“FEED THE CATS” BASKETBALL PROGRAM

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Hugo Noya Enríquez

Coach Tony Holler is knowed as a sprint coach and track coach, and the “Feed the Cats” program. “Feed the Cats” has started to venture outward into other sports: lots of stuff right now on lacrosse and rugby, tons of stuff with football… But what about basketball? It´s something coach Tony Holler knows a lot about because his dad was a basketball coach at the high school and college level for 47 years. Tony Holler played high school basketball for him. He also played college basketball. He really went into teaching with the idea that he was going to be a basketball coach, and he became the youngest head coach in the state of Illinois at the age of 23. Next I´m going to explain the way coach Tony Holler would see a “Feed the Cats” basketball program.

Pillar #1 – Sleep

How do we become a “Feed the Cats” basketball program? The first thing you have to accept is the importance of sleep. Sleep might actually be more important to your basketball team than basketball practice itself. Sleep is when we reboot our bodies. We heal and we grow when we sleep.

But there´s another really important thing about sleep. We want our athletes to have high dopamine levels. Dopamine will allow basketball players to be recklessly confident, which is wonderful, and secondly to be able to move arms and legs faster. There´s two major ways to get dopamine: one is to be in the sun; the other is to sleep. During the basketball season there´s not much sunshine because it´s winter time. We´re indoors. So what must we do? We must get those 8 to 9 hours of sleep to have high dopamine levels.

Pillar #2 – Maximum Outputs in Practice

The second way we´re going to become a “Feed the Cats” basketball program is to change the traditional approach to practice. Traditionally basketball practice has been long and hard, continuous movement, guys are in 3rd gear the whole time… But somehow, by practicing really hard and long, and making it tiring, we were going to make games easy. But easy games do not win games. High outputs win games. So we wanna teach our basketball players to play in 5th gear. To do that, we have to separate those bouts of intensity and practice, and recover more. If we don´t, then we´re going to be practicing in 3rd gear all the time, and you don´t think that´s a very good way to win games.

Pillar #3 – Don’t Burn the Steak

The 3rd key to becoming a “Feed the Cats” basketball program is to never let today ruin tomorrow or never let today´s workout ruin tomorrow´s workout. We never want to burn the steak. If so, we do not have those small gains every day. All coaches know that those small gains consistently is what makes us so good at the end of the season. So if you are practicing too long, too hard, and too intensely on Monday, your Tuesday practice is not gonna be very good, or worse yet, your game on Tuesday night is not gonna be very good. So don´t burn the steak.

Pillar #4 – Tired is the Enemy, Not the Goal

The 4th pillar of becoming a “Feed the Cats” basketball program is to let the games be hardest thing you do. This is a departure from the traditional approach, where we practice long and hard in order to make games feel easy. We don´t want games to be easy. We want games to be hard. What you will find is that fast, explosive and bouncy athletes that execute will be great in the 4th quarter. It doesn´t matter that you have not made them tired all week. Tired is the enemy, not the goal.

Pillar #5 – Be 100% Healthy and 80% in Shape

The 5th way that you will become a “Feed the Cats” basketball program is to listen to the advice of Harry Marra. Harry Marra was the coach of Ashton Eaton, one of the greatest decathletes of all times. Harry Marra said: “You would rather get to the starting line 100% healthy and 80% in shape than the other way aorund”. If you think about it, this is just critical in preparing your athletes for performance. Injured, miserable athletes don´t perform well. So if you burn the steak during the week, you´re going to pay for it come game time, even if you backed off a little bit the day before the game. So never burn the steak.

Pillar #6 – Stop Traditional Conditioning

The key number 6 to becoming a “Feed the Cats” basketball program is probably the most controversial and the most radical. That is stop doing traditional conditioning. Lombardi said that fatigue makes cowards of us all. Coach Tony Holler believes that. He just has a different interpretation of that statement. We should not want to fatigue our athletes. Other coaches think we need to get guys super tired at every practice. You say: “Well, don´t they need a great aerobic base in order to repeat high outputs?” If that interferes with high outputs that´s not a very good idea. This is what Tony Holler tells you right now on this. You won´t find this in a textbook. But if you stack together anaerobic high outputs with a little bit of recovery in between so that the outputs can still be high, you will get an aerobic effect that will help you get through the game and play great in the 4th quarter.

Pillar #7 – Practice at “Game Speed Plus” 

The 7th way that you are gonna become a “Feed the Cats” basketball program is to abandon the traditional approach to practice. Every coach Tony Holler´s ever known has said: “We´re gonna practice hard”, ” We´re gonna go hard every single day”, “110% Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and 110% in the game”, and then “In practice we´re gonna go 110% for 2 and half hours”. It´s crazy. It´d be like saying I´m gonna run a Marathon 26.2 miles and we´re gonna sprint the entire way. Oh, that might be good talk about but it´s impossible. We must have highs and lows inside of practice, and we must practice during the week with high days and low days. Tony Holler calls it the wave theory.

Pillar #8 – Make Practice the Best Part of a Kid’s Day

The 8th and final pillar of a “Feed the Cats” approach to basketball is to stop trying to be Norman Dale, the famous coach in the movie Hoosiers who said: “My practices are not designed for your enjoyment”. That may be badass. Maybe you want to be badass. But you´re ignoring a couple facts. One is if a kid does not love what they´re doing, they´ll never be very good at it. The other thing is that Steve Jobs said: “If you love something, the vision pulls you”. You don´t have to be pushed. So stop pushing your athletes and make practice the best part of a kid´s day.

“Sprint as fast as possible, as often as possible, staying as fresh as possible.”

“Rest, recovery, sleep.”

“Tired is the enemy, not the goal.”

“Do less, achieve more.”

“Never let today ruin tomorrow. Never burn the steak.”

“You don´t plant beans and grow corn.”

“Speed grows like a tree.”

“Speed is the tide that lifts all boats.”

“Speed is the best barometer of health.”

Tony Holler

“In speed development, the nervous system only understands quality.”

Boo Schexnayder

“Always choose quality over quantity.
This rule applies to every life situation.”

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“The quickest way to destroy fast twitch muscle fibers
is to bathe them in lactic acid for prolonged periods of time.”

Kelly Baggett

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