For many years, similar to many of my readers, I set goals to achieve. Goals for everything from grades, for lifting weights, in the gym, running six miles every morning, for success in business, for winning basketball games and championships. I succeeded at first, but failed at a lot of them. Slowly I began to realize that my results had little to do with the goals I set and everything to do with the systems I followed. Goals are about the results you want to achieve, systems are about the process that lead to those results.

Coaches, especially in high school sports, are great at implementing systems. The ideas are, you win games in practice by perfecting the system you are using. You win games in practice, then you merely go play the game to get to your goal. Eighty percent, if you are a good coach, is done at practice, by making the system of practice harder than the game. I’ve watched basketball in high school over the years. Of talented players, I cringe if a coach is hired only because the players like him. The popular coach often doesn’t always push the players to excellence. They lose season after season, thinking they all did a good job. Friendship isn’t the main goal, even though as a coach you would like to have a relationship after the players graduate.

Teaching them the systems that improve their skills as a basketball player, and pushing them into good conditioning is your job. This can’t be accomplished without some pain, thus “no pain, no gain.” After many double separators to develop the idea that no team will ever be in better shape than us, because one way or another we run for an hour, 45 minutes daily. That’s our system. Thus, as a basketball coach, your goal may be a sectional championship. Your system is the way you conduct and teach at practice, manage your whole program (JV, Freshman, Modified) so every coach is on the same page teaching and coaching for the team Varsity that can look at the coaches and systems they came from.

This was taught to me by a great friend and great basketball coach, Bob Muscato from Cardinal Mindszenty High School. It went something like this. “Mike, you are a basketball coach. It’s good to focus on winning the JV championship. However, instead of focusing on the championship, focus on only what your team does at practice daily, making corrections as good coaches do, and you will still be successful.” In my case, I concentrated on what the coach wanted done to get my sophomores and freshmen ready for him. If he took a player up during the season, I was always “next man up.” Sounds like the Buffalo Bills because that’s their system.

Under Coach Muscato using his system on offense and defense, we were 29-9 for two years, winning two Junior Varsity championships in a row in the tough Catholic Junior Varsity League because of the coach and the system. I got my first Varsity head coaching job in 1968 at Lake Shore Central in Angola.

In this segment we’ve been discussing systems. However, the main idea of this series is “Atomic Habits.” Focusing on the overall system, rather than a single goal, is one of the core themes of this series of articles. An atomic habit refers to a tiny change — a marginal gain, a 1% improvement. They are not old habits. They are little habits that are a part of a larger system, just as little habits are a part of a larger system. Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the building blocks of remarkable results. Thus atomic habits are a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the source of incredible power: a component of the system of compound growth. Without ever knowing what these atomic habits were, I’d like to take you back to the 1972-73 Dunkirk High School champions, Dunkirk High School basketball team which posted a 20-1 season and was number 2 in New York State small schools that year.

The year before (1971-72), this team was 9-9. They played a tough Lake Shore League schedule and an exhausting non-league schedule against Jamestown (twice), Bennett High of Buffalo, Nichols High of Buffalo, Erie Tech of Erie. They held their own.

Coming into the 1972-73 season, Dunkirk High was ranked 120th in small schools in New York State. Here is the 1% that we did every day, from November to April. At that time, there was no state basketball tournament, no three-point shot and no dunking the basketball. Thus when a high school basketball team averages 89.0 points per game, gives up 49.0 points per game and scores over 100 points in six games, they must be pretty good.Every day we’d start with 15 minutes of stretching, followed by five minute intervals of passing, dribbling, fast breaks, defensive drills, charge drills, rebounding, long pass drills and free throws after double separators. All of this was done full court, to keep players moving. Practice started at 3 and ended at 4:45. If you guys today can’t get what you want done in an hour and thirty minutes of an hour and 45 minutes, you’re not giving your kids what they need. Scrimmaging came from Bobby Knight’s “change drills” and exposed everyone who wasn’t thinking or putting out physically. This drill, if done right, will give you everything you teach – offense, defense, passing, running, especially running full court and teaching quickness. The 1% rule was what we taught, even though we didn’t know what it was. Once in a while, when the work was done, I’d pretend to get mad at them and throw them out of practice. The next day, they would come back with a vengeance and focus. This system is what gave five players the performance of five guys in double figures, usually playing half the game so the substitutes could get in.

When I went into sales in 1982, for Brute Spring and Equipment, covering all eight counties of Western New York, I brought “the system” to sales. It’s lasted me 44 years using this organization for more than 700 customers in Western New York. I’m 83 years old and working 40 to 50 hours weekly for Frey Heavy Duty Parts, one of the oldest companies in Buffalo — founded in 1907, and enjoying every minute.

Does the 1% rule work? I’m living proof it does. As Jon Bon Jovi stated, “Success is falling nine times and getting up 10!”

Mike Tramuta, is a counselor for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and Dunkirk resident. He can be reached at 716-983-1592.