What goes on inside a coach’s locker room

What motivates, refocuses or even inspires a team?

What do coaches, who are rarely at a loss for words, say or do before a game or at halftime?

Do they make an inspirational speech, reiterate the game plan or adhere to a routine?

And does it make a difference?

With the state tournaments upon us, we asked prep basketball coaches in the area what they do to give their teams an edge or keep them focused.

Edmonds-Woodway boys coach Gail Pintler, who has decades of coaching experience, said he used to be more “rah, rah” when he was boys coach at Shorewood, but he admits now “that didn’t really make a difference in the ball game.”

Instead what he does is go through the game plan and talk about the keys to the game as he sees them. He said he has a thought he offers up, which he hopes will apply to the game. He always talks about playing with pride on defense.

“I don’t like peaks and valleys,” he said. “So I don’t try to build them up to a high peak because I know that somewhere along the way there’s going to be a valley.

“I just try to have them play at a fairly high, steady rate,” he said.

Jon Rasmussen, coach of the Shorecrest girls basketball, sometimes tells stories from his own playing days. When Shorecrest was down double-digits at the half to Mountlake Terrace back in 2006, Rasmussen told his team about the time a team he played on started out on an 18-0 run and ended up losing the game. In stunning fashion, Shorecrest came back from a 21-point fourth quarter deficit to win.

“It was kind of funny that the players didn’t believe me that it was a true story,” he said.

So Rasmussen brought in an old newspaper clipping about the game to prove it.

At the half, Rasmussen will break the game down and talk about necessary adjustments.

“Every game may dictate something different,” he said.

In a win over Kamiak early in the season, he talked about standout Kelsey Patrick’s tendency to dive into the defender. “Someone needs to take a charge,” he said. Sure enough, guard Casey Axelson went out and did take one.

Another thing Rasmussen does is have his assistants contribute to the discussion at halftime.

Several coaches said football coaches might have more luck with inspirational speeches and defining an opponent because there is only one game to get up for each week as opposed to two or three.

Before a game, Jackson coach Jeannie Thompson puts up on the board a list of the starters, who they are matched up against, the defensive keys of the game, keys to the game and the overall focus the team needs to have.

Thompson has her players keep a “goal book” in which they write out their own goals for that game and write down what’s on the board. For the last four years, senior Ashly Bruns has written the word “goals” in magic marker on the board and leads the team in the exercise along with senior Kristi Kingma.

King’s interim coach, Bill Liley, said he and his staff try to take a cerebral approach in the locker room.

“We kind of look at ourselves as tacticians,” Liley said. “My staff, we’re looking at ways that we can give our kids an edge as far as what’s going on on the floor.”

The pregame discussion includes a scouting report on the opposition, a pregame devotional (King’s is a nondenominational Christian school) and sometimes guest speakers.

“It does a great job building team camaraderie,” he said.

Archbishop Murphy’s John Barhanovich reminds his players about points of emphasis for the game: who is guarding the opposition’s top scorer, how the press break will work and what they’ve worked on in practice.

“Sometimes you try to get them fired up a little bit if you’re an underdog and you’re playing a team that’s a clear favorite,” he said.

In the pregame, the players say the Lord’s Prayer (Archbishop Murphy is a Catholic school), which was a tradition that the players wanted to continue when Barhanovich took over.

At the half, Barhanovich has a routine which includes looking at the opposition’s shooting percentage. If it’s under 35 percent, the defense is doing its job, if it’s over 40 percent “we’re not doing what we need to do,” and he’ll address it.

Barhanovich will talk about what the Wildcats did that was positive in the first half and ask for input from his assistants. They’ll discuss changes that they need to make in terms of score and tempo and what they need to do first in the second half.

Shorecrest’s Rasmussen said he loves to watch other coaches coach and see what is successful.

“I learn a lot when I watch many other coaches coach,” he said.