GA. Tech Basketball Players Surrender Cell Phones For Better Team Communication

United States (AHN) – Stash those cell phones, and do it quickly. Georgia Tech basketball coach Paul Hewitt offered a piece of advice-lose the phone.

Hewitt also had a better idea of getting his team to focus and bond, the good ol’ fashion way, pure interaction.

Although considered primitive in today’s fast-paced, ‘I want it now’ world, the Yellow Jackets actually found chemistry without the flood of rings going off at dinners and the rapping of key pads during intermittent text sessions during conversations.

Last week the players willingly handed their phones in, and they didn’t see them until after the ACC tournament final.

Although the Jackets lost to Duke in the final, they took three-straight ACC games in just as many days.

They still received an award in the aftermath of the loss to Duke.

“Thursday coming back from shootaround, that was the most chatter I’d heard in the back of the bus all year,” Hewitt said. “It was like the old days when I was playing. You played cards. You talked. You slept. That was it.”

Like the days when one had to drop a quarter to make a phone call at the nearest grimey phone booth, the cell phone was non-existent to the common man- players only had themselves to create lively conversations or diversions.

“Any time we were at the dinner table [before] all you hear is texting, buttons being pushed,” guard D’Andre Bell said. “Now it’s fun arguments or insightful discussions about who we think is better in sports, or where we came from or why we do things a certain way. We really got a chance to learn one another. It forced us to talk to each other more.”

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