Good old college try, this time virtually
Longtime hoops coach Mosley staying in touch with his players on Zoom
Phil Mosley heard the non-stop hype during the two weeks heading into the Super Bowl earlier this month, but the retired educator and one-time high school football coach is used to having his hands holding a different kind of ball at this time of year.
Indeed, the Niagara College men’s basketball head coach couldn’t remember a February when he didn’t have a whistle around his neck and wasn’t on the court instructing players at some level.
Before taking over the program at the college, Mosley spent 30 years teaching physical education at three high schools in Niagara and also coached hoops at the community level.
Mosley, who spent 12 years teaching at Westlane Secondary School in Niagara Falls and eight at Thorold Secondary School before transferring to Welland Centennial Secondary School in 2008, admitted dayto-day life without basketball took a while to get used to.
“It’s a routine that you basically have been doing — either teaching, coaching, or playing — for almost your entire life,” he said. “It’s something that you took for granted: the startup in the fall, the off-season, all of those things. It was just such a part of your life.”
That life of certainty — an after-school practice one day, or sizing up a recruit in an out-oftown gym the next — ended abruptly last March when COVID-19 affected every sport, at all levels, in Canada.
Some, such as golf and horse racing, went forward with modifications, while basketball was among the sports that were cancelled and postponed indefinitely.
“That’s the one thing about the pandemic, it’s certainly different for everybody in terms of their employment, their pastimes,” said Mosley, 57. “Everything has changed dramatically, that’s for sure.”
Both Niagara basketball teams were able to complete their 2019-20 seasons, with both falling in championship qualifiers on the road. Mosley was able to scout some recruits, such as Shammar Campbell from Notre Dame College School in Welland, before the first lockdown made recruiting virtual.
“It was sort of a combination of being able to see a lot of high school players live up until about January,” he said. “Then it basically went to looking at film.”
Online recruiting can be difficult, with coaches unable to see for themselves if a prospect can pass the eye test under game conditions.
“A lot of times on film, you get clips. Sometimes you get highlight reels, which means they clip the things that they want you to see,” he said.
“Hopefully, we can slowly move back to a point of getting back in the gym. However that looks, it will still be a positive for us.” PHIL MOSLEY
NIAGARA COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH
“They don’t always clip the things that they don’t want you to see, obviously,” he added.
“Seeing a game live, you get to see a little bit more of their character on the floor, how they handle themselves. You see them in pressure situations.”
Nuance is lost in the translation to film and video from live recruiting.
“When you rely on video, when you watch enough, you can pick out some of their strengths,” he said.
“It’s harder to pick out their weaknesses on film: off the ball, both defensively and offensively, movement. All kinds of little things that you can pick up when you’re watching the game live.”
Mosley started communicating with his team through Zoom meetings as soon as the pandemic hit.
“A lot of it was just talking through what our next steps were going to be, how we were going to stay engaged,” he recalled.
The meetings turned to focusing on more “physical-type stuff.”
“As summer hit, some of the guys were able to get outside on individual hoops in some places,” Mosley said.
That led to the Knights getting together in the gym at the college’s main campus in Welland, following “really, really strict protocols.”
“Four guys in the gym, each with a basket and their own ball, and one or two coaches in the gym,” he said.
With Niagara remaining in the COVID grey zone, following a second lockdown and 28-day state-of-emergency, team gettogethers remain off-limits. The team is still meeting on Zoom twice a week, and that includes recruits as well as returning players.
Mosley, who regards “putting a positive spin on things” as part of his responsibilities as head coach, suggested the latest lockdown didn’t hit the team as hard.
“The timing of the (last) lockdown was a time when things were pretty slow through the basketball season, through some of our training,” he said. “It was a chance for the guys to maybe even get just another little rest from studying online and doing some online training.
“I just take it as a positive. Hopefully, we can slowly move back to a point of getting back in the gym. However that looks, it will still be a positive for us.”
Mosley said the Niagara players have been “really, really good” in terms of trying to remain positive. “They’ve been doing the things that we ask them to do online and building some team atmosphere in the midst of what isn’t an ideal situation,” he said.
Numerous online coaching clinics have turned the basketball teacher into a student of the game again.
“There’s a lot of sharing that’s going on between coaches, both in Canada and the United States. That was really helpful,” Mosley said. “You can still immerse yourself in the learning, the preparation, and I think that just keeps you sharp.
“It keeps you motivated for when the time does come that you as a coach are going to be better and therefore, hopefully, your team will benefit from that, as well.”
He isn’t “overly surprised” at what he’s learning from the clinics. “So many of them have so many great ideas that it’s not necessarily something that is specific to high-level Division 1. There are some phenomenal things coming out of Canada,” he said. “Things that we can use, things that are very relevant in our current game.
“Coaches and players are always in a basketball mindset, so when you open yourself up to the information — it goes the same with recruiting, being able to have more one-on-one conversations, longer conversations, Zoom calls where you see the person face-to-face.”
The Oklahoma City native is in his third stint at Niagara College and second as head coach. He attended the school and played basketball with the Knights from 1981 to ’83 before going on to earn a degree in physical education from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Mich.
In 2004-05, Mosley led Niagara’s women’s basketball team to a 4-6 record after succeeding Georgie Groat as head coach.