Student Profile
Coach Invokes F-Word Philosophy: Fun
by Anthony Della Calce
Executive Editor
February 19, 2007
Like Bob Knight, Don Janocha is a basketball coach. The similarities, however, end there.
Janocha has never won a national championship. He has never coached an All-American. And he will probably never do either of those things.
His basketball sanctuary is not the hallowed venues of Cameron Indoor, Rupp Arena or Pauley Pavilion. Janocha’s basketball sanctuary is the rug-floored gymnasium of Kipps Elementary School.
Janocha coaches in a Blacksburg recreational basketball league for fifth graders. He volunteered to coach when he learned the league was short on coaches and the season was about to start. His roommate, Phil Stetler, is his co-coach.
“As it turned out,” Janocha said, “there are three teams in the fifth grade league and all of the teams are coached by fellow fraternity brothers who also volunteered when they heard about the league needing coaches. So, we have a great time playing each other’s teams.”
. . .
Janocha’s team, the Rockets, is a group of basking-in-their-youth boys who are uncorrupted by egos the way only fifth graders can be. At their age, missed shots, bad passes and other mistakes do not deter them from approaching the game with happy-go-lucky dispositions.
“It's a lot of fun coaching fifth graders,” Janocha said. “They're old enough to listen and learn, but still young enough to have fun with.”
And, in what is a rare philosophy for most coaches these days, having fun is a must if you play for Janocha.
“My coaching style is all about having fun,” he said. “Sometimes during practice we'll scrimmage ourselves and I'll play with the kids if we have an odd number of players. I get so wrapped up in the fun myself that I feel more like another player on the team instead of a coach.”
In fact, if it weren’t for Janocha’s grown-up physical presence – 6-foot-3, 210 pounds – you would have a hard time picking him out as coach of the team.
On this particular day of practice, Janocha is wearing a pair of dirt-aged running shoes, standard-issue black athletic shorts and a shamrock-green t-shirt – it’s an outfit that has fifth-grade fashion written all over it. He fits right in.
During practice, Janocha is fairly soft-spoken, speaking calmly and slowly to his players. His does not yell, which is an easy option to resort to when trying to explain drills to easily perplexed kids who are eager to expend energy.
“The hardest part of coaching fifth graders,” Janocha said, “is getting them all to stand still and listen for five minutes when you want to teach them something. They just want to run around, but I can't blame them, I was the same way in fifth grade.”
With the help of Stetler, Janocha attempts to explain the weave drill. He wants the three kids to run down the court while passing the ball among them. The passer is always in the middle and after he passes the ball, he runs behind the person he passed it to while the person who receives the pass goes to the middle before passing it to the other player. When done right, the players move down the court in a weave pattern.
As you might have noticed, it gets awfully confusing when you have to explain the drill in words.
Luckily, Janocha and Stetler can demonstrate the weave drill while they explain it. They do this a few times and the kids eventually pick it up.
. . .
Janocha has only three players at practice today – Dave, Josh and Hunter. The other two members of the team – Ryan and Drew – are missing. Janocha surmises that they thought there wasn’t going to be practice because school had been cancelled that day.
Janocha hopes they’re not sick, though. The team has a game in two days and, with only a five-man roster, he needs all of his players there in order to play the game. The team used to have two more players but one moved up a league and the other decided not to play.
But, despite the dwindling number of players, coach Janocha’s spirit remains undeterred. Unlike many youth coaches nowadays, he does not have a son on the team. His only attachment to the team is the joy he gets from coaching his young players. It’s something he learned when he was playing youth basketball.
“I volunteered to coach,” Janocha said, “because I remembered my coach when I was in 6th grade – Pete Rosa. None of his own kids were on the team, but he did it because he was a good man and he loved basketball. The way I see it is that he did something good for me 11 years ago and I'm just paying it forward in a way. Someday, maybe one of the kids I'm coaching now will want to coach because he had a great time playing when he was a kid.”
. . .
At the conclusion of practice, Janocha rewards his players with pints of ice cream. It seems to be a strange choice for a reward when it’s below freezing temperatures outside. However, fifth-grade boys never object to ice cream.
Janocha explains the cold treat: He promised he’d give the kids ice cream if they could dunk – a seemingly impossible task for a group of vertically-challenged fifth graders. But, when you promise youngsters ice cream if they do something, they usually find a way to do it.
This case is no different. At the previous practice, the players, with help from Janocha and Stetler, lifted one teammate up to the basket and he dunked.
. . .
Coaching youth basketball has been a rewarding experience for Janocha, who says his most gratifying moments come when he sees his players improve because of something he might have taught them.
“My first and most important goal is for the kids to have fun,” Janocha said. “Beyond that, I hope they learn to appreciate the game.”
How much Janocha’s players appreciate the game of basketball is a hard question that may take some time to answer.
But, Janocha has clearly achieved his first goal as evidenced by the smiles that permeate the faces of his players throughout practice. Their smiles remain as they leave the gymnasium of Kipps elementary. Coach Janocha even wears one, too.
The smiles are a reflection of Janocha’s most prevalent coaching theme – fun. It’s a theme that most likely will never lead to a prominent coaching career.
No, Don Janocha will never be Bob Knight. But, as a youth basketball coach, that’s probably a good thing.