doing this exercise. In reality, there will always be a gap between those two versions, but knowing what your most “exceptional” life looks like compared to what your current life is allows you to refocus, reset, and attack some habits that you know need changing.

CONSISTENCY OVER INTENSITY

So friend, welcome to where the real dichotomy presents itself. As humans, our brains are programmed to want to be comfortable, it’s called homeostasis. On the same note, because we are human and have the ability to think about our thoughts (HA! in your face other mammals), we know that comfort is not the key to getting what we want. Period. Mic Drop. Underline and highlight that.

If we are comfortable, we simply are not growing, we are either staying the same or getting worse.

The most important, defining quality of working hard is not intensity, it’s consistency.

You know why? Because when you’re pursuing worthwhile things, it will never get easier. There will always be another stair to climb, another problem, another obstacle. And now the true dichotomy, if you work too damn hard, you end up where the lazy live, in burnt-out-ville on the couch.

So, instead of going balls to the wall, or wishing and waiting for things to be easier, learn how to handle hard better. And guess what, handling hard better boils down to your ability to be consistent. To be reliable. To respect yourself and the journey you’re on.

LET’S WRAP THINGS UP WITH SOME EXAMPLES

Consistency looks like: getting out of bed at the same time every day Monday - Sunday, and going to bed at the same time even when you don’t want to, but because you know you need a certain number of hours of sleep to function like a boss.

Intensity looks like: getting 4 hours of sleep on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, being exhausted Thursday and sleeping in, and then making a half ass effort Friday, and using the weekend to be a total sloth because “you deserve it” after the long week you’ve had.

Consistency looks like: writing out daily target goals to optimize your time and productivity.

Intensity looks like: trying to do all the things, all at once, all the time, and then ironically, getting very little actually done, or done well.

Consistency looks like: showing up to practice 30 minutes early daily to get in the world’s most efficient warm up, and then it pay huge dividends months later because that 30 minutes x 5 days a week x 12 weeks = 1800 minutes or 30 hours of quality work.

Intensity looks like: showing up for extra workouts randomly once or twice a week (60 minutes x 1.5 times per week x 12 weeks) = 1080 minutes or 18 hours of work. That’s almost half. And let’s not count the time lost between driving to and from the gym and all that extra laundry.

Consistency looks like: meal prepping on Sunday and Wednesday so you can eat budget friendly clean food all through the week.

Intensity looks like: making one extravagant, delicious, healthy meal for one night, and then deciding that you can never keep that up because between all the effort to decide what to do, go to the grocery store, cook, and then clean up, that eating healthy is too hard.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times where intensity is totally appropriate, but when it comes to wrapping your mind around what it means to have a strong work ethic, intensity shouldn’t be the main part of the picture, consistency should.

Be consistent. Do the work.

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The Story Behind Make Yourself

The amazing Alaskan coaches and participants of the Varsity Prep Camp, 2022

I believe every single person on this planet has the innate ability to make themselves into whoever they want to be.

I feel so strongly about this, because I was once a nobody from a small town on the remote island of Kodiak, Alaska. Like many other kids, it was my dream as a little girl to some day play college basketball, and maybe even professional basketball. At the time, I was one of the best players in my community, but that didn’t mean much at all as I transitioned from a small town high school to college basketball for the University of Alaska Anchorage.

My first year at UAA, I wasn't prepared for the drastic change in level, so I red-shirted.

This means I practiced every day with the team but did not play or travel, and therefore retained that year of eligibility. This was a developmental year through and through. My second year, excited to see all the work from the year prior translate to playing substantial minutes on the court, I was met right away with a bad bout of mono that hospitalized me at the beginning of the year, and wasn’t able to recover quickly enough to come in to the year and make an impact. I played limited minutes the entire season, only being put into the game when we were up by at least 25 points.

At the end of that year, having put in extra time on my own, having gave everything at every practice that I could, having done my best to have a great attitude and be a good teammate; my coach looked me in the eye and told me “If you do not get better, you will not play more than 5 minutes a game next year.”

What an icy, verbal dagger straight to the heart.

Instead of, “This is what you need to work on to get better” or, “Hey we see how hard you’re working; keep at it, it will pay off.”

Getting good is a lonely journey. Many hours alone were spent in the gym.

She was essentially telling me, "Quit. You are not good enough."

As I left her office, I felt devastated. By the time I got to my car in the parking lot, I was angry. By the time I got home, I was ordering a heavy basketball, an agility ladder, and looking up YouTube videos so I could coach myself on how to get better.

That summer, with a chip on my shoulder, I spent an obscene amount of hours in the gym, at the track, in the weight-room, and not eating chocolate. The result? Complete physical and mental transformation.

I avoided the parties all my friends and boyfriend were inviting me to. I stopped eating my favorite summer junk food, because I wanted to lean up.

And most importantly, every day I woke up and reminded myself, that I was going to be the only person who could prove everyone wrong.

I became obsessed with lonely journey of improving myself.

I went to open gyms at 6am with a bunch of older guys, because there were no other options in Kodiak. I would then put a rock in the door, and go back when I knew no one was going to be around, and work on my skills. I would go to the track, and run till it felt like my lungs were bleeding. I went to the local gym to lift weights and get stronger. I read books on how to strengthen my mind, and allowed the mentors in the pages to help my confidence expand since my own coach wasn’t willing to help me.

Senior season with the Seawolves 2 years later… 20+ point game against a Division I opponent at the Great Alaska Shootout. Remember when games were played at the Sullivan Arena?

The next fall came around, and my teammates and coaches were shocked.

The relentless summer of work that I had put in had paid off, and I found myself not just in the starting line up, but as one of the leading scorers and rebounders on the team. Fast forward three years of college and I eventually earned a contract to play professionally in Germany for two years and another to play in Australia. Part of me couldn’t believe it.

Had it not been for the two years of failure and adversity, and my summer of obsessively improving my mindset and habits, I would not have made it.

Playing on my third pro contract with the Logan Thunder in Brisbane, Australia.

It was not an easy road, and I didn't have too many people to help me… so I had to help myself.

This is why I now love coaching and mentoring young athletes.

I understand what it’s like to not know how to do something, and how to figure it out when your back is up against the wall.

I know what it’s like to have a soft mindset, and transform it into an unstoppable mindset. I know how it feels to commit to making myself into who I want to be, and realize how much of that has to be done with a mindset very few people will be able to relate to.

Ultimately, I believe if I could overcome almost career ending adversity and eventually reach some of the highest levels in my sport, anyone can do it. And I want to help show them - YOU - how.

Our most recent camp in Kodiak this past summer. The full circle effect is a great feeling. Beyond grateful to use my experiences to help the younger generations in not just Kodiak, but all across Alaska!

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Books for the Athlete Mindset

Athletics provides such an incredibly unique classroom to work on life skills like self-confidence, ability to communicate well, ability to cultivate healthy relationships, being a team player, how to maintain composure under pressure, how to overcome adversity, how to exercise daily discipline, and so much more.

The following books are an athlete’s secret weapon to unlocking greatness within themselves! Coaches, parents, and people of all walks of life can, of course, also benefit.

The power of the mind is not to be underestimated, invest in yours, and you will greatly reap the rewards both in your sport and life.

1. Mind Gym: An athlete's guide to inner excellence by Gary Mack​

This book was my bible as a collegiate and professional basketball player. Written by sports psychologist, Gary Mack, who interviews multiple athletes and eloquently uses their stories and his extensive knowledge to help the reader develop strategies to overcome mental barriers that hold them back in their sport. This is not only a read for the athlete, but coaches and parents as would benefit as well!

"The desire to succeed needs to be stronger than the fear of failure."

2. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
This biography written about former Olympic track athlete Louis Zamperini, is one of the most incredible stories on human resilience and toughness. A troubled child, Louis' brother helps him get his life on track by channeling his extra energy into running.

He qualifies to compete in the Olympics, and then World War II breaks out and he is enlisted in the military as part of a B27 bomber flight crew. His plane goes down, and he survives not only floating on a raft in the Pacific for well over a month, but the cruelty of a Japanese war camp as well.

​“I think the hardest thing in life is to forgive. Hate is self destructive. If you hate somebody, you're not hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself. It's a healing, actually, it's a real healing...forgiveness.”

3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

This is an absolute timeless classic that, the more I read, I realize many “self-help” books have been based off. Skip the copy cats and go straight to the source of genius by picking up this book.

Topping the charts as a #1 National Bestseller, it has sold 25 million copies since it’s publication in 1988. Covey passed away in 2012, but his works continue to give a principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems.

"Our problems and pain are universal and increasing, and the solutions to the problems are and always will be based upon universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society throughout history."

4. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, author, and Holocaust survivor. This book recounts his experiences from his time in a concentration camp in quite possibly the most logical first person narrative ever written on unimaginable suffering. It is humbling, perspective-changing, inspiring, and all together a must read, particularly if you are going through a difficult time in your life.

"In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

5. Adversity Advantage: Turning everyday struggles into everyday greatness by Paul Stoltz & Erik Weihenmayer

Like mind gym, this one saved me in college. I would go as far as to reread parts of it before games! Erik Weihenmayer became blind at age 13, but refused to let this control his life. Instead, he ultimately became the first blind person to climb the 7 Summits (the tallest peaks on all 7 continents).

​His book, co-authored by Paul Stoltz, is an inspirational read about overcoming life's many adversities and using them to your advantage. If a legally blind man can climb Everest, do our excuses that hold us back carry that much weight anymore?

"Even minor setbacks provide powerful opportunities for elevating behavior. If you eliminate adversity, you miss out on life's deepest riches, highest gifts, and most potent lessons."

6. Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss
This is an interesting read, because it is just a series of interviews with very successful people. Though clunky in the traditional reading sense, this is an absolute gold mine of knowledge.

“Make yourself proud. I think we spend too much of our time trying to please everyone. And we forget that it’s all already within. Your instinct, your inner child, your soul, all of those who know what’s good for you and the world.”

7. Winning by Tim Grover

Warning, this book is intense. The author trained Kobe Bryant, and you don’t get to the level of training someone whose MO was “mamba mentality” without also having a mamba mentality.

For those still working on building up your confidence, table this one till you feel ready to take your mindset to the next level.

“If you can tolerate fear and doubt and loneliness… Winning would like a word with you.”

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