IHSAA Tip Urges Student-Athletes to Embrace Coaching, Prioritize Development

The Indiana High School Athletic Association cut to the core of offseason development on March 30, publishing a student-athlete tip that frames coachability not as a personality trait but as a competitive skill with direct consequences for playing time.

"Are you willing to take instruction? For me, this is the basis of all your learning," the IHSAA wrote in the weekly tip, titled "Promoting Education-Based Athletics in Indiana." The association's central argument: players who absorb and apply coaching feedback will outpace raw talent because practice reps far outnumber game minutes, and the habits built in April and May determine who is holding a starting spot come November.

Applied to basketball workouts, the IHSAA's guidance translates into five observable behaviors coaches notice immediately. In film sessions, arriving with specific questions rather than watching passively signals active learning. At practice, the moment a coach stops a drill to correct form is the moment coachability is most visible: eye contact, immediate adjustment, no side conversations. In the weight room, showing up for voluntary lifts without a text or reminder tells a coaching staff everything about a player's self-direction. During skill work, the IHSAA points directly to focused reps at game speed, not high-volume, low-effort repetitions. And in direct conversations with coaches, repeating an instruction back rather than nodding once and walking away builds the baseline trust that earns rotation minutes.

"The more you work on the things that your coach is demanding, the closer you will become to achieving those things," the IHSAA stated. The association was explicit that agreement is not required. Disciplined response to instruction is.

The timing of the tip is deliberate. The post-state-final window running from late March through April is when Indiana players transition from high school schedules to club programs, AAU circuits, and individual trainer sessions. Decisions made now about work habits compound across the summer. When fall tryouts open, coaches are not only watching skill level; they are watching which players took direction from skill trainers, hit the weight room without being tracked down, and showed up to voluntary sessions on their own initiative.

That philosophy is precisely what the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association recognizes with its 2026 Transformational Coach Award, to be presented April 23-24 at Mt. Vernon High School in Fortville. Former Tri-West boys coach Tommy Strine, one of this year's honorees, guided the Bruins to a 14-10 record and a second-place finish in the Hoosier Legends Conference in just his second varsity season, the kind of program-level growth the IHSAA's development framework is designed to produce.

The IHSAA grounds the tip in its "education-based athletics" philosophy, which holds that interscholastic competition exists to advance student development beyond the scoreboard. The tip closes with a direct challenge: "Your talents are important, but you can become more skilled over time as you take a coach's instruction and learn to put it to use when it really counts."

For juniors entering recruiting windows and seniors transitioning to college programs, that challenge arrives at exactly the right moment. Players who lock in these five habits now will arrive at summer showcases already practicing the behaviors that separate good from elite.