Next level coaching (basketball)

This winter I took the next step in my coaching career (if we can call it that) and coached our eldest son's basketball team. That long season came to a close Valentine's Day and I want to record some thoughts, and feelings.

Here's the story. Early fall there was discussion amongst parents at our son's school about signing up together. This is how it starts, and what's resulted in flag football teams, this basketball team and, from what it sounds like, a baseball team this upcoming spring. One dad in particular started and organized this group, not only pushing (or so it seemed to me) to get as many kids playing as possible but this group of 2nd graders to play at the 3rd grade level. The reasoning behind this is our league doesn't play games, only does practices/scrimmages, prior to 3rd grade, and it's fairly expensive regardless. In addition there was a comment about prepping the kids for 3rd grade traveling but this was always ridiculous considering none of the kids involved had played organized basketball before and, well, I know them and their athletic prowess.

Anyway, I signed up to help coach since I was going to be there anyway and I like and have played a lot of basketball. I can't help myself really. But I fully expected this other dad was going to take the lead. When the roster and the coach list appeared (an October weekend when we were traveling), and I discovered it was me and a different dad that had raised our hands, I re-learned what it means to make assumptions. To be honest I was a little upset. Coaching this team was going to be rough, with the kids (besides their skills on the court, several are small even for 2nd graders) and the choice to play up a year. Now I knew I was going to lead the team myself. But it worked out and I'm glad it was me instead of anyone else.

Throughout the season, which lasted from the end of October to mid-February, we had one or two (mostly two) practices a week, either 620-720pm or 730-830pm, on school nights. Those late practices with this group could be a challenge. Most Saturdays mornings through that stretch we had a game, often at 8am. There was one doubleheader in there. Our team consisted of six 2nd graders from our son's school and four 3rd graders that we didn't know prior to playing. I was very thankful for those 3rd graders, which included our two biggest/tallest kids and one that would be our most consistent scorer and defender. But overall we were small, and this is a problem in basketball.

We also had 10 kids that were learning the game on the most basic level. There were four practices on the schedule before we played our first game and we needed every one of those to teach how the game works, dribbling and passing, double-dribbling and traveling, how to play defense, league rules we needed to deal with, stuff like that. Many of these kids had just come off playing flag football and, as it appeared to me, really wanted to guard every square inch of the court. At the end of the year we were still struggling with the concept of giving more space farther away and guarding tight only when closer to the basket, but at least it wasn't for lack of effort. That first game was a shock to the system, I can't forget the glazed-over look in their eyes as we were getting shellacked. But I think that helped them understand we had a whole lot to learn.

In making practice plans I tried to incorporate as many games as I could, as well as making up hopefully engaging drills to teach what I thought we needed most at the time. As for the games, I need to give credit to one of my buddies, Tony, a middle-school basketball coach in Wisconsin, who sent me a bunch of ideas at the beginning of the season. We played 'Gimme Five,' 'Pattern Dribbling,' 'Island Hopping,' 'Red Light Green Light,' 'Dribble Knockout' and likely a couple more. The idea with most of these is to improve their skills in a fun way, all while learning how to keep your head up and see everything else going on around you. If you can only dribble looking down at the ball it'll going to be a struggle. We must've spent the largest chunk of practice on the season working on ball-handling (fingertip touches! triple threat! pivots!), followed by lay-ups. Whenever I tried to teach offensive or defensive concepts, in particular using the marker board, the kids would lose focus immediately. Part of this is the age, and part of this is the actual kids who were super comfortable with each other before we even started with the team. I want to think we got smarter about how we were teaching things as the season went on, and it's probably true.

Through the first few games we saw definite progress, a better idea on both sides of the ball and closer scores, but we still hadn't won one. Then the morning of our doubleheader everything came together, at least for a little while, and amusingly we only had seven players. That was an up and down day. The first game, a day after we tried to teach them about fast break defense, we absolutely ran them. Our boys got up and down the floor much faster than the other team and made what must've been 75% of our shots. In the end we scored 78 points, easily our most on the year (I think our next highest was in the 40s). Riding that high we outplayed a better team for the first half of the second game but eventually gravity took over and we lost by one. My kid melted into a puddle on the floor afterward, another aspect of sports (and life) to continue to work on. Overall I felt like it was a great day. We won! We learned about playing with confidence, and I learned, as a coach, about perhaps taking a timeout to run through the situation at the end.

From that point on we worked on getting better and focusing more in practice and, for at least a good chunk of the time, I think we did that. The two games I felt most encouraged afterward were both losses, but they were games in which the boys finally started passing the ball and playing smarter defense. It was legitimately exciting to see one of the boys go unguarded to the basket and the ball-handler see that and make a pass for an easy score. Or actually well-timed and well-used screens. There was still a ton of 'hero-ball' but that's basketball, you know. It was also super fun when the littlest boy on the team scored a basket in the tournament, because he has to use his entire body to get the ball up that high. But he did it!

One of the goofier aspects of this season was the shift in rules halfway through. In the first half we played on split courts, going sideways. These games were 4v4, on-ball steals were not allowed, and things like traveling were called but not enforced. After Christmas we went full court, 5v5, stealing was suddenly a full go (that's all the kids wanted to do) and those turnovers counted. It was jarring, especially when a team was really good on ball and even our best dribblers couldn't handle it.

It was for the best that our season ending tournament broke up the top and bottom halves of the league. We, at 2-8 overall, played a 5-5 team and a 1-9 team. The first game that day, against the better of the two we played, was really close and is one of the games I referenced above. We lost, again by one (argh), but the boys had I think their best game of the year and that was extremely encouraging. Then we went out and won our final game, something you don't get to experience all that often. Even though doing this was a lot of time and effort I was more sad than anything for it to end.

I guess I should say something about my coaching philosophy, or whatever we can call it at this point. Throughout the regular season I played even minutes for the kids, as much as possible, and tried to get every kid to touch the ball. This meant almost all of them would be the '1' and bring the ball down for at least one 5 minute shift. And the few who I couldn't trust to do even that would be in-bounders. Now, of course, I quickly learned who was most capable with the ball and these (four) got to do this more, in particular at the end of games and in the tournament. Winning is not the most important thing, though there was a definite adrenaline rush in those close games (a new thing for me, with keeping score). It's about the kids learning, getting better, having fun, and wanting to come back. From the feedback I got at the end of the year it feels like we achieved that. Props to Chris, my partner coach, I'm glad we got to go through that together.

Example quick version practice plan:

• Warm-up (<5m)

  • Talk briefly

  • Run, simple killers or the like

• Ball handling (10m)

  • Fingertip touches/wraps

  • Triple threat/pivots

  • Pound (hard) and soft dribbles

  • Some exercise, dribble/jump stop/pivot/pass, or route with cones

  • Some game, Gimme Five or Islanding Hopping, e.g.

• Lay-ups (10m)

  • Two lines, two dribbles from free throw extended

  • Two lines, one side passes and screens for other side

  • Two lines, full sprint from half court

• Some other concept (5m)

  • Rebounding

  • Passing

  • Defense

  • Shooting

• Teach new idea (5-10m)

  • Set-up on offense, spacing

  • Fast break defense

  • 3 man weave, quick passes

  • Down screens

• Scrimmage (10-15m)

  • Maybe keep score

  • Extra points for defensive rebound?

• Lightning (5-10m)

  • Hopefully more than one game

  • Lay-up for second shot!