Coach Devin Griffin: Helping Athletes Reach their Full Potential

Coach Devin Griffin has been around basketball his entire life. In his interview with us, he said that him and his friends used to play all the time. “I used to live in the gym all the time. Building that love for the game.” From high school, Coach Griffin went on to play for Columbia College, an NAIA program part of the American Midwest Conference (AMC). In his junior year, he helped lead the team to an undefeated season. After his collegiate playing days were done, Coach Griffin slowly transitioned into what has been his passion from the day he started playing basketball; helping other players reach their full potential.

After graduating, Coach Griffin and his friends would spend much of their time playing basketball against competitive high school travel teams to continue working on their craft, preparing to play ball overseas.

One day after playing pickup against the competitive travel teams, Coach Griffin thought to himself, “What if we could help these kids instead of just playing pickup with them?” At that moment, his personal development program began. It started out with some parents wanting him to work out their kids but very quickly, “one turned into two, two turned into ten.” Before he knew it, he quickly turned a hobby into a profession.

Today’s All In Takeaways are around the keys to helping athletes reach their full potential.

All In Takeaway #1: Break it Down

All too often, development coaches allow their athletes to focus on a million different areas of basketball that they want to see improvement in. This will not allow the players to dial in on one specific area and will not allow for any dramatic improvement. Instead, Coach Griffin recommends to BREAK IT DOWN. What he means by this is that you have to develop players by the month. For example, this month a player is working on shooting and upper body strength. Focusing on a few specific areas, will allow the athlete to see improvement in a short amount of time.

All In Takeaway #2: The Athlete NEEDS to Want it More

Even worse than coaches allowing their athletes to focus on a million different areas, some coaches will pick the areas that he wants the athlete to work on instead of allowing them to decide. THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN. Why is this? If the athlete is not telling you what they want to see improvement in, they will not want it more. For an athlete to see real improvement, they HAVE to want it more than the coach. Thus, you need to listen to the athlete and hear them out for what they want to see improvement in. From there, you can have an evaluation workout to see where the player is at.

Ultimately, you should not be begging any of your athletes to get in the gym. If you want to see improvement more than they do, there is a real issue.

All In Takeaway #3: Understand the Main Factor behind Athletes Transferring

Although there are many different reasons that come to play when an athlete decides to transfer, a lack of team culture is almost always a part of it. For Coach Griffin, team culture is an off the court thing. Having a strong team culture is not, “we have this 5-star recruit.” In order to build a strong team culture, you need to get to know the person. Get to know their parents. Get to know their passions. If you are just focused on the players basketball skills, you will encounter more and more players transferring from your
program.

Coach Griffin has only been a development coach for 6 years but has been able to train top tier talent such as Isiaih Mosley, who played last season at Missouri State and is one of the most dynamic isolation scorers in college basketball. Currently, he works alongside the Southern Illinois Jets and the Missouri Phenom. If you are looking to take your team to the next level or would like one on one training with Coach Griffin, please click here and send him a direct message on Twitter. As the blog has said countless times, Coach Griffin is committed to helping your team reach their full potential.

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