Thursday morning I woke up and made the final cut, Cameron. When I was telling the story to a friend, explaining how I took Gordie he quipped “So your receiving corp in football would be TO and Randy Moss?” Have to admit that stung a little. I did retort that taking Cameron was the equivalent of putting in Kerry Collins in as your QB “nice enough, but do you really want Kerry Collins?”
So basically right now we’re in a month long hiatus. My first practice is scheduled for October 23. With the Monday/Wednesday combination being bad news for Dante, and my own having commitments on Wednesdays I looked for a different day of the week for practices and came up with… Friday. Can’t wait to spend 6-7:30 on Fridays in a gym. Fortunately, after 5 weeks we can switch to Tuesdays for the rest of the season, which runs through the middle of March, making the season about 5 months long all together (and making the 10 weeks of Baseball seem like a sprint).
With the dynasty going on hold, essentially, for a month, though I will post any updates as they might happen, I thought it would be good to try and introduce the players. I’ve talked about many of these players already but let’s look at the Kid Coach's 2005-2006 4th Grade Travel Team.
I’d debated a few different ways of organizing this list. I’ve decided that I’m going to go by offensive position and, with-in position, skill, as I see it now. All players will be expected to learn 2 positions eventually as with only 10 players I need a good deal of flexibility in the players I can put on the court, especially for that game that’ll inevitably happen in February where one kid is sick, another has a twisted ankle, and a third is in Vail for the weekend.
Before I break it down by skill let me explain, roughly, what each of the responsibilities will be for each player in the offensive I am working on finalizing. This obviously could change as I work to break down what I want to run into a level that I know can be well taught to and learned by 4th graders.
1 Spot – Your traditional ball handler. He is going to be the player who’ll normally take the ball up the court. Will have primary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks, but depending on where in the offense we are, this could fall to the 2 or 3 player as well.
2 Spot – Stays primarily on the perimeter, though he will sometimes penetrate. Will often be the first look for the 1 player or else setup the first look (via screen). Has secondary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks.
3 Spot – In many ways the trickiest spot in the offense to play. Has both perimeter and post responsibilities, though because of the talent will be on the perimeter more than the post. Along with the 2 will be the first look for a pass from the 1.
4 Spot – Is primarily involved in post play, though not exclusively. He will come out of the post often either to help screen or in order to clear space for the 3 or 5. Is the least likely to shoot the ball.
5 Spot – Your traditional center. Primarily in the post. Is almost always responsible for rebounding.
You will notice that I've written about perimeter play. This is a tad misleading as while they often do their work there, I do not really want my team shooting, for the most part, beyond 10 feet. This means that we’re using the outside to create space/opportunities to work it inside. I expect to see a lot of zone so we’ll be working on zone busting skills such as quick (and skip) passes. Also important will be the concept of screening to get someone the ball not for someone with the ball.
And without further ado, this time for real, let me present my 2006-2007 4th Grade Travel Basketball Team. An asterisk means that if I fielded a basketball team tomorrow they would be starting.
½
*Noah (primary 2) Obviously positions are still fluid at this point. I have slotted Noah here tentatively because of his skills, but his size might find him in more of a 2/3 role before things are all said and done especially as we have, as expected, a surplus of guards. As mentioned before, I like his penetration skills, which shows his ability to dribble so he could even end up finding himself playing more of a 1. While his shooting form might not be the prettiest, he is accurate. During the scrimmage I said that the next time he drove in he should find a team mate to pass it to and he did exactly that suggesting he is willing to implement instruction. He did a few other things, such as mostly pay attention, that suggest he will be teachable (or in this case coachable).
Jack M (primary 1) First let me say there is a definite chance that I have the Jacks backwards. I think I have it straight, but am not sure. Anyhow, short Jack has a nice dribble and can do it with both hands. He is inconsistent, which is actually a complement at this age, at dribbling with his head up. He’s a pretty scrawny kid. Has an average attention span for a 4th grade boy, which is to say not a whole lot.
Gordie (primary 1) Gordie is a small kid. However, he’s got a good shot and better range than some of the kids taller than him. I’ve discussed him pretty indepth in my last post so not a whole lot to add here. I will just stress that the negatives that I talked about before could really impact his role on this team.
Tom (primary 2) It might seem weird that he is ranked below Gordie, who was the last player to make the team, but of course it wasn’t Gordie’s skills holding him back. I was really hoping Tom would have been be able to play a 3 for us, but he’s not there yet and I’m not sure that trying to make him into a forward, even a soft forward, is the best use of his practice time.
2/3
*Brian (primary 2) Brian is a very solid player all around. Not quite as solid is his personality. On more than one occasion he made a negative comment during tryouts. Something like that I am quite confident of my ability to stomp out. I simply don’t tolerate it. In fact, I will likely be opening our first practice with my saying something to the effect of “I’m the coach and I’m here to help you grow and to help you win. Your job as players are to listen to me and to support your teammates>” Or something like that. Anyhow, Brian is tentatively slotted as a 2/3, as I think we have some better dribblers than him, though he does have a good crossover.
3/4
*Jack P (primary 3) The more I see of him the more he impresses. He did well in our lightening game, I believe, and seems pretty solid all around. I also really liked his attitude which goes well with his, seemingly, easy going nature. I hesitate to comment too much about kid’s personalities as for the most part they’ll be different creatures in a tryout situation, what with the nerves, than during the course of a basketball season.
Scott (primary 3) The least talented of the triplets, though still pretty darn good, he seems like he’ll be well suited to these positions. Not a whole lot to comment here.
4/5
*Dante (primary 5): Again I feel like I’ve talked about him a lot. I will say that I was tempted to inquire about the soccer playing backgrounds of my players and feel particularly pleased to learn that someone I thought highly of is also a competitive soccer player as I feel good soccer players often can easily be turned into good basketball players.
Lucas (primary 5): Poor Lucas seemed somewhat surprised that I saw him as a forward/center. He seems like a real good kid. Here’s another kid who I see a fair amount of potential in and hope to see him really grow as the season progresses.
???
*David I’m not sure where to place him. I wished he had been at the 3rd day of tryouts since I think I’d have gotten a better grasp. And perhaps I am overstating his skills, but then again maybe I’m not. He’s likely going to be our point guard, because of his ball handling skills, but he could end up really at any of the positions 1-4, though realistically 4 is not likely going to be where he’d end up on offense.
I will try and post as I come up with firmer plans for things, but in all likelihood, as mentioned before, the dynasty is on a brief hiatus until practices start in October.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Tryouts
I was hoping to get this typed up before I went to tryouts today, but it was not to be. The last two days have been very informative. I really feel like good grasp of most of these kid’s skills. This is certainly a change from the first day. So that part is good. The part that is bad? Right now I have a basketball team of 9 players. I have two players on the cusp and I could end up taking one or both of them and don’t know which it’ll be.
Yesterday we did a few drills. We started with a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 weave drill. Then we went to zig-zag dribbling. They were always to use the hand they were dribbling towards, so left if going left, and right if going right. I was actually very impressed overall with how well many of these kids were able to dribble with both of their hands. However, I decided, upon further reflection, that the width we were doing was too small. We ended up repeating this today first thing so that we could use the full court before the 5th graders arrived. I was able to see a lot more distinctions when we did it tonight.
We also did several passing drills with two man teams doing a slide with chest and overhead passes, along with a jogging bounce pass back and forth. We also did a 45 second, how many 6-9 foot jump shots can you make. We ended with some 3 on 3 games. The 3 on 3 games? Disaster. I learned very little worthwhile. I feel like we did something else, but it is forgotten at this point.
Coming out of day 2 a huge burden was taken off my shoulders. All three of the H triplets were going to make the team. Brian, our friend with the broken ankle, is a fairly good guard. I really don’t like his attitude, but it is not so bad as to be a major problem. Scott seems like he’s going to be a good forward. I still have no clue where I’m going to play David, who was once again the best player on the court. I mean he’s likely the best ball handler we have, but he’s also one of the taller players, on a team that is fairly short. Anyhow, this is the sort of problem that I like to have, and I have a bit to figure things out.
Also showing real promise was Dante. He’s one of the two tallest kids out there, besides Asher (who was the kid who reminded me of me in 4th grade). Dante showed good to very good abilities to dribble, shoot, and rebound. He’s exactly the sort of center I had hoped to have: A threat (as much as any of them are) from the outside and able to handle the ball. Fits into the motion offense I expected to run.
Let me diverge from the tryouts here for a second. I went into tryouts with an open mind. I haven’t really choreographed what I expected the offense or defense to be because I wanted to see their skills first. But, as I knew the community, they were what I expected. Mostly a group of short kids. Their dribbling skills were better than I expected and their shooting about what I thought it would be. Anyhow, my plan is to spread the floor, as even tall 4th graders don’t tend to be huge, and teach them how to move without the ball in order to create inside shots. Most of these kids cannot shoot, really, beyond 12, and for many 10 foot is the outer range of where they should be shooting.
Anyhow, so Dante makes the team. Leaving the gym that night I knew that we had a team of 5:
The Hs, Dante, and Jack P. Jack P is another taller kid with good dribbling and shooting skills. He’s a step below Dante in height, and could see some limited time at Center, but will more likely be seeing time in the 3 and 4 spots.
I went home and entered the numbers for both the objective and subjective drills. Came up with a weighted and un-weighted formula to rank them with. Based on that analysis I got two more players; both surprised me at the time as they had not really made an impression, but based on observations tonight both definitely deserved it. Noah was one of them. A shooting/point guard, even possibly a small forward, he’s got a great first step for a penetrating dribble and is a very accurate lay-up shooter. The other player to make it was Jack M. Interestingly, I had a fairly hard time telling Noah and Jack apart for a bit as they both have about the same skin tone and have the same hair cut. I do think I have it down now, though. Anyhow, Jack did very well defensively and showed good ability to dribble with both hands. He’ll be a point/shooting guard for us.
That gave me 7 players who I knew would make the team. I also had ruled out two. Asher was one of them. He actually turned out to be a great rebounder, but really all the other parts of his game are just terrible. My decision was reaffirmed when I learned before tryouts tonight that he’s actually had extensive basketball training. Hence the reason why he had surprised me by knowing of the “hot shots” drill. For a kid who has had all the background he’s had, his fundamentals are just appalling. I thought he was a kid who might just need a thousand lay-ups so he could not look like an octopus when he shoots. But that likely is wrong. He just doesn’t have it. Oh well. Asher also drove me nuts since he took every opportunity he could to sit down. I asked him if he was tired, and he said no. I let him know that he shouldn’t sit down then. Anyhow Asher was out.
Also out was Matt. Matt was one of only two kids, along with Miles not to attend day 2. Matt was slow and unskilled. No real getting around it. I actually wondered if he’d even show up today. He did and my limited observations only more than confirmed what I thought.
That left 7 kids who I was undecided about:
Miles
Tom
Nick
Cameron
David R
Lucas
Gordie
Tom was a virtual lock to make the team. The real problem was that he was a noticeable step below some other kids at some important skills for both the 1 and 2 positions, which were the spots he seemed most comfortable at. He did have good hustle and a good sense of how to move on the court. Considering the offense I want to run this latter trait was what made him a virtual lock to make the team. In fact were it not for his thoroughly mediocre shooting scores I’d like have already put him on the team.
Nick was nearly put on the cut list, but I decided to leave him off. However, he did not come tonight and as such his performance did not improve, making him an easy cut. He did have fairly good defensive skills, though not substantially better than several other players. This means this postive was more than negated by his terrible offensive skills. He wasn’t a particularly great hustler either. He also sucked his shirts. I know this last thing might seem inconsequential but it was actually a fairly big minus in my book. I want my players to play fearlessly out there. That was one way I made basketball teams, because I was (and am) fearless on the court. I’m not afraid to take a charge or set a hard pick or dive for the loose ball. Anyhow, I want fearless players and a kid who sucks his shirt at age 9 is not a fearless kid..
Then there is Cameron. Cameron is a blob. He doesn’t do anything great, but he doesn’t do anything poorly either. More about Cameron later.
David R was the kid who yesterday I just loved his attitude. I continued to love his attitude. I went into tonight looking for something, anything, to justify putting him on the team.
Lucas, was a kid who I didn’t have much of a sense for. His weighted scores, which gave more weight to the objective things we’d done, were so-so.
Finally there was Gordie. Gordie showed moments of skill. However, I knew heading into the day that he’d be a borderline player, with me not wanting to take him. The reason for this was that he was CONSTANTLY not paying attention or needing me to call him over or asking him not to shoot a basket while some other kid was doing his shooting drill. Before tryouts started today the 5th/6th grade coach asked me about him. I told him that he was borderline leaning towards no. The coach explained that he knew the family well and had coached his brother on a couple of teams, and that the brother had the same personality. Good to know it runs in the family.
Miles had not impressed me during the first night’s tryout. However, he was the kid who I first met who had a good spirit. I thought that perhaps there was more that he was capable of, that I simply hadn’t seen. Before tryouts tonight I met his father. His father has an unbelievable background, having founded the 4th grade travel team, done all sorts of JCC sports, founded, and is currently president of, a small fry team. I really liked the guy. It gave me renewed hope that Miles would have more to show me.
Several players had told me they’d be a minute or two late. So when the opportunity arose with 4 of us there to play a game of knockout, I took it. I won. We then played two more games, with more kids joining in each time, which I also won. I’m sure it’ll be a big relief to you to know that I could beat a bunch of 9 year olds. The players all really enjoyed it though, which was good. I let the kids play a fourth game, which only got about ¾ finished before we started tryouts.
As I mentioned we started with full court zig-zag dribbling. After doing full court once we did to half court and back as the 5th graders were starting to trickle in. Next we played a game of “Man in the Middle”. The kids were about 10 feet apart. Person in the middle. The two people on the outside could throw chest or bounce passes to their partner while the man in the middle tried to intercept. This did not turn out nearly as well I had hoped and I ended up speeding it up, though I did get to see a couple of kids do the sort of passes I wanted to see.
My goal tonight was to focus on 6 kids who I didn’t know about. By the end of man in the middle, and based on seeing him play lightening, I knew that Miles, bless his heart, just didn’t have what it took and neither did David R. I really liked both kids, but a travel basketball team just is not the right place for them right now. In happier news, Lucas had impressed me during knockout and continued to impress me during the first few drills and moved into the likely make it category.
Next we divided into 3 teams of 4, as there were only 12 players there. Besides Nick, the H triplets were not there (which was not unexpected). I tried to put 1 center person (which ended up being Asher, Dante, and Lucas), 1 forward (Jack M, Tom, as if he could play forward his playing time would be greatly increased, and Cameron), and 2 guards. I also tried to roughly balance the teams talent wise. I also told the kids who to match up against, though I did not state what position I’d put them at.
The scrimmage proved to be quite informative, in the confirm what I already know sense. Asher, for instance, not only can’t shoot but LOVES to shoot. To the great annoyance of his team mates. Noah impressed me with his ability to penetrate. Lucas tried to play guard until I told him “if you make the team you will be at forward or center, so play there”. He didn’t like it but gave the position his best, which was nice to see. He did a nice enough job. It became clear that Tom could not play forward. That’s a shame as it greatly reduces his utility since I have enough guards, even if I use the 3 as a semi-guard, as is likely. He did, however, again show his ability to move around without the ball to great effect.
More frustrating was Gordie who proved an ability to shoot quite well and also played better defense than I’d seen previously. The kid is also short, even for this team, something I haven’t mentioned before. His annoying traits were still present, though more restrained tonight. In our later drills he would once again prove quite the adept shooter.
Cameron once again did nothing poorly, but neither nothing outstandingly well. This would be the theme with his running as well, which was our next part.
Using two groups I had them do a variety of drills which required them to run/dribble to half court, and back. Miles actually showed a surprising amount of speed, but his control was poor and his left hand weak, so no loss there. After doing the running, I immediately put them back in their three groups and had them each shoot three free throws. Cameron actually did fairly well here.
Then it was time for “half court suicides”. A suicide, for those who don’t know, is where a player runs from under the basket, to the free throw line, back to under the basket, to half court, back, to the opposite side free throw line, back, and to other the other basket and back. The drill is grueling, but is a staple of basketball training because it is good conditioning and also gives players a chance to work on change of directions, again an important skill. Anyhow, a half court versions are considerably less difficult. Of course they ended up running 4 variations which again was somewhat tiring. They did have a short break in between runs as we had two groups, but the players did tire. Then it was another three free throws. The shooting percentage, not surprisingly, dropped off for the second three. I then gave them a water break.
One important note: Dante clearly was not hustling during this. I got on him and still he did not hustle. Later I would learn there was a reasonable explanation for this.
We next did a drill where there is a player who passes in to someone who posts up. That player is being guarded. I only allowed the poster, as I called him, to take one shot. I also stated that there could be no fade aways. It was interesting seeing who turned inside, and who turned outside. The first 5 kids, meaning nearly half, turned outside, until Miles turned inside and became only the second player to actually make the basket. We ran through this twice.
Finally, we ended by doing left handed lay-ups, dribble from the right side to take a shot from about 12 feet on the left side, right handed lay-ups, and doing the jump shot with dribble from left to right.
I gathered everyone around, thanked them for another great day of try outs and explained how the team would be posted. I was asked what days practices were and I said they were currently scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays. Dante groaned. Turns out he plays travel soccer year round and those are the days they practice and there was even some overlap in the time. This was bad news, as Dante was making the team no doubt. It means I need to talk to Emily, my Park District contact, about changing that Wednesday practice, as Mondays are the best day of the week for me scheduling wise.
Anyhow, I went home. Immediately, of the six I crossed off Miles, Matt, Nick, and David R. Tom and Lucas made the cut. That leaves me with 9 players and only Cameron and Gordie left to make a decision about. Of the two, Gordie is more talented, no doubt. But the question is: is he coachable? Then there is Cameron. His skills aren’t as present, but I know he’ll work hard. Of course he doesn’t bring anything to the team dynamic and while not being a minus is good, being a nothing, is well, nothing. And Gordie at least will have moments where he’d likely add something good.
I think in the end I’m going to take Gordie and not Cameron, though I could take both if I wanted since 11 is still manageable and gives a little more breathing room for sickness/injury. Of course, if everyone is there it makes for an incredibly awkward number to practice with. So that remains the last decision to make. I will likely make it by the time I wake up tomorrow. And truth be told it’ll likely be Gordie and not Cameron. But time will tell.
Yesterday we did a few drills. We started with a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 weave drill. Then we went to zig-zag dribbling. They were always to use the hand they were dribbling towards, so left if going left, and right if going right. I was actually very impressed overall with how well many of these kids were able to dribble with both of their hands. However, I decided, upon further reflection, that the width we were doing was too small. We ended up repeating this today first thing so that we could use the full court before the 5th graders arrived. I was able to see a lot more distinctions when we did it tonight.
We also did several passing drills with two man teams doing a slide with chest and overhead passes, along with a jogging bounce pass back and forth. We also did a 45 second, how many 6-9 foot jump shots can you make. We ended with some 3 on 3 games. The 3 on 3 games? Disaster. I learned very little worthwhile. I feel like we did something else, but it is forgotten at this point.
Coming out of day 2 a huge burden was taken off my shoulders. All three of the H triplets were going to make the team. Brian, our friend with the broken ankle, is a fairly good guard. I really don’t like his attitude, but it is not so bad as to be a major problem. Scott seems like he’s going to be a good forward. I still have no clue where I’m going to play David, who was once again the best player on the court. I mean he’s likely the best ball handler we have, but he’s also one of the taller players, on a team that is fairly short. Anyhow, this is the sort of problem that I like to have, and I have a bit to figure things out.
Also showing real promise was Dante. He’s one of the two tallest kids out there, besides Asher (who was the kid who reminded me of me in 4th grade). Dante showed good to very good abilities to dribble, shoot, and rebound. He’s exactly the sort of center I had hoped to have: A threat (as much as any of them are) from the outside and able to handle the ball. Fits into the motion offense I expected to run.
Let me diverge from the tryouts here for a second. I went into tryouts with an open mind. I haven’t really choreographed what I expected the offense or defense to be because I wanted to see their skills first. But, as I knew the community, they were what I expected. Mostly a group of short kids. Their dribbling skills were better than I expected and their shooting about what I thought it would be. Anyhow, my plan is to spread the floor, as even tall 4th graders don’t tend to be huge, and teach them how to move without the ball in order to create inside shots. Most of these kids cannot shoot, really, beyond 12, and for many 10 foot is the outer range of where they should be shooting.
Anyhow, so Dante makes the team. Leaving the gym that night I knew that we had a team of 5:
The Hs, Dante, and Jack P. Jack P is another taller kid with good dribbling and shooting skills. He’s a step below Dante in height, and could see some limited time at Center, but will more likely be seeing time in the 3 and 4 spots.
I went home and entered the numbers for both the objective and subjective drills. Came up with a weighted and un-weighted formula to rank them with. Based on that analysis I got two more players; both surprised me at the time as they had not really made an impression, but based on observations tonight both definitely deserved it. Noah was one of them. A shooting/point guard, even possibly a small forward, he’s got a great first step for a penetrating dribble and is a very accurate lay-up shooter. The other player to make it was Jack M. Interestingly, I had a fairly hard time telling Noah and Jack apart for a bit as they both have about the same skin tone and have the same hair cut. I do think I have it down now, though. Anyhow, Jack did very well defensively and showed good ability to dribble with both hands. He’ll be a point/shooting guard for us.
That gave me 7 players who I knew would make the team. I also had ruled out two. Asher was one of them. He actually turned out to be a great rebounder, but really all the other parts of his game are just terrible. My decision was reaffirmed when I learned before tryouts tonight that he’s actually had extensive basketball training. Hence the reason why he had surprised me by knowing of the “hot shots” drill. For a kid who has had all the background he’s had, his fundamentals are just appalling. I thought he was a kid who might just need a thousand lay-ups so he could not look like an octopus when he shoots. But that likely is wrong. He just doesn’t have it. Oh well. Asher also drove me nuts since he took every opportunity he could to sit down. I asked him if he was tired, and he said no. I let him know that he shouldn’t sit down then. Anyhow Asher was out.
Also out was Matt. Matt was one of only two kids, along with Miles not to attend day 2. Matt was slow and unskilled. No real getting around it. I actually wondered if he’d even show up today. He did and my limited observations only more than confirmed what I thought.
That left 7 kids who I was undecided about:
Miles
Tom
Nick
Cameron
David R
Lucas
Gordie
Tom was a virtual lock to make the team. The real problem was that he was a noticeable step below some other kids at some important skills for both the 1 and 2 positions, which were the spots he seemed most comfortable at. He did have good hustle and a good sense of how to move on the court. Considering the offense I want to run this latter trait was what made him a virtual lock to make the team. In fact were it not for his thoroughly mediocre shooting scores I’d like have already put him on the team.
Nick was nearly put on the cut list, but I decided to leave him off. However, he did not come tonight and as such his performance did not improve, making him an easy cut. He did have fairly good defensive skills, though not substantially better than several other players. This means this postive was more than negated by his terrible offensive skills. He wasn’t a particularly great hustler either. He also sucked his shirts. I know this last thing might seem inconsequential but it was actually a fairly big minus in my book. I want my players to play fearlessly out there. That was one way I made basketball teams, because I was (and am) fearless on the court. I’m not afraid to take a charge or set a hard pick or dive for the loose ball. Anyhow, I want fearless players and a kid who sucks his shirt at age 9 is not a fearless kid..
Then there is Cameron. Cameron is a blob. He doesn’t do anything great, but he doesn’t do anything poorly either. More about Cameron later.
David R was the kid who yesterday I just loved his attitude. I continued to love his attitude. I went into tonight looking for something, anything, to justify putting him on the team.
Lucas, was a kid who I didn’t have much of a sense for. His weighted scores, which gave more weight to the objective things we’d done, were so-so.
Finally there was Gordie. Gordie showed moments of skill. However, I knew heading into the day that he’d be a borderline player, with me not wanting to take him. The reason for this was that he was CONSTANTLY not paying attention or needing me to call him over or asking him not to shoot a basket while some other kid was doing his shooting drill. Before tryouts started today the 5th/6th grade coach asked me about him. I told him that he was borderline leaning towards no. The coach explained that he knew the family well and had coached his brother on a couple of teams, and that the brother had the same personality. Good to know it runs in the family.
Miles had not impressed me during the first night’s tryout. However, he was the kid who I first met who had a good spirit. I thought that perhaps there was more that he was capable of, that I simply hadn’t seen. Before tryouts tonight I met his father. His father has an unbelievable background, having founded the 4th grade travel team, done all sorts of JCC sports, founded, and is currently president of, a small fry team. I really liked the guy. It gave me renewed hope that Miles would have more to show me.
Several players had told me they’d be a minute or two late. So when the opportunity arose with 4 of us there to play a game of knockout, I took it. I won. We then played two more games, with more kids joining in each time, which I also won. I’m sure it’ll be a big relief to you to know that I could beat a bunch of 9 year olds. The players all really enjoyed it though, which was good. I let the kids play a fourth game, which only got about ¾ finished before we started tryouts.
As I mentioned we started with full court zig-zag dribbling. After doing full court once we did to half court and back as the 5th graders were starting to trickle in. Next we played a game of “Man in the Middle”. The kids were about 10 feet apart. Person in the middle. The two people on the outside could throw chest or bounce passes to their partner while the man in the middle tried to intercept. This did not turn out nearly as well I had hoped and I ended up speeding it up, though I did get to see a couple of kids do the sort of passes I wanted to see.
My goal tonight was to focus on 6 kids who I didn’t know about. By the end of man in the middle, and based on seeing him play lightening, I knew that Miles, bless his heart, just didn’t have what it took and neither did David R. I really liked both kids, but a travel basketball team just is not the right place for them right now. In happier news, Lucas had impressed me during knockout and continued to impress me during the first few drills and moved into the likely make it category.
Next we divided into 3 teams of 4, as there were only 12 players there. Besides Nick, the H triplets were not there (which was not unexpected). I tried to put 1 center person (which ended up being Asher, Dante, and Lucas), 1 forward (Jack M, Tom, as if he could play forward his playing time would be greatly increased, and Cameron), and 2 guards. I also tried to roughly balance the teams talent wise. I also told the kids who to match up against, though I did not state what position I’d put them at.
The scrimmage proved to be quite informative, in the confirm what I already know sense. Asher, for instance, not only can’t shoot but LOVES to shoot. To the great annoyance of his team mates. Noah impressed me with his ability to penetrate. Lucas tried to play guard until I told him “if you make the team you will be at forward or center, so play there”. He didn’t like it but gave the position his best, which was nice to see. He did a nice enough job. It became clear that Tom could not play forward. That’s a shame as it greatly reduces his utility since I have enough guards, even if I use the 3 as a semi-guard, as is likely. He did, however, again show his ability to move around without the ball to great effect.
More frustrating was Gordie who proved an ability to shoot quite well and also played better defense than I’d seen previously. The kid is also short, even for this team, something I haven’t mentioned before. His annoying traits were still present, though more restrained tonight. In our later drills he would once again prove quite the adept shooter.
Cameron once again did nothing poorly, but neither nothing outstandingly well. This would be the theme with his running as well, which was our next part.
Using two groups I had them do a variety of drills which required them to run/dribble to half court, and back. Miles actually showed a surprising amount of speed, but his control was poor and his left hand weak, so no loss there. After doing the running, I immediately put them back in their three groups and had them each shoot three free throws. Cameron actually did fairly well here.
Then it was time for “half court suicides”. A suicide, for those who don’t know, is where a player runs from under the basket, to the free throw line, back to under the basket, to half court, back, to the opposite side free throw line, back, and to other the other basket and back. The drill is grueling, but is a staple of basketball training because it is good conditioning and also gives players a chance to work on change of directions, again an important skill. Anyhow, a half court versions are considerably less difficult. Of course they ended up running 4 variations which again was somewhat tiring. They did have a short break in between runs as we had two groups, but the players did tire. Then it was another three free throws. The shooting percentage, not surprisingly, dropped off for the second three. I then gave them a water break.
One important note: Dante clearly was not hustling during this. I got on him and still he did not hustle. Later I would learn there was a reasonable explanation for this.
We next did a drill where there is a player who passes in to someone who posts up. That player is being guarded. I only allowed the poster, as I called him, to take one shot. I also stated that there could be no fade aways. It was interesting seeing who turned inside, and who turned outside. The first 5 kids, meaning nearly half, turned outside, until Miles turned inside and became only the second player to actually make the basket. We ran through this twice.
Finally, we ended by doing left handed lay-ups, dribble from the right side to take a shot from about 12 feet on the left side, right handed lay-ups, and doing the jump shot with dribble from left to right.
I gathered everyone around, thanked them for another great day of try outs and explained how the team would be posted. I was asked what days practices were and I said they were currently scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays. Dante groaned. Turns out he plays travel soccer year round and those are the days they practice and there was even some overlap in the time. This was bad news, as Dante was making the team no doubt. It means I need to talk to Emily, my Park District contact, about changing that Wednesday practice, as Mondays are the best day of the week for me scheduling wise.
Anyhow, I went home. Immediately, of the six I crossed off Miles, Matt, Nick, and David R. Tom and Lucas made the cut. That leaves me with 9 players and only Cameron and Gordie left to make a decision about. Of the two, Gordie is more talented, no doubt. But the question is: is he coachable? Then there is Cameron. His skills aren’t as present, but I know he’ll work hard. Of course he doesn’t bring anything to the team dynamic and while not being a minus is good, being a nothing, is well, nothing. And Gordie at least will have moments where he’d likely add something good.
I think in the end I’m going to take Gordie and not Cameron, though I could take both if I wanted since 11 is still manageable and gives a little more breathing room for sickness/injury. Of course, if everyone is there it makes for an incredibly awkward number to practice with. So that remains the last decision to make. I will likely make it by the time I wake up tomorrow. And truth be told it’ll likely be Gordie and not Cameron. But time will tell.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Well I did not get my promised weekend post in. But I’m back again.
Yesterday was the first day of try-outs. The structure, once again, is three days of an hour and a quarter each day. Players must attend two days. Yesterday was the first day of tryouts. In the end I had 16 players show up. The sixth grade tryouts, which were basically running concurrently to ours, had 30. I would have, honestly, thought these numbers reversed as kids would be more likely to try out when they’re younger and have never been rejected from a travel team before.
Rather than going 75 minutes, we only went 50 since I had to go to my school’s open house. So I did lose some considerable time looking at these players. Things also suffered since I was new at this. And running tryouts by yourself? It’s hard. Having a second pair of eyes would have been incredible as there wouldn’t have been nearly the same amount of downtime and I think the tryout would have run smoother. Let’s review what happened.
I pull up to the school at the same time as another car. As I am getting out my car (and taking off my suit jacket) I hear a dad talking to his son in the next car. It was really cute hearing the dad give his son advice. We end up walking the first couple of steps together and I smile at him and say that his dad was offering good advice. Kid seems nice enough. I later learn that his name is, I believe, Miles. (A note on names: In my little league dynasty I used initials as I do want to protect these kid’s right to privacy. I am simply going to use first names, sometimes with last initials, for this dynasty as I think using initials made the kids seem less kidlike and had a negative effect on the overall feel of the dynasty).
As I go to the gym, I meet a guy who works for the Park District. I also meet a step mother of triplets who’s very concerned. She tells me that one of her step-sons, whose name is Brian, just had an ankle cast taken off. She doesn’t think there will be any effects, but wants me to know. I smile and write down his name so it seems like I’m being responsive. I do feel for the kid, but also am not a psychic. If this kid is still recovering from the brake, as he no doubt is, and I will not be able to see his full skills, it will be held against him. I will try and estimate when he is being limited, but what can ya really do?
I started off by giving a short welcoming speech. I basically cribbed it from a website I found. It talked about working hard, listening, and not being nervous. I even did something I do for my students before a test and told a corny joke before we got started to try and loosen them up. Worked for some, and not so for others.
For our first drill, I divided them up into two groups. As I stated earlier, we are sharing a full size gym with the sixth grade team, so we used the side to side baskets for most of what we did. For the first drill, they are to rebound, outlet to me, run down to the other side, receive a pass, and make a lay-up. We do this one time and then the second time I give them a score from 1-5. Everyone ended up receiving a grade of between 3 and 5, including .5 increments. I am used to being handed a team. In that situation I’ve never bothered to rate my players, since they’re my players, and simply did the best I could working with them. So I expect, and hope, that my ability to instantly judge minute differences in skill. I mean it also doesn’t help that these are all 9 year olds and so many of them ARE close together in skill. As we run this drill, some kids are clearly worse than others. Of course, since I am doing the throw, some throws are better than others and so I get to see some kids adjust well and others have trouble. But it’s good information all around.
Following this we did 30 second lay-up contests from both sides. Players were encouraged to shoot with the right hand from the right side and the left hand from the left side, though some players needed more encouragement during the actual process. This took about a minute a player as it was 30 seconds to do the actual shooting, and then another 30 for me to record the scores and make sure the next two players were ready to go. It was at this point I thought of putting names with numbers so that also took some time. Players were instructed to count the number of baskets made by people at their basket. This started off strong, but by the end only a couple of kids were doing it. Notes were made about who was still doing the counting.
We then did a dribbing/defense drill. Players had to zig-zag dribble while another player defended. I was really just looking for footwork and body posture so I had the defenders hold their hands behind their back. Unfortunately, I did not make as careful notes during this drill as I’d have liked.
Finally, we ended with a semi-abridged version of lightening. Abridged because the time was up and I needed to go. This was actually helpful in that I could see them in a semi pressure situation not to mention getting a further sense of their rebounding and lay-up skills not to mention a beginning sense of their free throw abilities.
So what about the players? Well let’s start with the triplet’s, who I will refer to as the H triplets. One of the triplets, David (I think), was by far the best player out there. No one else was close. During the dribbling drill I switched his partner twice just because I wasn’t getting anything useful from his partner because he was so dominating. The kid could not make another shot the rest of tryouts and he’d make the team.
The problem comes with his brothers. Brian, of broken ankle fame, has an attitude that rubs me the wrong way. As for his skills, they are pretty middle of the road. He claimed not to be bothered by the ankle, but I dunno. As for the third brother, Scott, he was pretty middle of the road as well. The whole triplet thing complicates matters. Clearly, David is making the team. But then what to do about the other two? This is not a charity, but I do not want to start the season by making a politically intemperate move with the parents. I see no real way I could take two of the three and not the third, unless the third was noticeably worse than other players. One of the three? Seems more doable. But I dunno. I hate triplets.
Most of the other kids didn’t make a huge impression on me one way or another. Miles, who I think is a good kid, doesn’t seem to have the talent. Then there is the case of David 2. David 2 did every little thing asked of him, but displayed no real talent I could find. I’m looking for a reason to take the kid, as kids like that can help glue a team together, but right now his athleticism doesn’t seem to warrant his making the team. I have marked down 6 kids who I need to see a little more of, but I think would be likely candidates.
There is also the case of Asher. Asher, unless he blows my socks off, is one of two kids who I just can’t see making the team. And I feel bad for the kid, because he reminds me of me at the age. Tall and with no real control of his limbs who tries hard. He could benefit from some instruction, which I’m guessing he’s never really gotten, and lots of practice. I will be finding a way to make sure he hears about the lots of practice part at some point. But, again, Asher is not likely to make the team.
So heading into Day 2 I’ve got perhaps ¾ of a basketball team. Tonight my plan is to start with zig-zag dribbling, without a defender, and asking the dribbler to switch hands each time. We’re then likely to do a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 drill, emphasizing passing. We’ll do a “hot shots” drill where there are three different stations at each basket (we’re going to use all three tonight to speed this up) and they need to make as many jump shots as possible in a minute. We’ll conclude with some 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 depending on how many kids show up.
I should have another update for you tomorrow on how day 2 went.
Yesterday was the first day of try-outs. The structure, once again, is three days of an hour and a quarter each day. Players must attend two days. Yesterday was the first day of tryouts. In the end I had 16 players show up. The sixth grade tryouts, which were basically running concurrently to ours, had 30. I would have, honestly, thought these numbers reversed as kids would be more likely to try out when they’re younger and have never been rejected from a travel team before.
Rather than going 75 minutes, we only went 50 since I had to go to my school’s open house. So I did lose some considerable time looking at these players. Things also suffered since I was new at this. And running tryouts by yourself? It’s hard. Having a second pair of eyes would have been incredible as there wouldn’t have been nearly the same amount of downtime and I think the tryout would have run smoother. Let’s review what happened.
I pull up to the school at the same time as another car. As I am getting out my car (and taking off my suit jacket) I hear a dad talking to his son in the next car. It was really cute hearing the dad give his son advice. We end up walking the first couple of steps together and I smile at him and say that his dad was offering good advice. Kid seems nice enough. I later learn that his name is, I believe, Miles. (A note on names: In my little league dynasty I used initials as I do want to protect these kid’s right to privacy. I am simply going to use first names, sometimes with last initials, for this dynasty as I think using initials made the kids seem less kidlike and had a negative effect on the overall feel of the dynasty).
As I go to the gym, I meet a guy who works for the Park District. I also meet a step mother of triplets who’s very concerned. She tells me that one of her step-sons, whose name is Brian, just had an ankle cast taken off. She doesn’t think there will be any effects, but wants me to know. I smile and write down his name so it seems like I’m being responsive. I do feel for the kid, but also am not a psychic. If this kid is still recovering from the brake, as he no doubt is, and I will not be able to see his full skills, it will be held against him. I will try and estimate when he is being limited, but what can ya really do?
I started off by giving a short welcoming speech. I basically cribbed it from a website I found. It talked about working hard, listening, and not being nervous. I even did something I do for my students before a test and told a corny joke before we got started to try and loosen them up. Worked for some, and not so for others.
For our first drill, I divided them up into two groups. As I stated earlier, we are sharing a full size gym with the sixth grade team, so we used the side to side baskets for most of what we did. For the first drill, they are to rebound, outlet to me, run down to the other side, receive a pass, and make a lay-up. We do this one time and then the second time I give them a score from 1-5. Everyone ended up receiving a grade of between 3 and 5, including .5 increments. I am used to being handed a team. In that situation I’ve never bothered to rate my players, since they’re my players, and simply did the best I could working with them. So I expect, and hope, that my ability to instantly judge minute differences in skill. I mean it also doesn’t help that these are all 9 year olds and so many of them ARE close together in skill. As we run this drill, some kids are clearly worse than others. Of course, since I am doing the throw, some throws are better than others and so I get to see some kids adjust well and others have trouble. But it’s good information all around.
Following this we did 30 second lay-up contests from both sides. Players were encouraged to shoot with the right hand from the right side and the left hand from the left side, though some players needed more encouragement during the actual process. This took about a minute a player as it was 30 seconds to do the actual shooting, and then another 30 for me to record the scores and make sure the next two players were ready to go. It was at this point I thought of putting names with numbers so that also took some time. Players were instructed to count the number of baskets made by people at their basket. This started off strong, but by the end only a couple of kids were doing it. Notes were made about who was still doing the counting.
We then did a dribbing/defense drill. Players had to zig-zag dribble while another player defended. I was really just looking for footwork and body posture so I had the defenders hold their hands behind their back. Unfortunately, I did not make as careful notes during this drill as I’d have liked.
Finally, we ended with a semi-abridged version of lightening. Abridged because the time was up and I needed to go. This was actually helpful in that I could see them in a semi pressure situation not to mention getting a further sense of their rebounding and lay-up skills not to mention a beginning sense of their free throw abilities.
So what about the players? Well let’s start with the triplet’s, who I will refer to as the H triplets. One of the triplets, David (I think), was by far the best player out there. No one else was close. During the dribbling drill I switched his partner twice just because I wasn’t getting anything useful from his partner because he was so dominating. The kid could not make another shot the rest of tryouts and he’d make the team.
The problem comes with his brothers. Brian, of broken ankle fame, has an attitude that rubs me the wrong way. As for his skills, they are pretty middle of the road. He claimed not to be bothered by the ankle, but I dunno. As for the third brother, Scott, he was pretty middle of the road as well. The whole triplet thing complicates matters. Clearly, David is making the team. But then what to do about the other two? This is not a charity, but I do not want to start the season by making a politically intemperate move with the parents. I see no real way I could take two of the three and not the third, unless the third was noticeably worse than other players. One of the three? Seems more doable. But I dunno. I hate triplets.
Most of the other kids didn’t make a huge impression on me one way or another. Miles, who I think is a good kid, doesn’t seem to have the talent. Then there is the case of David 2. David 2 did every little thing asked of him, but displayed no real talent I could find. I’m looking for a reason to take the kid, as kids like that can help glue a team together, but right now his athleticism doesn’t seem to warrant his making the team. I have marked down 6 kids who I need to see a little more of, but I think would be likely candidates.
There is also the case of Asher. Asher, unless he blows my socks off, is one of two kids who I just can’t see making the team. And I feel bad for the kid, because he reminds me of me at the age. Tall and with no real control of his limbs who tries hard. He could benefit from some instruction, which I’m guessing he’s never really gotten, and lots of practice. I will be finding a way to make sure he hears about the lots of practice part at some point. But, again, Asher is not likely to make the team.
So heading into Day 2 I’ve got perhaps ¾ of a basketball team. Tonight my plan is to start with zig-zag dribbling, without a defender, and asking the dribbler to switch hands each time. We’re then likely to do a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 drill, emphasizing passing. We’ll do a “hot shots” drill where there are three different stations at each basket (we’re going to use all three tonight to speed this up) and they need to make as many jump shots as possible in a minute. We’ll conclude with some 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 depending on how many kids show up.
I should have another update for you tomorrow on how day 2 went.
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Intro
This is going to be a dynasty of my experiences as a travel basketball coach for a 9 year old boys travel team. I completed, over the spring/summer, a dynasty detailing my days as a little league baseball coach. I found it helpful for me as a coach, and several people said that they enjoyed reading it. Due to my schedule I anticipate that this will be shorter than that, but once I start writing, I write, so who knows.
Finding a position
As I mentioned a couple of times in my Little League write-ups I am, at heart, a basketball coach. Well really, at heart, I’m a guy who enjoys working with youth. But when it comes to sports I am a basketball guy. I realized that I had been having too much fun coaching little league and so it was time to step up and try and find a basketball coaching position. I had done some coaching in a semi-competitive high school intramural league. Practices were once a week and games were once a week. Depending on how you look at it, I either do so well, or so poorly, that last year I was co-commissioner of the league. While I was well received as a co-commissioner, and will likely be getting a phone call in a month offering me the position again, I really I missed coaching and decided that I needed to coach a basketball team again.
I knew, from the start, two things, well I guess really three things. First I didn’t want to coach a house league team. I really believe in the idea of personal growth and development that you see in a house league. However, I wanted the more serious atmosphere of a travel team. I have a standing offer from a couple different teams in the league that I could be a coach for them if I wanted, but this sort of somewhat relaxed atmosphere wasn’t really wasn’t what I was looking for. This dovetailed nicely with my second point, which is that I wished to be paid. Baseball is a lot of hours, and I’m happy to give it, but I felt I needed some kind of compensation if I was going to do basketball, which has a longer season. My third thing was that I did not wish to get a position for the Park District in the city where I live. I basically want to keep the baseball and basketball coaching parts of me separate. In baseball I’m a volunteer. In basketball I am a paid coach. This decision, which actually came first, also dictated the travel part, to a large extent, as my city is the only one nearby, that I could find, which pays coaches in its house league.
So knowing I wanted a paid coaching job, I started searching out positions. I looked at middle schools and park districts, primarily. There are several other basketball organizations in the area, but without an “in” there I was unlikely to get a position for one of them. After a lot of thinking I decided to only apply for one job. I figured I would either get the job, and be happy, or not get the job, and spend the time on my teaching/relaxation and coach a team in the league that I had been a part of for a few years.
I applied for a job in a neighboring suburb. This suburb is smaller than the one I live in, but I also taught in the district for a year and have a good grasp of the community. I thought it would be a good fit that way, and also has the advantage that the gym they use to practice is nearly as close as the gym in my own suburb.
The Interview
A couple weeks after sending in my resume I got a call for an interview. It was shortly after the position had closed. With my background, I’d have been surprised if I didn’t get at least an interview. I setup the interview. I thought the interview went well, though afterwards I regretted that I didn’t show enough of my basketball knowledge. The one question where I think I could have shown that, “Describe to me a practice”, I ended up talking more about how you have to be flexible with the talent you work with, varying up the practice so you’re not doing the same thing for too long (and also so you reinforce skills in a different way than you might initially teach them so you give kids multiple opportunities to understand the concept), and doing drills which either allow full participation of having kids “shadow” the ones participating so that there isn’t a lot of sitting. I think it was a solid answer, but I later regretted having taken that approach rather than really showing my basketball knowledge. But I felt like besides not really showing my basketball knowledge, the interview went well. It also helped, I felt, that I supplied a couple of references of parents of kids I had coached.
At the interview, the coordinator indicated that they expected an answer by late in the week of August 28 or early this week. When I hadn’t heard from them yesterday I had pretty much decided I hadn’t gotten the position. It was something I really had coveted and I was, I admit, disappointed. However, with so much going on with the start of school, I didn’t let my disappointment bother me too much and focused my energies elsewhere.
So when I got a phone call today right as school was ended, after having been nervous every time my phone range on Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday, I figured it was my mom and sent it right to voice mail as I was in the middle of doing something. Of course it turned out to be the Park District Person offering me the job.
Tryouts
I have to admit the whole tryout thing is what has me more nervous than anything. Not only is it immediate, tryouts are next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I have never conducted tryouts before. I have been told to expect between 12 and 18 kids with the goal of selecting a team of between 10 and 12. 18 kids is a pretty small number, considering I teach a class of 21, so that part is good. I am reading up on tryouts and have begun to put a plan together, though it’s rather rough at this point.
Basically with 9 year olds this will be the first serious basketball they will have played. As such selecting good athletes seems to be important. However, I philosophically believe that too often teams look for athletes rather than basketball players. This could come out of my own experiences as a youth, where I was not an athlete but I had basketball talent, not the least of which was pure size, which was never really cultivated as only the athletes made the travel team. But again at 9, as I know from teaching 4th grade which is what grade most of my kids will be in, there is only so much basketball talent. So a majority of the kids I take will likely be athletes who I am hoping I can shape into basketball players. I admit that I will have a definite bias for soccer players, as I believe footwork and movement is an essential part of basketball, and while this is covered in young soccer leagues, it is often ignored with young basketball players. With only 18, or less, players I can do more basketball drills than I could with 25 kids as there will be less standing around waiting since there are fewer kids who’d need to take a turn.
Besides the athletics, I will say that attitude is a huge deal. As a teacher I know I’ve helped kids mature and grow. However, the kids really deserve the credit since they had reached a point where they were ready for what I had to offer and might have grown and matured just as much with another teacher. In other words, unlike many a woman in a relationship, I am not foolish enough to believe I can change these kids through my miraculous coaching. If a kid doesn’t pay attention, and doesn’t seem to have a willingness to try new things, he best be the 9 year old Michael Jordan, if he’s going to make the team. The willingness to try new things is important. At 9, I don’t really expect them to be able to dribble with both hands, for instance. But if I ask them to dribble with their left hand I’d rather see a kid botch that, than dribble with his right hand proficiently. I can teach them, especially at 9, how to use their other hand. But again they have to be ready.
Between now and Monday
First I am going to nail down my plan for day 1 of tryouts. With the tryouts there are three days and a kid has to show up to two of them to be considered. A fair amount of kids really do show up to just two, so I can’t hold that against them. But it also makes trying to see a variety of things harder as I can’t teach a drill on Day 1 and assume on Day 2 every kid will know the drill. Anyhow, so I will likely post my try-out plan here sometime before Sunday.
The other thing I am going to try and do is get an assistant coach. I want to have an assistant both because I like being able to bounce ideas off of someone and because it makes life easier having a second pair of eyes and ears. The salary for the position is not large, but really I’m not doing it for the money. I do think of myself as a professional, as noted above. The money is such a small amount compared to what I expect to make hour, that the money is more important for the professionalism it infers than the actual amount. As such I have no qualms about giving some of it to another person. Plan A is to send notices to a local liberal arts college job center and education and athletic departments and see if I can find an assistant that way. I have no idea if this’ll be successful. Plan B allows me to keep the money but still get an assistant. I know many high school students through my various work and would simply try and get one who I know knows basketball to agree to be the assistant. The disadvantages of this are clear, which is why it is Plan B. While tryouts are next week, practices don’t really start until the end of October so there is not a huge rush on this front.
And that’s where I’m at. Comments, suggestions, criticisms, about basketball are always welcome. I also hope you find this an enjoyable read and if there is something I can do to make it more interesting for you as a reader please let me know.
This is going to be a dynasty of my experiences as a travel basketball coach for a 9 year old boys travel team. I completed, over the spring/summer, a dynasty detailing my days as a little league baseball coach. I found it helpful for me as a coach, and several people said that they enjoyed reading it. Due to my schedule I anticipate that this will be shorter than that, but once I start writing, I write, so who knows.
Finding a position
As I mentioned a couple of times in my Little League write-ups I am, at heart, a basketball coach. Well really, at heart, I’m a guy who enjoys working with youth. But when it comes to sports I am a basketball guy. I realized that I had been having too much fun coaching little league and so it was time to step up and try and find a basketball coaching position. I had done some coaching in a semi-competitive high school intramural league. Practices were once a week and games were once a week. Depending on how you look at it, I either do so well, or so poorly, that last year I was co-commissioner of the league. While I was well received as a co-commissioner, and will likely be getting a phone call in a month offering me the position again, I really I missed coaching and decided that I needed to coach a basketball team again.
I knew, from the start, two things, well I guess really three things. First I didn’t want to coach a house league team. I really believe in the idea of personal growth and development that you see in a house league. However, I wanted the more serious atmosphere of a travel team. I have a standing offer from a couple different teams in the league that I could be a coach for them if I wanted, but this sort of somewhat relaxed atmosphere wasn’t really wasn’t what I was looking for. This dovetailed nicely with my second point, which is that I wished to be paid. Baseball is a lot of hours, and I’m happy to give it, but I felt I needed some kind of compensation if I was going to do basketball, which has a longer season. My third thing was that I did not wish to get a position for the Park District in the city where I live. I basically want to keep the baseball and basketball coaching parts of me separate. In baseball I’m a volunteer. In basketball I am a paid coach. This decision, which actually came first, also dictated the travel part, to a large extent, as my city is the only one nearby, that I could find, which pays coaches in its house league.
So knowing I wanted a paid coaching job, I started searching out positions. I looked at middle schools and park districts, primarily. There are several other basketball organizations in the area, but without an “in” there I was unlikely to get a position for one of them. After a lot of thinking I decided to only apply for one job. I figured I would either get the job, and be happy, or not get the job, and spend the time on my teaching/relaxation and coach a team in the league that I had been a part of for a few years.
I applied for a job in a neighboring suburb. This suburb is smaller than the one I live in, but I also taught in the district for a year and have a good grasp of the community. I thought it would be a good fit that way, and also has the advantage that the gym they use to practice is nearly as close as the gym in my own suburb.
The Interview
A couple weeks after sending in my resume I got a call for an interview. It was shortly after the position had closed. With my background, I’d have been surprised if I didn’t get at least an interview. I setup the interview. I thought the interview went well, though afterwards I regretted that I didn’t show enough of my basketball knowledge. The one question where I think I could have shown that, “Describe to me a practice”, I ended up talking more about how you have to be flexible with the talent you work with, varying up the practice so you’re not doing the same thing for too long (and also so you reinforce skills in a different way than you might initially teach them so you give kids multiple opportunities to understand the concept), and doing drills which either allow full participation of having kids “shadow” the ones participating so that there isn’t a lot of sitting. I think it was a solid answer, but I later regretted having taken that approach rather than really showing my basketball knowledge. But I felt like besides not really showing my basketball knowledge, the interview went well. It also helped, I felt, that I supplied a couple of references of parents of kids I had coached.
At the interview, the coordinator indicated that they expected an answer by late in the week of August 28 or early this week. When I hadn’t heard from them yesterday I had pretty much decided I hadn’t gotten the position. It was something I really had coveted and I was, I admit, disappointed. However, with so much going on with the start of school, I didn’t let my disappointment bother me too much and focused my energies elsewhere.
So when I got a phone call today right as school was ended, after having been nervous every time my phone range on Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday, I figured it was my mom and sent it right to voice mail as I was in the middle of doing something. Of course it turned out to be the Park District Person offering me the job.
Tryouts
I have to admit the whole tryout thing is what has me more nervous than anything. Not only is it immediate, tryouts are next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I have never conducted tryouts before. I have been told to expect between 12 and 18 kids with the goal of selecting a team of between 10 and 12. 18 kids is a pretty small number, considering I teach a class of 21, so that part is good. I am reading up on tryouts and have begun to put a plan together, though it’s rather rough at this point.
Basically with 9 year olds this will be the first serious basketball they will have played. As such selecting good athletes seems to be important. However, I philosophically believe that too often teams look for athletes rather than basketball players. This could come out of my own experiences as a youth, where I was not an athlete but I had basketball talent, not the least of which was pure size, which was never really cultivated as only the athletes made the travel team. But again at 9, as I know from teaching 4th grade which is what grade most of my kids will be in, there is only so much basketball talent. So a majority of the kids I take will likely be athletes who I am hoping I can shape into basketball players. I admit that I will have a definite bias for soccer players, as I believe footwork and movement is an essential part of basketball, and while this is covered in young soccer leagues, it is often ignored with young basketball players. With only 18, or less, players I can do more basketball drills than I could with 25 kids as there will be less standing around waiting since there are fewer kids who’d need to take a turn.
Besides the athletics, I will say that attitude is a huge deal. As a teacher I know I’ve helped kids mature and grow. However, the kids really deserve the credit since they had reached a point where they were ready for what I had to offer and might have grown and matured just as much with another teacher. In other words, unlike many a woman in a relationship, I am not foolish enough to believe I can change these kids through my miraculous coaching. If a kid doesn’t pay attention, and doesn’t seem to have a willingness to try new things, he best be the 9 year old Michael Jordan, if he’s going to make the team. The willingness to try new things is important. At 9, I don’t really expect them to be able to dribble with both hands, for instance. But if I ask them to dribble with their left hand I’d rather see a kid botch that, than dribble with his right hand proficiently. I can teach them, especially at 9, how to use their other hand. But again they have to be ready.
Between now and Monday
First I am going to nail down my plan for day 1 of tryouts. With the tryouts there are three days and a kid has to show up to two of them to be considered. A fair amount of kids really do show up to just two, so I can’t hold that against them. But it also makes trying to see a variety of things harder as I can’t teach a drill on Day 1 and assume on Day 2 every kid will know the drill. Anyhow, so I will likely post my try-out plan here sometime before Sunday.
The other thing I am going to try and do is get an assistant coach. I want to have an assistant both because I like being able to bounce ideas off of someone and because it makes life easier having a second pair of eyes and ears. The salary for the position is not large, but really I’m not doing it for the money. I do think of myself as a professional, as noted above. The money is such a small amount compared to what I expect to make hour, that the money is more important for the professionalism it infers than the actual amount. As such I have no qualms about giving some of it to another person. Plan A is to send notices to a local liberal arts college job center and education and athletic departments and see if I can find an assistant that way. I have no idea if this’ll be successful. Plan B allows me to keep the money but still get an assistant. I know many high school students through my various work and would simply try and get one who I know knows basketball to agree to be the assistant. The disadvantages of this are clear, which is why it is Plan B. While tryouts are next week, practices don’t really start until the end of October so there is not a huge rush on this front.
And that’s where I’m at. Comments, suggestions, criticisms, about basketball are always welcome. I also hope you find this an enjoyable read and if there is something I can do to make it more interesting for you as a reader please let me know.
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