Getting Cut - Ways to Learn from It

It can be very disheartening and challenging when a player gets cut from a team they were hoping to be a part of.  It doesn’t really matter if the team was a school team, provincial team, club team, national team or some other team they might have been trying out for.  It never feels good to be rejected or deselected from something you wanted to be a part of.  There are many ways to deal with the situation.  Some athletes choose to use the experience as a way to get more bitter and frustrated which may eventually lead them to giving up or quitting.  While other athletes choose to help the feedback make them a better player.  

As coaches we sometimes say “it is better to get cut early” meaning that when you get cut at a younger age you have a chance to learn the most from the experience before it is too late and the time to improve runs out.   You can re-evaluate and then use the feedback to continue to improve. When you get cut early you have a chance to rethink your motivation, change your habits and really dig in to find ways to get better. Sometimes getting cut helps you to choose a different path that is better suited for the next phase of your life.    

Whenever I hear of somebody getting cut I often think of my experience of how I got cut in grade 7 from the junior girls team at my school and I was devastated.  I was really angry at the coach but that's when I decided to engage my work ethic instead.  I could tell getting mad was a waste of energy and I shifted to wanting to prove the coach wrong.  My sister helped me to get better.  She taught me how to do layups, how to shoot and also how to do so many of the fundamental things that would help me to get better.  Once I had the foundation I shot up the ranks quickly playing on the grade 11 and 12 team when I was in grade 9.  Besides my own experience of dealing with being cut early I also think about the story that is often told about Michael Jordan who was cut from the senior team when he was about 15 years old.  He used that experience to fuel him because he never wanted to feel that pain again.  I often think about how getting cut ignited his spirit, taught him how to dig deep and unleashed a powerful force on the basketball world. He never wanted to experience that feeling again so he made it so he became the greatest player ever.  I sometimes wonder what kind of basketball player he would have been had that experience never happened to him?  If he made the team instead of being cut would he have had the same career later in his life?  

Cuts happen, coaches have choices to make as there are only a certain number of players that can round out a roster and sometimes it comes down to the number of players in those positions as well as the fit of the athlete.  During a Canada Basketball training camp a couple of the coaches who were former National Team members divulged that every single player that eventually made the team had been cut in the years prior to finally being selected. So, no one is immune to rejection and it becomes common and standard practice the higher the level you try to reach.  

1. Get Feedback - This can be painful but helpful if you can ever get feedback from the coach(es) that cut you it is important to ask. It is the very best way to figure out ways to continue to improve especially if it hurts.  Try to also figure it out yourself by watching other people and learning from players that are better than you.  You have to learn to be your own best coach.  Most often it is about the details and executing those movements the best you can as close as possible to what was shown. The next time the drill or skill try to remember the little things and learn to repeat them.  
2. Take the Lesson - learning to deal with rejection is a crucial lesson in life.  There are a lot of ways that life isn’t going to go the way you are expecting it to go.  When bad things happen you have to find a way to dig deep and find away through them. Many people who get rejected learn to come back stronger and better than they were before.  Adversity is the best teacher.  
3. Come up with an Action Plan - Once you have a good idea of what needs to be improved really work on getting better.  If you identify your shot needs to get better find someone that can help you improve your technique.  Work on your plan every single day.  
4. Channel the pain - Use the pain as fuel and every time you don’t feel like working on your game or your workout isn’t going well that is when you tap into that feeling to really get your fired up to keep going. This should be able to help turn things around.  

In closing, there are a lot of times in life when things aren’t going to go your way.  Opportunities will come and go but being able to respond to them is what matters most.  Sometimes getting rejected helps you to take time to get over it and build confidence to not put yourself in a position to let that happen again.  You may not have control over what happens to you but you always have control over how you respond to those circumstances every single time.