Last summer I observed a summer league practice session where the coach was discouraging a young athlete from guarding the player with the ball too closely.  He was telling her, “You’re trying to guard her way too close, and you’re going to get beat off the dribble.”  He followed up with, “After she picks up her dribble, then close the gap and get right up on her.”  Since I started coaching, it’s been my observation that good coaches teach their athletes to improve their weak areas, while also encouraging them to take advantage of their strengths.  Naturally this requires the coach have the ability to evaluate and recognize strengths and weaknesses in young athletes, and to respond with appropriate substance and delivery.  

A defender should get up even tighter on the ball when the ball handler has picked up their dribble.  But a good guard isn’t going to pick up her dribble except to pass or shoot unless she’s guarded closely.  Against a quality guard, leaving a “cushion” of space just makes it easier for her to make an entry pass, or shoot the ball.  And what about the discouragment?  The kid he was addressing had not even been beaten off the dribble yet.  In fact, her tight, in-your-face style of defense was clearly annoying the senior all-league point guard she was defending.  As a defensive minded Coach, watching this freshman harass and annoy the best ball handler in the program was something beautiful to me.  I was thinking that it sure would be nice to have 2-3 guards on my team every year who wanted to guard people like that.  And it bothered me that she was being discouraged from using her strength as a player- the quickness and tenacity to closely guard a highly skilled ball handler.

I’d actually coached this same kid during her freshman season a few months before this.  I was aware her offensive skills were still developing and that her best asset as a basketball player, the way she could really contribute to a team was with her on-ball defense.  Not only that, she realized this was her strength, and she had real pride in that.  She was very quick, didn’t shy away from contact, and she clearly enjoyed getting right up in the ball handlers space and making dribbling and finding an open pass receiver very difficult.  Why would a coach discourage that?   If you’re going to have an aggressive and tenacious defense, you NEED some quick defenders who want to guard as tight as possible.  If she does get beat because she’s guarding too tightly, then adjust her defense, but not before there’s even  a problem.  The coach was taking away her strength.  And consequently in my opinion, he was weakening his own team.  Plus, discouraging her from playing defense like she was capable of had another detrimental effect.

This player was still in the early stages of developing her skills and was not yet a skilled offensive player.   She was an adequate guard, but neither a great ball handler, nor a consistent perimeter shooter.  That coach took the one thing this player was actually good at, the one thing she felt some confidence and pride in, and he disrespected and disregarded that ability by telling her to back off.   Though I’m sure it was not his intention, he discouraged her development instead of positive force of encouragment.  My point is that this is not the kind of leadership that creates a team atmosphere conducive to playing hard.  As a coach, if you want your players to back off, to be less aggressive and less physical, this example might be near the top of a list of suggestions to accomplish that- deny them that which they do best.  There’s just no excuse for it. 

Any observation of outstanding individual defenders easily demonstrates that great on ball defenders do in fact often look like they are guarding the ball too closely.  But that’s the whole point of playing very aggressive  defense- pressure the oppoent into mistakes.  The offensive player with the ball basically has two choices when confronted with a defender who gets right up in her “grill.”  She can accept the challenge, play more physically and look to beat the defender off the dribble.  Or she can become intimidated and shrink a little as a player- avoid the ball, don’t try to beat the defender, when she has the ball don’t look at the basket, just become a passer.  In short, play with fear.  If you are a player, and your defense is bothering the opponent, causing her game to shrink, then you’ve won a small individual battle within the game and helped your team to be successful.    

I believe any coach who discourages aggressive on ball defense when it’s effective should be put out to pasture.  Because he’s hurting the program he’s coaching in by actively diminishing the ability of the players in it. 

There is no special time in practice when effort counts more than another time.  We –players and coaches- should be giving the best effort we are capable of giving at all times, because that effort and ethic represents who we are to the world.  The daily grind of practice is a recurring opportunity for coaches to help develop in student-athletes the consistency of effort generally required of both a successful team, and a successful life.  As these principles and ethics are the same for both.  At practice, each player is faced with their own daily recurring choice-  are you working hard, or are you holding back?  As the Coach, if practice is 90 minutes long, I’m watching and evaluating players for all 90 minutes, not just when players are sprinting together. 

I see the players I coach around town after each season because the town is very small.  Inevitably one or two kids a year will see me somewhere and ask me, “Hey Coach, we going to run a lot this season?”  The thing is, there’s a noticeable pattern to who asks me that question.  And that pattern has caused me to realize that I have neglected to communicate to these young student athletes my fundamental vision of what a practice session should and should not be, and why.  And I’ve failed to instill the idea and goal to make it a personal responsibility to live like an athlete twelve months a year; to stay in good condition, and to show up in good condition on day one of the season.

The short answer to the question, “are we going to run more” is no.  I’m not the track coach, and I’m not setting aside valuable and precious practice time to just run back and fourth.  The game is too difficult and demanding to waste time just running for the sake of running, and it’s not necessary.  There are better alternatives, but it’s up to you as an individual to push yourself from the first minute of practice through the last minute.  So if you are a player who is waiting for the sprints portion of practice to push hard, it may not come, and your conditioning will suffer if you’re rarely or never going full speed in practice.  If you are a player who is pacing yourself during practice, saving your energy for that brief time in practice dedicated to just running so you can finish the sprints strong, then you don’t get it.  You don’t understand.  But I take responsibility for that because you are young, and clearly I’ve either failed to teach the basic principle of results being equal to effort, or I’ve failed to motivate you to have the desire to push yourself all the time at practice.       

If I was the track coach, then I would be motivated to teach running as a skill.  And while I do observe and correct individual movement skills such as jumping and landing, starting and stopping, and change of direction; for the purposes of playing basketball, running is essentially just a necessary ability, not a skill like shooting the ball.  As a player, you are either in good physical condition and have the ability to run and run, or you are not.  I will structure practice to enhance the conditioning you show up in, but not to take you from way out of shape, to ready to compete for a whole game.

Shame on you if you call yourself a player, but you choose to have a sedentary life style until the season begins.  If you start the season with the idea that practicing and playing will get you into shape, you’re taking the easy way, and that always leads to mediocre results.  If you choose to do little or nothing about the shape you are in before the season starts, how does that become the coach’s problem to deal with?  I think it’s your problem for not being motivated, and it’s not my job to fix it.  My job is to deal with the entire team, and I’m not going to focus on the players who are most out of shape. 

On any team the student-athletes will show up with a range of conditioning at the beginning of the season.  Some stay in good shape all year long, and these players will easily be in excellent game condition for sprinting up and down the court within about two weeks.  From day one, these players are able to run hard in all drills, and they can easily finish the limited number of sprints we do run in practice.  For them, the daily practice routine easily accomplishes getting them into game playing condition.  

Others show up having done nothing or next to nothing to get into shape before the season starts.  These players will take something like two months to get into good shape.  About the same time the season is close to being over, these kids are finally getting into game shape.  I see this happen almost every season with two or three players.  And here in lies the pattern I’ve noticed- these are consistently the same players who ask me if I plan to make them run a lot the following season.  I admit, at first I thought they were asking me that question because they didn’t want to run.  After all, it’s clear from their lack of conditioning that they’ve been avoiding running.  But enough of these kids have asked me this question while also suggesting we need to run more in practice that I’ve concluded they expect basketball practice to be where they get into shape.  They believe it’s acceptable to show up out of shape and use practice to “fix” that. 

There are many conflicting goals that a coach must choose from and plan around during a season.  While getting the team into good condition is critical, in the early season getting the team ready to play games is the top priority.  The players have to feel confident about what they will be doing on offense and defense.  If a handful of players just pushed themselves off the couch, where they’ve been since the School year started, I am not going to modify my practice plans so they can run more.  Perhaps I should pull them aside and just have them run off to the side, apart from the rest of the team for 20-30 minutes if they can’t keep up.  But I’d rather not.

As a Coach, I expect you to show up in good physical condition on day 1.

The objective of practice is to enhance the conditioning you come into the gym with, not to run and run, and get way out of shape players into game playing condition. 

It’s not the objective of practice to help players manage their body weight

Practice is not designed to get you from couch potato, to well conditioned athlete.  It’s designed to teach the skills of the game and to prepare the team to compete. 

Basketball is an anaerobic sport, requiring the ability to go all out for brief bursts, then to recuperate fast during breaks in the action so you can do it over and over again. 

Jogging, or treadmill running, or running 2 miles, or 5 miles, or marathons are examples of aerobic fitness, and are less effective to building anaerobic fitness than sprinting.

Slow running trains you to run slow.  Full speed sprinting trains you to run fast.   

Every drill the team does requires you to perform at full speed, even if it’s just a few steps, or a quick lateral slide.  If you’re not going full speed, you’re cheating yourself by cheating your own conditioning.

This is how players get into game shape without the coach dedicating big chunks of practice time to just running- You show up on day 1 already in good condition.  Then you practice hard all the time, every time, and you always hustle.  You have pride, self discipline, and you represent yourself like an Athlete.   

I posted this a little more than a month before the season starts.  You still have time to do something about your level of conditioning.  It’s up to you. 

Last season I had an interesting conversation with a PE teacher who had done some Jr High basketball coaching.  He’d just watched my High School JV team play, and we’d been beaten by a better team.  I actually thought we had played well, considering the skill discrepancy.  He told me with very deliberate emphasis, as though he was giving me something very special, that if I just focused each practice on getting them to run plays better, that we’d improve faster than any other way. 

I could not disagree more with this suggestion.  For one thing, the game is much too difficult, and there are no short cuts unless you have the genetics, but mostly the work ethic of a Michael Jordan, or a Candace Parker.  More significantly, the idea of it flies in the face of everything we know about teaching and learning developmental skills.  It’s the proverbial “cart before the horse” method, and I think it’s dangerous.  Its out-in-the-open evidence of an ailment that gnaws away at the under belly of American Basketball: Hit & miss, anecdotal, trial & error, untrained and uncertified youth coaches with bad ideas.  

I see this as much more than just a dubious claim.  If implemented, his suggestion for my low skill team to focus on learning to run plays, over learning to play, would surely be detrimental to individual player development.  Ultimately, it’s a recipe to affect under achievement by a team.  He alleged to me that in his over 20 years of participating and observing the basketball program at the Jr High level, that the most successful girl’s coach he’d ever witnessed practiced his offense over everything else, most of practice, at every practice.  He told me with added emphasis, “That’s all he did!”  Not building offensive skills, but rote memorization of plays.

I questioned this observation.  It’s not unusual for someone who isn’t at practice every day to think they know what’s going on.  I had actually tried the same approach in my first two seasons coaching in a low skilled Jr High program.  I didn’t know any better.  It seemed from observing the other coaches like that’s what I was supposed to do- get them to run plays.  It took me two seasons to fully appreciate that with unskilled players, trying to make them run real offense was a road to nowhere. 

I remember very well that the plays often worked in practice, which gave a false expectation that they would work in games.  And plays worked against weaker teams, because almost anything works if your players are better than their players.  But success running plays against weaker teams didn’t lead to success against strong teams.   I think perhaps it’s at about this point in the development of a group of young players and a team, that one of either two choices are made.  Either the realization is made that the team has a fundamental skill deficiency that must be addressed for the team to get better (particularly long-term).  Or more of the same- keep trying to make them run those plays better by practicing them over and over.     

Coaching is a big commitment and I was “all in.”  If I was going to be involved, I wanted to do all that I could to contribute to our kids being competitive against the best teams we faced.  We had a long ways to go, and I recognized that we had to get fundamentally much better to have a chance to beat the best teams on our schedule.    On this topic, I am very serious when I say; I believe that adults who hold these kinds of developmentally retarded coaching ideas and beliefs, after having reasonable time to conclude differently for them selves, but failing to do so, have no business being in the business of developing young athletes.  Because what they are actually doing is hindering development.   

There was one big problem with the PE Coaches story.  There is no getting around the fact that at that time, the girls coming into the Jr High program were beginners to the game.  With rare exception, Girls don’t play school yard ball, and they didn’t in this town.  There is no youth league in this small town feeding players who have a grasp of the fundamentals and some experience into the Jr High.  If Mr PE Coach had been claiming this about Boys basketball, I’d be more inclined to believe it, because years ago before the near disappearance of “free play,” boys would play ball for hours every day. 

There is a youth league (K-12) in the next town, 30 minutes away; and over the years some of the local kids have played in that league.  Today we have entire teams from this town entered in that league at every age division and both genders.  But this has only been true for about 5 years.  Prior to that, virtually every girl who came out for basketball in the 6^th grade walked into the gym with beginner skills.  If a Girl had played some with her Father out in the driveway, she was literally “experienced” compared to most of them.  Now imagine placing these girls I’ve described with a Jr High coach who emphasized plays over principles.  Would you expect them to have a strong grasp of basketball fundamentals when they entered High School?  Would they have a chance to beat the best teams on their schedule at the High School level?  Probably not. 

My team had a handful of good players, maybe four, who had put in the work over 5-6 years to become good basketball players.  But overall, we were not a high skill set team.  Only a handful of the players had a strong grasp of fundamental skills, the rest were practically beginners to basketball.  About half the team was comprised of student athletes whose best sport was volleyball.  The team had a lot of speed, they moved well, they learned quickly, they played without fear, and every one of them competed very hard no matter the score.  But teams that could put 5 players with strong basketball skills on the court, and then substitute more skilled players into the game gave us problems. 

We had a lot of good Athletes and very few good basketball players.  The best teams we played had more good athletes who were also good Basketball Players.  We weren’t going to catch up in one season.    But if we started de-emphasizing trying to win as the goal when they were young, and put the emphasis on developing athletic movement skills and fundamental basketball skills, we could catch up by the time they are in High School.    We had to get better to become more competitive, but not better at remembering the play.  We had to get better at playing the game.  I just didn’t see running plays over and over as the answer.   I believe that I should be teaching kids how to play the game, instead of teaching them to remember plays. 

Right now, I coach JV Basketball.  In that role, I believe my job is primarily to be enthusiastic about the game, while doing all I can to prepare kids to be ready for Varsity.  If I get a group of kids who happen to have strong fundamental basketball skills, then we can do more.  I can teach them to run the offense that Varsity is running, and they can make it work.  But what if most of the team is comprised of players who still do not have solid fundamental skills?  If the team is generally low skilled, is it good coaching for me to attempt to teach them how to run two or more man to man offenses, and two or more zone offenses?  Or would I best serve them by first teaching them how to play the game by principles from fundamentals?   

You don’t have to know anything at all about basketball to appreciate that you can’t build anything substantial without a solid foundation.  Doesn’t matter if it’s a house or a team, you can’t begin with weakness and finish with strength.  By “fundamentals,” I refer to the basics- passing, shooting, dribbling, pivoting, layups, etc, etc.  By “principles,” I’m referring to teaching basic principles of offensive basketball- pass & cut, pass & screen away, pick & roll, dribble drive & pitch, post up game, etc; the two, and three man games.   I’m talking about the skills that actually make the plays work. 

Basketball is a sport that requires many hours of practice to acquire a high level of skill.

In order to do anything challenging well, it’s reasonable and even common sense that it’s best to learn the basic fundamentals of the activity first, and build on that foundation.  In School, we learn the alphabet and numbers first; these are the fundamentals of academics.  Then after mastering the basics, we can become proficient in reading, writing and arithmetic.   Would we trust a flight instructor who taught her students how to fly, but didn’t think it was important to first teach aerodynamics, aeronautics, weather, flight instrumentation, pre flight checks, etc?  Why is it that parents, administrators, even other coaches, accept and even expect to see youth coaches (HS age & below) emphasizing teaching kids to memorize plays, over emphasizing teaching kids how to play the game? 

A look at the European Club Model of player development is very telling, because USA Basketball used to destroy European Teams, but the Euros have caught up.  The emphasis of youth basketball over-seas is on long term athletic development, not on trying to win the next game.  There is no emphasis on winning until a player is 12.  They don’t even keep score.  USA Basketball once again captured the Olympic Gold Medal in Beijing, restoring the basketball universe as we have come to know it.  But there’s no doubt that many countries around the world have dramatically closed the gap on USA Basketball’s dominance.  USA Basketball players became complacent, developed bad habits, expecting to just show up and win, finally culminating in losing the 2004 Olympics and the 2006 World Games.  Under Coach K, USA Basketball went back to playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played, and the result was Gold in ‘08.

Some may question, “Well then what should I have them do on offense if they aren’t going to run a play?”  That’s a perfectly reasonable question, and it also brings me to another point:     I believe that some coaches use teaching plays as a “crutch.”  If  the coach puts an offense in, and the team plays poorly on offense, he can pass the blame to the players by saying, “They didn’t run the offense right.”  How many times have we heard a coach say that?  People will nod and say things like, “Hey, he’s trying to put in an offense, and get them to run real plays!”  “What more do you want?”  Well, how about teaching them how to play the game first? 

Maybe these kinds of coaches don’t know how to teach fundamental skills.  Or maybe they think they don’t have the time because the season begins in two weeks.  Maybe they haven’t done their home work, and they don’t understand the vital importance of first acquiring strong individual skills as the first step on the path to team success.    The question I asked above still remains, “What should I have them do on offense if they aren’t going to run a play?”  The Team USA example holds my answer to that question.   

Team USA won Gold because they focused on playing the game fundamentally better both offensively and defensively.  Not because they ran their set plays better.  In fact, they didn’t have a set offense, other than some situational quick hitters.  They played by principle, using set formations like four out & one in, and five out depending on the personnel who was on the court .  They rotated on the perimeter on cuts and dribble penetration to fill the perimeter spots.  They played basic basketball- wing passes to the post and then laker cuts through, perimeter players rotate to fill spots.  Top pass to the wing, then UCLA cuts and perimeter rotates to fill spots.  Always back cut to the basket if over played.  Make sure to fill the spot on the floor the dribble drive just vacated.  Make sure to fill the opposite corner on baseline drives.  Posts cut up the lane line with hands ready to catch on dribble drives below them toward the baseline.  Posts cut to short corner ready to step back in on dribble drives above them toward the mid post or elbows.  They didn’t run plays, they just played basketball, taking what the defense gave them, and exploiting any weakness they could find. 

The question is, am I doing a better job developing student/athletes for varsity by teaching them the varsity offense whether or not they have the skills to make it work, or by teaching them the skills they are deficient in?  Is it good coaching for me to try to teach kids who don’t really know how to screen, or to come off screens, to memorize the pattern of the Flex offense?  Or would a good coach who is focused on long term development teach them screening and cutting?  Would a good coach attempt to put in a passing game, or another continuity motion offense with players who still don’t pivot strongly, are still telegraphing their passes, and still can’t consistently make layups?  Or would a good coach work on up-grading their basketball foundation so that set plays have a chance to work? 

Unless I see it with my own eyes, I refuse to believe that kids with beginner skills could run a set play offense that generated enough points to not just consistently win, but to beat the best teams too.  Not when I know that almost every one of them didn’t play or practice in the off season, didn’t go to basketball camp, didn’t play AAU ball or CYO ball, had no youth league, and little or no access to regular open gym.  I don’t care how strongly he believes what he saw, or how vehemently he insists that’s what happened, there’s just no way.  Competitive basketball is much too difficult to play it effectively without a foundation of fundamental skills.  The idea of it is insulting to the integrity as well as the difficulty of the game in my opinion. 

As observed by Coach Atwood

1.    Start by recruiting the best players in the area when they’re still kids to play together on a travel/tournament team, and make it all about winning, when it should still be about developing movement skills, and fundamental basketball skills. Enjoy their early success, and make the mistake of assuming that their early success must be because they are very talented & well coached, instead of the possibility it could be just the natural result of accumulating the best players from several schools, and/or several recreation league teams.   

2.    Teach the strategy first (plays), and give scant time to teaching the tactics (fundamentals).  Don’t teach the kids to play the game by focusing on basketball principles (pass & cut, screen & roll, pass & screen away, etc.) and the development of fundamental skills (dribbling, passing, pivoting, screening, cutting, shooting, etc).  Instead, teach the kids to rote memorize plays even before they have acquired the offensive skills to make set plays have a decent chance to work.  

3.    Further weaken them for the future, and make it more difficult for their future High School Coach by also neglecting to develop their individual defense ability.  Instead of teaching them how to guard a player with the ball, all over the court, and how to protect the basket when the player they are guarding doesn’t have the ball, have them just get back into basic zone defenses every time and learn to guard a spot on the floor. 

4.    Observation shows us that as often as not, the kids who appear to be the most advanced when they’re very young, are just as often no longer the most advanced at 15, 16, 17 years old, and all too often have even quit playing by the time they are in High School.  Really hurt the program down the road by ignoring this observation, and consistently treating 1 or 2 little kids like they are All Stars.  Short change the development of the rest of the kids by having the kids who appear less skilled get the ball to these 1-2 kid so that they can do the scoring in an attempt to win tournaments.

5.    When these kids get to the High School level, if it turns out they under-achieve, and don’t win as consistently as they did in Jr high, assume it has nothing to do with how they were developed during their most developmentally pliable ages.  Ignore the fact that of the group of players who won tournaments at 12 and 13 years old, some have quit playing altogether, and others are spread out at more than one High School.  Fail to connect the early emphasis on winning, and the de-emphasis of skill development with under performing, and jump to the conclusion that it must be because their High School coach is terrible.    

6.    Parents of players may contribute to a losing environment in a number of creative ways.  Commiserating openly in the stands during games with other parents about how bad you think the Head Coach is.  After games, continue this inappropriate, careless and harmful activity with your own little student-athlete.  Let anyone who will listen hear you criticize, nit-pick, and whine about how bad you think the coach is.  Do not underestimate this tactic; after all these are still kids, and this is very effective at eroding a team’s morale, as well as their respect for their Coach. 

7.    If she comes home complaining about the Coach after practice or games, assume the Coach is wrong.  Assume that it couldn’t actually just be an opportunity for a young person to learn a healthy and innocent lesson about perseverance, or toughness.  Ignore the concept that at 15, 16, 17 years old, they probably don’t have a whole lot of life experience to draw a fair perspective from.  Balk at allowing your child to experience humbleness and difficulty, even though we all learn much more from difficult circumstances, than we do from the insulating effect of being protected from experience.   

8.    Parents shall further undermine any hope of having a fun and successful season by making it as difficult as possible for the Coach to lead with poise and self assured confidence.  Withdraw any support for the Coach and rally others to do the same if he doesn’t bend to meet what you believe is in the best interest of your own child.  Try to get him fired before he even has a chance to get started.  Make sure during his first season that the new coach feels unwelcome.  Don’t even give him half a season’s worth of benefit of the doubt, or consideration.   

9.    In order to perpetuate this same behavior in the future when your kids have their own kids, set the example for them to follow by personally modeling the opposite of the behavior and leadership traits that you should want your child to be exposed to through participating in high school sports.  Achieve this by openly and creatively undermining, disrespecting, and doing all that you can to make sure your kids, and any kids who play for the Coach will not be fully committed to him and his instruction, nor to the program.  Take it to the next level- circulate petitions, harangue the Athletic Director, whine to anyone who will listen. 

10.     If the local basketball community has followed these instructions, the High School program should be damaged.  The overall strength of the program and the morale of the players in the program should be very low.  The High School coach will feel polarized and beat down. The most evident results will be poor off season program participation, and possibly a residual underachieving team the following season.  If you are a parent who participated in this 10 Step Program, your work here is done.  You can pick up & move to the next School District, where you will hopefully not repeat the same foolish meddling, uninformed, and myopic behavior again.   

I enjoyed my friend Brian McCormicks recent post in his Blog site so much that I copied the entire blog entry and reposted it here.   I completely agree with this model and training philosophy for youth and HS age players.   You can find the original here-   http://www.thecrossovermovement.com/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,61/

 *NOTE: Mr Messina’s comments are indented.

Ettore Messina on Talent Development 

March 17th, 2008

Ettore Messina is regarded as one of the world’s best professional coaches. He is the coach of CSKA Moscow, one of the top three teams in Europe currently. The Cleveland Cavaliers Mike Brown sought his advice during the summer. On his blog, he answers the question of developing one’s child into a professional athlete:

First of all, it will be extremely helpful for your kid to try both an individual sport and a team sport when he’s young in order to develop himself mentally and physically. For example, I was very lucky that my daughter tried judo for 3 years when she was in primary school. This really helped her to develop her personality, to overcome her lack of self-confidence, to know her body better and to discipline herself a little bit.

When the parents of young kids ask me to train their son or daughter, I tell them to invest in martial arts lessons first and wait on the specialized basketball training until they are teenagers. I believe strongly in the discipline and the body awareness through martial arts, and the basketball players I train who did martial arts seemed like stronger, better athletes too.

The first thing that I would consider as a father is the quality of the coach. Many parents who are not very familiar with a particular kind of sports may be attracted by the system that focuses on the result. But there is a huge difference between playing sports on the professional level and teaching it to the youngsters. You’d better send your kid to the place where the focus is on the development of his personality and his qualities of a player, as it’s much more important at that age.

Agreed. I have written in the past of the programs who market as “train like a pro” and the problem with this training for young players. It is much more important to develop the interest and passion for playing at a young age and to model the desired traits, like hard work, sticktuitiveness, etc.

You should not hurry to make your kid a pro athlete that has four or more trainings a week and dedicates a lot of time to sports. Personally, I think, this should not happen until the kid turns 14-15. Young kids that are exposed to a very high level of pressure physically, technically and mentally, usually, cannot stand this kind of pressure. I would like to find a teacher for my kid who will be able to offer a reasonable level of challenge to the young players and develop some kind of group mentality, still respecting everybody’s personality.

For youths, playing multiple sports and participating is more important than specialized training. Several studies confirm that those who specialize early, peak early. In the U.S., many parents rush this specialization to improve a chance for a scholarship, but nobody needs to peak at 15-years-old to receive a scholarship. Colleges want to see potential as much as refined skills.

Let’s get down to the key question: how a parent who never played a pro sports could decide what coach is good for his child? First of all, neither the parent nor the coach should be attracted by immediate results. Second, all of us can understand if there is balance in the behavior of another person. Even if my son received more attention in terms of shooting, playing time, I would be suspicious. Because treating him like a superstar when he’s 13 years old is not a good way to develop his personality.

Again, another premise of my book, that the “Peak by Friday” mentality hinders a player’s development and enjoyment of an activity, even though adults believe an experience is not worthwhile unless they win. Remember, we need to use the motivations of kids at their age groups and not super impose adult values on kids sports.

Suppose I don’t know basketball and choose a coach for my child. The most important indicators for me would be a) my son’s mood when he comes back home after practices and b) the level of togetherness of his team when I watch their games. If I see that my child comes home perfectly adequate and most of the times positive, and his team is playing with a good sense of togetherness, for me that’s the sign that you might want to stay with this coach. If, by contrast, he comes home frustrated or behaves in some strange way, he’d better leave and find someone else.

This is a huge issue with AAU teams (and high schools to an extent), as parents believe their child needs to play with a certain team. When I was younger, I saw two programs dissolve because of parents worrying about who won the MVP trophy at a tournament or the name of the program or wanting to be with a more prestigious coach or team for more exposure, even though the players were playing with their best friends, learning the game and enjoying the experience. But, there is the “keeping up with the Jones’” mentality, and often times parents ignore their kids’ needs to find the more elite, premier, select team, and the coaches market to this desire.

Until kids turn 12-13 it’s not only sport, it’s more a game. By game I mean something that can be played with a lot of mistakes. It should involve a lot of fun. It’s like in school when you experience all the fun when you start to read, to count or to discover something new. It’s more a game for the first 4-5 years. Then it becomes more serious and you should start asking those kids to be much more selective in their understanding and their learning. You start pressing them a little bit more to organize their ability to study.

Many coaches purposely try to drive the fun out of the game and insist on perfection. However, to learn, one must make mistakes. To improve, one must enjoy the activity so he invests the necessary time and energy. Asking for too much, too soon turns kids away from the game, even though my critics say this just means they are soft. I remember watching an u-9 AAU game and the opposing coach yelled and screamed at his players and several left the court crying, to which he criticized even further. The coach, apparently, had one of today’s top high school players playing for him for a couple years. However, is it worth it to drive several kids to tears, even if it helped the one kid eventually become a great player? How many players quit the game so the one kid could achieve greatness? I walked through a gym a couple weeks ago and was astonished that parents allow coaches to treat their kids in such a way. I know that a teacher in a classroom could not get away with calling a kid dumb, but coaches esentially do the same thing.

The same in sports, it should not be about fundamentals until at least 10. For sure, you can teach your children to know their body through the use of the ball: how to catch, how to roll, how to run with the ball etc.

I questioned a coach about his offering “professional fundamental training for six-years-old and up,” and many did not understand my question. If something is good for a 10-year-old, starting at eight must give the kid an advantage. If my neighbor starts at eight, I’ll start my kid at seven. This is the mentality. However, as I write about in this week’s newsletter, if kids do not develop the general movement skills early, they eventually struggle with sport-specific skills later. At the young ages, it is far more important to use fun games to teach movement and allow young athletes to explore, rather than to set-up competitive leagues and training.

As for fundamentals to be developed until players are 16-17, the most important thing to check is coordination and balance. I would not be so paranoid with all other things. Then, obviously, you teach them how to catch, how to pass, how to shoot, how to dribble, how to move without the ball. But if they don’t have the balance and coordination, it’s difficult for them to become good basketball players. For example, Ricky Rubio is helped a lot by the great balance, coordination and quickness he has. It gives him a great advantage.

Courage is being afraid to do something, but still doing it.

                                                                                                                                   ~Knute Rockne  

What kind of player are you?  Do you allow fear to determine how you play the game?  Or do you compete with courage?  If you claim that you’re not afraid of anything, then I question your courage.  Why?  Because showing courage means that you recognize the situation as dangerous, or risky, or difficult, but you still do it in spite of your fear.  That’s real courage- feeling the fear, and overcoming it; like riding a roller coaster even when you’re scared to try it.      

Carrying fear onto the court can weaken an athlete’s courage and cause hesitation.  This will often lead to exactly the mistakes the athlete was fearful of making in the first place.  Fear can rob an athlete of her full potential and ability.  Fear is like an invisible cancer that eats away from the inside, destroying an athlete’s performance.  When individual players on a team play with fear instead of courage, that team’s full potential is weakened.    

The obvious question is what is there to be afraid of in a basketball game?  I will answer that with some specific real life observations.  But collectively I believe these are all social fears; like fear of making mistakes in front of people, or the embarrassment associated with having your shot blocked.  

If you’re a good shooter and you’ve missed three shots in a row, do you courageously take the next wide open shot?  Or do you allow fear to make you stop shooting because you’re afraid of missing your fourth in a row?    

If you have possession of the ball near half court, and the half time buzzer is seconds from going off, do you courageously make an attempt at the half court shot?  Or do you just hold the ball, allowing the fear of being embarrassed by a possible “air ball” to keep you from even trying?   

If you consider yourself a good on ball defender, do you show courage by guarding your opponent as close as possible right from the beginning; making them uncomfortable and forcing them to prove that they either can, or cannot beat you with the dribble?  Or do you allow the fear of possibly getting beat of the dribble to cause you to play with a big gap between you and the ball?  It’s meaningless to claim you never get beat off the dribble if you play so far away from the ball that it’s practically impossible to get beat.  

Will you take a “charge?”  Do you have the courage to allow an offensive player with or without the ball to run into you and knock you over?  Have you ever been in good position to take an offensive foul, but allowed fear of contact to cause you to move out of the way at the last second?  Or worse, do you not even put yourself in that position by never stepping in front of the offensive player even though you have enough experience to see opportunities to step in and take a charge?    

When going full speed for a layup that is going to be contested by a defender just behind, or right next to you, do you courageously take the contact, or even lean in and create the contact, looking to draw a foul and putting up a strong shot?  Or do you take an angle away from defensive contact, and away from the basket, allowing fear to cause you to make the shot even more difficult while also avoiding getting fouled? 

In practice when coach has players match up with another player for one on one drills, do you courageously look to partner up with someone who will challenge you and help make you a better player?  Or do you allow fear to motivate you into seeking out someone who you know won’t push you because you don’t want your dribble stolen, or your shot blocked?  There is no better way to improve your skills in any athletic pursuit than by playing against someone who really challenges you because they are a little better than you.  This is called, “playing up,” and the truly courageous athlete seeks out that kind of competition.  

If you are a committed basketball player, do you have the courage to do what it takes to become the best player that you can?  If your answer to that question is yes, then you should make the best use of the time you spend on the court to improve your game.  Playing full court 5 on 5 games in open gym may be more fun than small sided (1 on 1, 2 on 2, 3 on 3) half court games, but it’s truthfully not the best use of your time to get better.  More “touches” (how many times you have the ball) means more opportunity to work on your skills, and small sided half court games give every player more touches.  In a 5 on 5 full court game, a player can literally “hide” from the ball if they allow fear to control them.  But 1 on 1, and 2 on 2, and 3 on 3 games require you to both have to guard another player (not a zone), and to attack a defender when you have the ball.  That takes courage, and the reward for showing courage is that you get better faster.     

I believe that playing without fear is a skill that can be learned, practiced and improved.  For some players, playing without fear comes more naturally than for others and this is probably associated with individual personality types.  Generally as skill level improves, so does confidence, and confidence in your skills should always reduce fear.  One thing is certain- when you play the game from a perspective of fear (afraid to shoot, afraid to handle the ball, afraid to make the pass, afraid to guard the opponent closely) you will often end up making the exact mistakes that you are afraid of making.  Why is that?  I’m not sure, but you can see it by watching a player who hesitates and looks unconfident.  They make the exact mistakes they are so afraid of making and hoping to avoid.    

So what kind of player are you?  Will you take that last second shot if the ball is in your hands as the clock ticks off the last few seconds?  Or do you want to get rid of the ball as fast as possible like it’s a hot potato?  Remember- it’s only a game, you have nothing to lose by playing hard and playing without fear.  When all the games are over and you’re old like your coach, be satisfied when you walk off the court that you didn’t allow fear to control your game. 

A coaching friend of mine recently told me he was really looking forward to next season because he’s making some personal changes and he will be able to spend a lot more time on coaching than he’s been able to in the past.  That got me to thinking about when “next season” begins for me; and when does “next season” begin for you?    

For me, it began on February 13^th, the day after the last game of the ’07-’08 season.  On that day, I was surfing the web looking for summer team camps and tournaments.  I was also thinking about individual players, because I want to have player evaluations done before the team banquet.  That week I was also lobbying the local college coach to host a summer league.  I was burning DVD’s of game video to mail to college coaches who had asked for game tape.  And I was starting to evaluate my season plan to look for ways we can improve next year through better planning on my part.  

How about you?  If you are a player, when does next season start for you?  In our town –and probably every town- there are essentially two kinds of players.  The first kind of player works in the off season to improve her skills and hopefully turn weakness’ into strengths.  This player is self motivated, she only needs to know when and where there’s an opportunity (summer camp, open gym, summer league, etc) and she’s there.  In High School, the starting line up is generally made up of these kinds of players because they put in the time and effort to get better.  The second kind of player either shows up for off season opportunities once in a while, or not at all.  She will bring with her the same weakness’ and skill deficiencies from one season to the next because nobody gets better without doing the work.  This player may be generally a motivated person, but not about basketball, though she may likely see herself as motivated about basketball.  I honestly believe that some of the young women who play JV and Varsity basketball actually believe that they get better each season just by showing up.  As in, “I’m a senior and you are a freshman, there for I am automatically the better player.”  Nothing could be further from the truth.  

Observation of female players over a period of years shows that those who continue to work on their individual basketball skills (shooting, ball handling, passing, etc), as well as their athleticism (speed, strength, agility, etc) will continue to develop and improve as basketball players throughout High School, and in college if they play at that level.  While those who do not work in the off season generally plateau, or “peak” as athletes and basketball players at about 14-15 years old.  We can readily observe this locally with players who make the JV and Varsity teams at WHS but only participate during the season; they become physically faster and stronger as they mature, but they don’t show much fundamental basketball skill improvement from the 9^th grade, to the 12^th grade.  They don’t really get any better.  They finish High School with essentially the same set of skills they entered with.  

Every season the varsity roster is about half filled with players who never really got any better as basketball players.  They may be a little stronger and faster because they have physically matured, but they have essentially the same skills at 16-17 years old as they did at 14-15 years old.   The same is true with the JV roster, except it’s less apparent because the best varsity players have spent 2-3 more off seasons improving than the best JV players have, so the “skill gap” from one end of the bench to the other end (1^st player to 12^th) is less apparent.  There are numerous ways to observe this.  The easiest is probably statistics.  Over four years of High School basketball, did individual statistics stay about the same, or improve, or even decline?  Another way, while more anecdotal is just by observing.  Did the individual player ever develop their weaker dribbling hand?  Did the player ever learn any real post moves?  Did the player ever progress to using spin dribbles, or cross overs, or look away passes, or off hand lay ups, etc?  Or is their offensive game essentially the same as it was from 9^th grade through 12^th grade?    

When I played High School basketball, I was a marginal player, I never started, I filled one of the last spots on the roster and I worked hard to get it.  Making the varsity roster is something to be proud of, and I don’t intend to diminish anyone else’s accomplishments, but sometimes a little dose of reality in the form of the truth is a good thing for perspective.  And the truth is that from year to year, the most skilled players on JV could take the roster spots away from the least skilled players on Varsity if the two teams were combined into one team.    

The best players, the one’s who play the most get that way for a reason.  They put in the time and do the work to improve.   What kind of player are you?

This was going to be a challenging season for JV from the start, and anyone who has been paying attention knew that.  Varsity had pulled up freshmen the last two years in a row.  Potentially one of our best players didn’t make grades and never got to play.  Our team was comprised of a junior who speciously had been cut twice in middle school and once in High School, four sophomores, and nine freshmen.  Of that group, only five of them were serious basketball players who spent time in a gym working on their skills in the off season; and only two of those five were starters all season.  Nine of our players didn’t do anything to get better between last season and this one.  Three of those nine were starters.  Finally, we lost our starting point guard to injury just as the league part of our schedule was beginning.  Under these circumstances, it was going to be very difficult to have a winning season, and we had to make our goals for the season based on this.  Without skilled players, there’s only so much a coach can do.   Coaches can make a difference, but the teams with the best players should win the most games.  Good coaching can help make good players play well together.  Good coaching can help secure a last second win in a tight game, but no coach can make a consistent winner out of players with skills inferior to the opponents.  It takes good players to win, and not winning when you have the best players in the league is a coaching failure.  But that wasn’t the case with the JV team.  We had goals, but winning the league would not have been a realistic goal.    

We had three essential goals for the season.  We wanted to have fun, because practicing and playing a game in High School should be fun.  In 10 years nobody will remember the score of any of the games, but they will remember if they had fun or not, and they will know how to keep it fun if they ever coach a team.  We also wanted to show deliberate and steady improvement over the season.  During the league portion of our schedule, I received so many compliments from fans and parents who watched every game on how much the players and team improved from the start of the season.  Finally, it’s always my goal for any team I coach to be very good at something.  I want my team to be known for something; when teams play us, I want them to be very aware of something we are good at.  This goal is dependent on the talent and experience of the players.  Our biggest team weakness was offensive skills; and while we worked hard to improve that, I knew offense wasn’t something we were going to build a reputation on.  To be competitive, and to have a chance to win games, we had to limit our opponents to one shot, and we had to challenge every shot they took.  We had to rebound, and we had to play excellent defense.  That was what I wanted our team to be known for.  Win or lose, I wanted our opponents to know that, We Play Hard!   Rebounding and defense require skill and knowledge, but they are primarily about effort.  Effort is something the players can control no matter their skill level. 

I feel like we accomplished all three of our team’s goals and on that basis we had a successful season.  I’ve never been more proud of a team.  I challenged the team to improve, and I challenged individuals to improve, and in every instance they improved.  Some of the improvement was directly linked to playing time.  This is after all High School basketball, and if a player turns the ball over to the opponent practically every time they touch it, they are not going to get to play much until they improve that.  Some players I wanted them to play harder and hustle more, they did it.  Some players, I wanted them to make better decisions, to be more careful with the ball, to make better passes and to protect the ball better when they were holding it; they accomplished that.  Some players who showed certain abilities, I wanted them to use those abilities more, and they did.  We needed the players to do a better job of helping each other on defense, despite some lapses, they did it.    

The JV team’s improvement was dramatic.  Early in the season, we experienced some losses that were honestly embarrassing to see the final score.  In mid season we went away from playing pressure man to man defense in favor of zones because we just didn’t have enough players who understood the concepts and strategies of pressure man to man defense, so we had to simplify and continue to practice our full court disruption defense.  But by the time we got to the league games at the end of our schedule, we were playing fantastic disruptive full court man to man defense.  We still had mistakes sometimes, but at times we played defense so well that it actually looked as if we had an extra player on the court.  We were able to disrupt some of our opponents so completely that they were unable to run their offense against us.   Toward the end of the season we were able to keep scores close against teams who had beaten us by large margins earlier in the season.   

Shooting the ball and making layups was our weakness, and we worked on this in every practice session.  We practiced layups with a defender chasing every day.  We shot free throws and recorded results every day.  We shot the ball with no pressure, we shot with a defender closing out, and we shot with the shooting machine.  We did nothing but shoot on some Saturdays.  I feel like we did improve our shooting, a few individuals dramatically.  But we still missed far too many layups, and far too many shots within a few feet of the basket.  Missing close shots really hurt us, and we would have won more games had we just made more “bunny” shots from very close to the basket.  And that is not a criticism of our post players, because our guards missed too many layups, including many uncontested layups.  The biggest improvement in shooting came from some of our least experienced players, and that’s to be expected, as it’s easiest to show fast improvement at the beginning of skill development.  While I am happy for that improvement, and look forward to seeing that improvement on the court next season, it really hurt us that some of our most experienced and best players shot poorly all season and never really improved despite so much shooting practice.   

The players were not the only ones learning and improving.  I made mistakes, and I was learning too.  In mid season I decided to abandon the offense I had installed.  Looking back, it was not suitable to the skills on our players.  That wasn’t the players fault.  It’s up to the coach to recognize the situation and put in team offense that’s appropriate for the skill and experience of the players on the team.  I should have recognized this sooner.  Our original offense (“Regular”) was a very simple concept, and I thought that would be a good thing because we didn’t have a whole lot of basketball experience.  But I didn’t fully realize that despite the simplicity of the concept, all five players on the floor had to have the ability to attack the basket to score or pass, and they had to be able to make perimeter shots.  Those two skills were not our team’s strengths.  So we changed in mid season.  We put in two offensive sets (“13-O”, “23-O”) against zone defense, and three schemes for man to man; a pass & cut (“Spread”). a continuous screening (“Twist”), and a guard isolation (“Flat”), and we also started to work on a pick and roll.  In all our sets we emphasized two primary objectives, getting the ball into the post when we had a height advantage, and getting our best shooters the most shots.   Defensively, I probably should have trusted the players more and stayed with the full court pressure despite the problems we were having.  Had I done that, they probably would have become proficient sooner, and likely would have gotten better at it by the end of the season than they were able to.   

The objective of any offense no matter the scheme is to get your shooters good shots from areas where they can make the shots.   Make or miss, if shooters are getting wide open shots from the same spots they make shots in practice, then the offense is doing what it’s supposed to do.  By that standard, our offense was effective because we got a lot of good looks at the basket.  We had enough different schemes to be able to make adjustments based on the defense, and game video shows we got a lot of open shots.   We just needed to make more of them.  The objective of pressure defense (the way I teach it) is to keep the ball out of the lane, to challenge every shot (no wide open shots), to disrupt the offense so they can’t easily run what they want to run, to force them to dribble by taking away passing lanes, to have one and preferably two bodies in the lane no matter where the ball is, to make them start their offense further from the basket than they are accustomed to, to limit them to one shot per possession, and to take away either there best scorer or what they do best.  By the end of the season we were doing all of these things, some better than others.   

I’d like to thank my Assistant Coach Keith Snyder.  His dedication to the kids and Willits Basketball is inspiring to me, and he helps me to think things thru when I get a crazy idea.  I’d like to thank our fans who supported us loudly all season.  I’d like to thank our score keeper, Jennifer Nunez who put up with me all season.  I’d like to thank the parents who volunteered their vehicles, time and money to drive the team to away games- Dorothy Dalske, Paula & Miguel Nunez, Dana & Phil Eads, and Tony & Melody Sorace.  I’d like to thank our Home Scoreboard Operator, Carl; as well as the shot clock operators- Don Riggs and John Wagenet.   I apologize for anyone deserving my thanks that I left out.  Most of all, I’d like to thank the players who I look forward to watching graduate from WHS, become adults, go to college, invite me to their weddings, have their own families, and name their first born sons or daughters after me- Kyly, Ashanty, Megan, Rachel, Shelli, Kassy, Rebecca, Veronica, Rona, Jordan, Amanda, Joanna, Aleta, and Jennifer.  Your presence in my life has meant more than you know.  You’ve helped make me a better coach.  I love you guys!

As I’ve studied the game, gone to clinics, and read books or articles from more experienced coaches, I’ve noticed a recurring theme which happens to be what really draws me to coaching young athletes- that coaching is actually leadership and teaching, and a good coach uses the many opportunities found in an ordinary basketball season to teach his players valuable life lessons. 

That’s where the real significant value of interschoolastic athletics can be found.  Wins and losses are important in the moment.  Improving individual skills leads to better team play right now.  But what the game teaches us about ourselves and our interactions with others becomes a part of who we are in our everyday lives outside of athletics.  I am interested in learning, teaching and writing about these kinds of things more than X’s and O’s.   

But don’t misunderstand me, I do want to gain more knowledge of offensive and defensive tactics and game strategies.  I want to get better at recognizing game situations, and reacting with good adjustments.  But those things are for me, to make me a better game coach.  The truth is, I am more personally invested in learning to be a better life coach for the young people I influence thru coaching basketball.  This usually comes out in the things I choose to write about.  

Finally, it’s been very apparent from my own observation that coaching experience is over-rated, and coaching talent is more imperative to success.  I know with great conviction that I will always find this to be true no matter how long I coach because leadership is the real topic here. I brought with me to coaching the leadership training and experience I received during my 22 year fire service career, including 8 years as a supervisory fire engine operator (Captain) with the US Forest Service.  Often when writing about my experiences in basketball, it’s my fire service background that is the foundation of my comments.

I enjoy coaching basketball, and I enjoy writing, that’s why I have a blog.