The “Mongoose System” recipe for life

What I learned about life coaching Grade 7 boys’ basketball using the “Mongoose System”

Back to coaching, but with a proviso!

My rule was always that they had to be old enough to get my jokes, such as they were.

This meant that elementary kids (Grades 1-6) would not be an option if I were to coach basketball. Besides being slow on the joke uptake, they were more high-maintenance than my limited skill set could handle.

I remember assisting at a summer camp many years ago, playing musical chairs. In the very first round, the elementary-age kid who didn’t get a chair bawled his eyes out, which was the moment I realized two things. One is that elementary school teachers are society’s most underpaid professionals; the other is that you couldn’t pay me enough to do that job, never mind volunteering for it.

So, when a teacher acquaintance asked me to help him coach basketball about 12 years ago, I was thrilled that it involved Grade 7 and 8 boys. I was reasonably sure they were past the “crying because I didn’t get a chair” stage—at least I hoped.

All of a sudden, it was up to me

When my teacher acquaintance was transferred to a different school the following year, I was even more thrilled (as well as trepidatious) to become the head coach. My only condition was that the team be made up only of Grade 7 boys, as I wanted to instill a love of the game in them right from the start (Grade 7 is when most kids in this particular community would get their first exposure to basketball).

They granted my request, and we were on our way.

Now, this wasn’t my first coaching gig, but it would be very different from the one I had over 20 years before, when I helped with a high school girls’ team. Most importantly, I was different. Unlike last time, at age 30, I was now in a solid, loving marriage, had 18 years of experience raising my own child, and was far more mature, stable, and mentally healthy (so I told myself, anyway).

I had far more to offer these wide-eyed Grade 7 boys than I did the high school girls all those years ago. But did I have enough knowledge on the basketball side? What kind of system would I use? After all, it had been some time since I’d been in the arena, so to speak. Aspects of the game had changed, and I needed to figure out quickly which parts of what I knew would translate and which parts I had to rethink.

My mission — fundamentals, fun, and love of the game

I knew how I was coached in high school wouldn’t apply to this era or age group, neither coaching style nor system of play. Yes, I would need to teach fundamentals and instill an appropriate level of discipline, but these Grade 7 boys were not high-schoolers.

Moreover, I was never a technical expert, especially regarding systems. Now, with the 3-point shot ubiquitous at higher levels, the game was entirely different from what I’d played and coached previously.

Considering all that, I made it my mission to focus on two things: teaching the fundamentals and making the game as much fun as possible so kids would love it and want to continue playing. Between attending coaching clinics over the years and my own learning experiences, I had a pretty good idea of how to go about the first. I wasn’t as sure about the second, at least not right away.

In any event, my one assistant coach (one of my best friends and the quintessential “Team Mom”) and I forged ahead with the 2014-15 season. It was interesting and included several challenges, but I learned one thing very quickly: The boys (especially the ones who also played hockey) intuitively understood system concepts like sprinting to the basket and head-manning the ball.

They absolutely loved it when we uncoupled them from whatever rudimentary system we were using and just let them run.

Which got me thinking.

But how?

Late that season, as I buried myself in one of my frequent searches for useful coaching material, I came across a book called Run to Win: The Mongoose System—Coaching Middle School & Youth Basketball, written by three coaches from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Finally, I’d found what looked to be a comprehensive system geared specifically toward my players’ age group and my thoughts about running.

I ordered it and, though intrigued, let it sit for several months, unopened.

Then, in preparing for the 2015-16 season, I finally picked it up and was both blown away and mystified, as the system was so contrary to everything I’d ever learned. What do you mean, “Bomb them with 3-pointers?” At this age?! “Press all game?” How are they supposed to do that? And what’s with the player nicknames? So many questions.

And I needed answers before implementing such an unorthodox system, so I emailed the lead coach to ask if we could discuss it. Well, you couldn’t find a more gracious author than Coach Beau Brock, and it wasn’t long before we were on the phone chatting like two old friends. What he told me about the “Mongoose System” was completely compatible with what I’d seen the boys enjoying the previous season.

How could I not give this a try?

So, what exactly is the “Mongoose System?”

Loosely based on the approach Coach Paul Westhead implemented at Loyola Marymount about 35 years ago, it’s a system based on running the whole game, on both offence and defence, to the point where your opponent simply can’t keep up and eventually breaks down. Speed is the essence of everything. “Organized chaos,” the authors called it.

“How,” one may ask, “can players play like that for a whole game?” Drawing from hockey, the answer is simple: Frequent line changes or “platooning.” The beauty of this system is that everyone plays, everyone is expected to shoot early and often, and everyone is fully engaged, all the time.

If you, as a coach, ask your young players, “Do you want to play all the time and shoot as often as you want without worrying about missing?” what do you think the answer will be?

But it’s about more than basketball — a lot more

But the “Mongoose System” goes much deeper than simple basketball—it’s all about what the players will take away from the experience after the last sneaker has been untied and the last hoop cranked back up to the gym ceiling.

It’s about every player contributing, and not necessarily by scoring; it’s about not only accepting mistakes but actively encouraging them as part of the learning process; it’s about playing as “one body;” and it’s about giving everything you have for the minute you’re on the floor, knowing that five of your teammates are right behind you, ready to do the same.

The “Mongoose System” is about focusing on the process instead of the result, a strategy I hoped players would carry into their personal lives well beyond their basketball playing days.

I was sold.

The inaugural “Mongoose System” season

Our first “Mongoose System” season went well

You could see that the kids had bought into the system and were having fun, and we even won our fair share of games. My daughter helped me coach for part of the season, which made it even more special.

But the following story was the year’s (and maybe my coaching career’s) highlight, underscoring that we were doing the right thing.

We started the season with tryouts, and this shy, self-conscious Indigenous kid with size but little skill showed up late for the first session. The few players who showed up for that first “Mongoose System” season tryout (boy, did that change over the years) meant we’d almost certainly have a spot for him, but I told him straightaway that if he wanted to stay on the team, he could never be late again.

And he never was. Not once. He did everything we asked and played as much as everyone else because of our “platooning” approach. I will never forget when he scored his first points ever—the stands erupted, with people crying for joy (I’m tearing up as I write this), and his teammates mobbing him. It was the best kind of pandemonium, and it might never have happened on a non-Mongoose System team.

Throughout the rest of the season, he contributed as much as anyone else and finished the year with more points than several teammates. Such a joy to watch him develop.

The best part of that story…

But that’s not the best part. In the years that followed, whenever I saw him around school, I saw an engaged, smiling, and confident young man—a far cry from the one who showed up late on that first day of Grade 7 tryouts. He was a living reason for us to continue with what we were doing.

Learning more by going straight to the source

After that first season, I wanted to improve my coaching of the “Mongoose System,” but, unsurprisingly, there were no coaching clinics in that field. So, I went straight to the source instead and invited myself to Baton Rouge to spend time with the coaches who literally wrote the book on it.

They graciously welcomed my wife and me, even allowing me to help coach at their team practices. I’ll never forget how Coach Brock’s Grade 8 girls learned “O Canada” and sang it to us when we first entered the gym. We spent a week there, and I soaked up every bit of information I could.

I implemented that refined “Mongoose System” knowledge in its entirety in the last three years of my coaching career before relocating across the country in 2019. And those coaches in Louisiana remain our friends.

With the “Mongoose System,” I taught — and learned

So fulfilling for so many reasons

Watching how the kids enjoyed playing the “Mongoose System” made those coaching years some of the most enjoyable and fulfilling times of my life. With many people’s help, I fulfilled my mission of teaching the fundamentals and making the game as fun as possible so the kids would fall in love with it and continue playing for however long they wanted. And many did play, some even up to the junior college level.

Others who played are now themselves coaching, which is especially gratifying. I couldn’t be prouder and more grateful that some still stay in touch.

Learning from the “Mongoose System”

In coaching the “Mongoose System,” I learned as much from my kids about basketball and life as I hope they learned from us coaches:

You can win without focusing on winning. In fact, the games and practices are way more fun if we focus on what gets us there instead.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Shoot often and don’t worry about missing.
Every contribution matters, and coaches should recognize them all. If you want your players to play as “one body,” you have to nurture each part of it. Find ways for everyone to shine.
There’s a time to be serious and there’s a time to be silly, coaches included. The players will remember the silly long after they’ve forgotten the scores.
You get out of it what you put into it, and then some. I gave everything I had to coaching for six years, despite never coaching my own kid, and got out of it ten times what I’d put in.

But the most important thing I discovered? That my jokes work at the Grade 7 level, but only just barely.

And that the kids might not be the ones with the problem there.