New Film: The Greatest Coaching Lesson in Basketball
Shot on my 3rd trip to Rwanda for Shooting Touch, a basketball nonprofit with the mission of using sport to educate and empower at-risk and the communities in which they live. For this film I utilized an incredible speech by Shooting Touch Board Member and Athletic Director of the Noble & Greenough school that he gave to a group of new coaches in Nyamirama, Rwanda following a coaches clinic. What really captivated me was not just the overall message of love but the way he came off saying it. Currently, in the social media age, everyone seems to preach what they truly believe everyone wants to hear in order to get that positive reinforcement via likes and shares, but in this case Alex was speaking from his heart in a remote village off a dirt road in a country that sadly most people don't think about during the course of their daily lives and when they do it's only about their violent history. In this case Alex spoke, through a translator that I cut out for the purposes of this film, to a small group of people not for a reaction but for a message to resonate long term. His message of coaching and love is more powerful than his tips on conditioning and skill because it will translate off the court forever. There is just an honesty and passion that could only best be conveyed in person, at that moment, in Nyamirama, in the middle of East Africa while looking 10-15 young adults in the eye and speaking from the heart.