Well we had the last HP clinic yesterday. For the kids who came to a couple of them, Adam, Ben, Jon (and let me just note that I think I can already tell them apart which is good), Danny, Zack, Henry and Gavin, I have a fairly decent idea of what to expect. That just leaves the Jacks, Jacob, and Josh. Overall it was similar to the other ones in that a lot of time was spent on defensive footwork at the start. There was then a lot of time spent on doing a 3 man weave and 3 on 2, 2 on 1. The most important thing that I learned here is that Joey, from the HP 5A, is a really good kid in addition to being a really good basketball player. I also learned that a couple of the kids on the 4B team are, well, not the brightest bulbs in the box. For station work I was stuck doing passing and did some work on bounce, chest, and overhead passes. I did emphasize the idea of jump stopping towards the ball for chest and overhead passes, something I failed to really do in the long run last year and which was exposed as a weakness when we had our drubbing against the WK 4A team. I hope to not repeat that mistake with either of my teams this year. Overall nothing too exciting.
A few thoughts on the players: Henry was much more impressive this week. In fact, I had to talk to him about taking something off his passes so that they could be caught. Seems like he was just having an off day last week. Ben and Jon are perhaps the most fundamentally sound players on the team. They’re also going to be leaders and are going to be kids who I can use in the post, despite not having the typical post player size. At the end of the clinics they ran sprints. I could tell Danny was holding back and asked if he was. He confirmed that he was and I commented that there was nothing wrong with finishing first. So next time he sprinted, he finished first, even beating out some fast 5th graders. He had a big smile when I congratulated him on his feat. Brian (my PD boss and 5A opponent) told me that Adam wouldn’t say two words the whole season. That seems about right. He’s still the early favorite to be our starting point guard. Gavin wasn’t present at this clinic. But I did get an email from his dad telling me that he won’t be able to attend Thursday practices when they start. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
I’m still excited to get started with an actual practice next week. We’re going to follow, for at least the first four practices, roughly what I did last year at GL. I think those were good introductions to the fundamentals I stress (things like pivots) which weren’t necessarily stressed at the preseason clinics. Only bad thing is that I already know that we’re only going to have 8 players, since the twins and Danny both can’t make it. Should be fun.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Readers Respond about Jack M
Izulde writes
path adds on
Jack really surprised me last year. Entering our first game I'd have said he was the 8th or 9th best player on the team. He proved me wrong last year about his talent and I hope that he proves me wrong about his attitude this year. Though I will admit, that heading into practices, depending on how I shake out the team in terms of positions, he could be battling again for his guard spot.
I'm really glad you went with Jack M. I liked him over Dante and Noah from your initial descriptions though after I saw someone post in the thread on FOFC that athleticism bursts can happen at that age, I was also reminded of one of the goalies on the U-14 team I coached. Very tall but very awkward and unsure of herself at the start of the season. By the end of the year, she was our top goalie and showed some serious potential.
So I'm glad you took Dante too.
I really have this hunch that Jack M will surprise you.
path adds on
I hope so because I also really like BK's description of him. I worry about Jack M's morale though.
Jack really surprised me last year. Entering our first game I'd have said he was the 8th or 9th best player on the team. He proved me wrong last year about his talent and I hope that he proves me wrong about his attitude this year. Though I will admit, that heading into practices, depending on how I shake out the team in terms of positions, he could be battling again for his guard spot.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
HP Clinic 2
Had another HP clinic today. Attendance was pretty poor overall. Clinics, by their very nature, are focused on fundamentals, which I think is great. However, fundamentals also happen to be the thing I need to work on the most before I coach it. I don’t know what is going to be taught at any given clinic which limits my ability to really do my best. Fortunately I was able to coach rebounding today at my station which is good because I know how to rebound.
With attendance being so poor I didn’t get to see a lot of my team. However, I can tell you that Ben and Jon, my twins, are going to be kids I really like. I also know that Henry, who is the shortest or second shortest kid on the team, doesn’t deserve to be there. Henry has an older sibling, however, who plays well and I think they put him on the team because of that. Another coach also indicated that she had attitude problems from him. Nothing better than the untalented kid with attitude.
Overall though it was a nice clinic, but I’ll be excited when in two weeks I get to start practicing with my team rather than having someone else dictate what I’m doing.
With attendance being so poor I didn’t get to see a lot of my team. However, I can tell you that Ben and Jon, my twins, are going to be kids I really like. I also know that Henry, who is the shortest or second shortest kid on the team, doesn’t deserve to be there. Henry has an older sibling, however, who plays well and I think they put him on the team because of that. Another coach also indicated that she had attitude problems from him. Nothing better than the untalented kid with attitude.
Overall though it was a nice clinic, but I’ll be excited when in two weeks I get to start practicing with my team rather than having someone else dictate what I’m doing.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
GL Tryouts Night 3: We Have a Team
Well it was the night to really see who had what. As I started tryouts, promptly at 8:15, all were there except Dante. We immediately kicked off into our 5 on 5 games. First with the fair teams. Andrew showed that he indeed deserved to make the team, as did Cameron. Jon also felt strongly positive about Dante. Tom, by virtue of his have shown up, made the team. Even better is that during one of the second set of games, Tom actually took a shot. He air balled it, but I was just so happy he actually shot the ball, as he’d become loath to do that by the end of last season.
The initial 5 on 5 was nice, but far more instructive were the uneven 5 on 5 teams. The second team made up of Brian, Cameron, Dante, Jack P, and Tom showed that they could run, at least for a bit, with a team of Andrew, David, Justin, Lucas, and Scott. At one point during the game Justin got the ball at the 3 point line, Dante was sticking back giving him space (as he’d been told to do last season by me). Justin decided to take the shot. It was gorgeous and a perfect swoosh. There were murmurs of approval. There was then a great moment (at least from my perspective) when I said, “We don’t settle for that shot after 1 pass”. The murmurs went away.
More interesting was the way Team 3 played. This had 3 players on the very close bubble: Jack M, Jake, and Noah. Noah and Jack M stood out above the others. In fact perhaps the sweetest play of the night was a pass Jack made to Noah cutting through the lane which resulted in Noah making an easy lay-up. Basically those two were competing for the last slot. Each team plays two games, with it being 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th followed by 2nd vs 4th and 1st vs 3rd.
I then sent them off for a water break and conferred with Jon. He reiterated his support for Cameron and Dante, which I both agreed with. Cameron in particular won me over with his speed on defense. I conferred with people online and with Jon in person and with all of them pushing Dante, and Dante doing much better than Jake, inside (though Jake is likely a better shooter) that suggestion was given and accepted. In the end Jon didn’t seem to have any feel for Jack, but felt that Noah would play well and admitted that he liked the family and that was likely coloring his view. I agreed Noah had a great family. However, by the end of the water break I felt that Jack was the better player and I had made the tough decision in my head.
I gathered everyone around and talked about how now was the time to be supportive of friends who didn’t make the team. How, if you made the team you needed to be committed otherwise you were stealing a place from someone else who could have been a good member of the team. I also reviewed what would happen. I would give them the note card, talk about the strengths and areas they could improve and they could either stay or go at that point.
When this was all said and done, Emily, my boss at the Park District, came into the gym upset with me for having done this. I didn’t back down, and raised the points that everyone found out equally, I told players they could walk outside the gym after they found if they wanted (and explicitly sat by the door, for just this purpose. Overall, I hope I did the right thing by these kids by giving some immediate feedback, but I don’t know. I do know I was respectful to and upbeat about every kid who didn’t make the team. Hopefully that means something, but having to confront ones peers, as they choose to do, couldn’t have been easy. It won’t be an option again for the future, which in some ways is nice, as it takes my unease out of the equation.
Notable Cuts
Kevin – My first cut. He took it really well and set the precedent of staying in the gym. I wished he had gone out and not been able to handle, seemingly, the news so well.
Noah – He could barely hold it together when I told him that he hadn’t made the team. I told him I really did think he had improved tremendously and if he kept working hard and improving that he’d stand a real good chance for next year. I specifically suggested that he play a bunch with his brother so he can play against someone bigger and work on that. I really like Noah, despite my aggravation over his lack of focus at practice. If the final decision had been between Noah and someone who hadn’t been on the team last year, I’d have given the nod to Noah. I really hope he works hard this coming year.
Daniel – This kid did something which surprised me each night at tryouts. He kept hanging on barely and was a surprisingly tough cut. I think in most years he’d have made a GL team. A real nice kid.
Godie – The other player from last year besides Noah to get cut. I think he knew it was coming. Wasn’t a whole lot to it. He’d really have to work hard and improve a bunch just catch up to where players were this year, let alone where they’ll be in a year.
Meet the Team
So while I still feel upset and confused about the cuts, I feel an equal amount of excitement over this year’s team. I think this team is better than HP’s 6B team, and in fact I am going to try and arrange a scrimmage early on just to prove that very point. I think we are, top to bottom, a better team than last year.
Me - Hopefully I’ll be able to be a good enough coach for the talent assembled. My friend Jeff asked me if the key to being a good team was coaching throughout the season or picking the right players at the start. I said I didn’t know. If it’s the latter I think I did a good job. If it’s the former, only time will tell. I will say that I am in a much better place professionally and given my recent success at work, and coaching last year’s basketball and baseball teams I don’t lack for confidence right now. At the same time I worked REALLY hard on preparing for tryouts which I’m pleased about. Confidence and hard work are good things, I would hope, to be in a coach.
Andrew – As I mentioned I started with Kevin, which was done semi randomly, and then went down the list alphabetically telling each player. For some reason, on impulse, when I got to Andrew I asked him what he saw as his strengths and weaknesses. He identified something which I don’t remember and shooting as his strengths. He identified rebounding as a weakness. I think I perhaps did this to get a sense of his personality as he was pretty quiet overall. Anyhow, after I did this and told him he’d made the team (I immediately told all the people who didn’t make it, as I just felt that was right) he let out the biggest sigh of relief. I’ll be interested to see how he fits into the team dynamic but I think I’m going to like him.
Brian – I haven’t really talked much about him, other than that he was a given. He’s a great shooter. His ball handling skills aren’t as great as I would like and he does make passes which get intercepted. The biggest deal is that he had a rough bout of injuries a year ago. Coming into last year’s tryouts he had just gotten a cast off after 4 weeks after breaking his ankle at camp. A week after practices started he broke his other ankle. I don’t think he’d full recovered by March. However, at this years tryouts he was quick, as he was at least years tryouts. Hopefully he’ll stay injury free this season. He is a rather large hot head and can really go off on himself, and others, though more often on himself (or at me because of himself). So there’s that whole side. But he’s also a kid who, if he likes them, will go out of his way for others. I wasn’t surprised he would talk up another player after Night 1, not to tell me how to do my job, but because he was worried that the kid had had a bad tryout. He is just thoughtful, being the only player on the team, for instance, to ask me when my birthday was. On his note card, I had listed two areas for improvement. I told him the first was based completely on last year and that was playing team basketball and that he hadn’t done anything to the contrary during tryouts. Of course that was also true last year which is why I put it on the card anyway. I also talked with him on his tendency to try and play defense in a way that allows him to steal passes, at the risk of leaving his man open. When we did the triangle passing drill on Day 1, I noticed him doing this, just as he had last year. The nice thing about Brian is that I this year I start with a huge amount of built up trust with him. I know on multiple occasions he’s said, when I’m not around, that I’m awesome and his best coach ever. This has, and will, make dealing with him easier than it would have been otherwise.
Cameron – Before I talk about Cameron now, let me post what I said about him last year during tryouts
Well that’s certainly not true any longer. Cameron has tremendous speed. He is, I believe, after Jack P and David our fastest player. Jon pointed out that you can’t teach speed like that and I had to agree. When it was time for Cameron to come up, I told him how glad I was to have seen him on the first day of tryouts cause he was the last player I cut last year. I told him that he’d improved tremendously and congratulations on making the team. My impression is that he’s more of a me first player right now rather than a team player. I am hopeful, and optimistic, that the general team ethos we have will rub off on him.
Dante – First I should say that when I was debating about whether or not to take Dante, I wasn’t fair to him. Of the three areas I was evaluating (athleticism, basketball skill, and attitude) I focused entirely on his short coming, athletic ability, rather than on his tremendous strength of attitude. I’m real glad several people focused on that and pointed it out to me. I mean the kid practically hugged me when I told him he made the team. I commented to him how his post play had really improved and he said he’d gone to a camp for that. I’ll have to ask him what camp that was since it did him a lot of good as he was a bit of a weak player inside last season and I gave him the Dirk Nowitzki award to recognize the fact that he had a pretty good mid-range shot. I told him that the big thing this season was going to be his speed. I wasn’t worried about it on offense, but was concerned about it on defense. He took this area to work on the best of anyone in that you could tell he genuinely wanted to improve on it. I told him he’d have to work hard to earn his minutes and he seemed excited by the challenge.
David – David should be the best player on the team. David should be the best player on either team in many games. He’s fast, can use either hand to dribble penetrate. Guarding him in practice is always a pain. Best of all he’s not selfish in the least. He, more than me, deserves credit for the unselfish ball we played last year. With his example, my encouragement fell on receptive ears. I will say that this tryout format allowed me to do something that I’m not sure I could have ever done otherwise and that is for me to tell David honestly how much I respect not only his basketball ability but also how he works hard to be better. I had never told him that last year. I had done so in other ways, and I think he knew that I knew how special he was but I felt it was important for me to vocalize it to him. His areas for improvement was that he needed to show more often that he was having fun playing basketball and to not feel the weight of the team on his shoulders. I told him how he knows that I don’t run the offense through one person and that already I could see people who had stepped up after he quit starting to defer to him (Lucas and Scott were both guilty of this) and that it didn’t have to be that way, so he could relax and just do his best. Finally, I told him that I was going to ask a lot from his defensively. I said that I was going to have to ask him to guard big guys this year as we have a bunch of people who can guard guards but fewer who can guard inside guys. He nodded his head in understanding. As our talk ended I commented how I was glad he’d come out as I’d heard a rumor that he was trying out for the JCC team and he chuckled in a way that told me that was not a serious consideration. That made me feel good.
Jack M – In the end Jack made the team because he’s short but he knows how to compensate for that as much as possible and he sees the court well. He is also surprisingly good at penetrating going left or right which takes defenders by surprise. I was tough on Jack. I called him over and asked him why he deserved to make the team. He talked about his ball handling and passing. I agreed with both of those areas. I asked him why maybe he wouldn’t make the team. He couldn’t come up with anything. I gave him a moment to think and he still couldn’t come up with anything. So I told him that he was one of the 10 most skilled players out there, but that I was concerned about what things would be like for him this season. How I was concerned that being a gamer the losing would bother him. I told him how he’d really stepped up for us last year when David left the team, but that there is a lot more talent on the team this year and he’d have to earn every minute he played. By this time he was incredibly choked up. I then told him he had made the team. He kind of spit out “I thought I wasn’t going to.” As I’ll talk about when I get to Tom, I didn’t really weigh the three factors equally, but I am glad to know that as a coach, I have enough credibility in Jack’s eye that even though I told him he was one of the 10 most skilled players that I would leave him off the team because of the other factors. I ended with Jack saying that I really had confidence that he’s older and more mature now and so I have confidence that he could handle these issues. I then repeated myself, not for effect, but more out of nervousness. Conciseness would have been better in this situation so it was unfortunate that I didn’t deliver this last point more effectively.
Jack P – It is little known but September 19th besides being International Talk Like a Pirate Day is also “Give Jack a hard time at tryouts” or at least it was in GL. Unlike with Jack M, I told Jack P right off the bat that he’d made the team. I then told him that I’d considered not taking him after Night 2’s tryout. I then explained to him how it was ridiculous for me to even think about that. I told him how his speed and defense were too good to not have on the team, but that he was the lowest percentage shooter last season. And how missed shots drive me nuts. I will be explaining to everyone later how a missed shot is, in my eyes at least, the same as a turnover since we are giving up the ball every time we miss a shot. I told him that this season he was going to either have to improve his shooting percentage or we’d have to find other ways for him to contribute on offense. Jack just shook his head that he understood, but Jack is always a bit of sphinx when I talk seriously with him and so I’m not sure what was going on inside his head. I really wish if I knew it was “Coach is wrong and I’m going to show him” or “Coach is wrong and is an idiot” or “Ok I’ll have to do better” or “I’m awful”. I just don’t know. I do know that Jack was new to GL last school year and he had been a leader in Massachusetts so he’s got some good qualities there, even if he doesn’t yet have a firm place in the social structure here yet.
Justin – Poor Justin was the last kid to go. He actually talked some tonight and I think I’m going to really like him and will be a kid who I’m going to have to shield to some extent from his father. I told him how impressed I was with his shooting ability and that the 3 point shot he did was a beautiful shot. The admiration in my voice was clear. However, I also told him that he could ask people on the team about how I have sat people who have shot beautiful shots like that without working the ball. I also told him that I put on his note card as an area for improvement “It sometimes seems like you’re half a second behind what is happening” but that I wasn’t sure that was true at all. I said that I had detected something in his playing which bothered me but couldn’t place my finger on it yet but that we had a full season to figure it out. I also told him how I was real happy he came out for the team this year as I’d noticed how good he was when we played against him last year. Justin is going to be an incredible tool for us to have on offense. If he, Brian, and David can give us some credibility on the outside, causing other teams to guard us closely there, in particular Justin drawing out the big man, or forcing a team to go to zone, I think we can then use our speed to take advantage of them. The possibilities of Justin excite me.
Lucas – Lucas is a great kid. Where as last season I forced him to play post, he has grown more up than out and I’m not sure he’ll have the bulk to do that this season. I also know that we’re doing a much more sophisticated defense this year and that Lucas is going to struggle with that at first. Not a whole lot to say here as he was an easy pick as he just has a lot of good qualities, but nothing as outstanding (or negative) as some of the others. I had a real hard time, in fact, coming up with an area to work on and ended up putting “Being more of a leader on the floor” as he’s a real quiet kid but one everyone likes. He was, based on his name, the first kid to make the team. I’ll also point out that his father just LOVES me and his mother likes me a lot too. It’s nice having a couple of parents so firmly in your corner.
Scott – Scott told me he played guard a whole bunch at camp over the summer and kind of enjoyed it. I’m sure he did. I’m glad he’s willing to do that. I hope he’s still a scrappy kid as we need kids who can guard big kids. Sadly, like Lucas, he’s grown more up than out, and I don’t know if he’s big enough to play the post anymore. I hope he is though since he’s a tough defender, probably the best on the team after David. The neat thing about Scott right now is that he really doesn’t know just how good he is which makes him so absolutely enjoyable to coach since he’s got so much potential but works so hard.
Tom – Noah was probably a better basketball player during tryouts than Tom. However as I’ve said from the beginning Tom could make the team on attitude alone as long as he showed me SOMETHING. When talking about how I was looking for athleticism, basketball skills, and attitude, I talked extensively about attitude and didn’t really explain athleticism. Yet, when compiling the team I only really considered attitude as a secondary factor. It was ALMOST enough to keep Cameron and Jack off the team but in the end their talent won out. Noah was a mixed picture but overall positive in the attitude category and he didn’t make the team in favor of athleticism and skills. I’d like to think if we didn’t have so much talent I would follow my own dictum better, and in fact advocated that very position to Jon during his 4th grade tryouts for a couple of players. I don’t like it when my rhetoric and actions don’t match up so I will have to really rethink about this in the future, but for now it is simply a disappointment with myself. I think I would be less disappointed with myself if I’d considered this more in the case of Dante. I did think about it in Lucas’s case but he was a nearly automatic player so that doesn’t really count for anything. All that is a long way of saying, I think the world of Tom and he is the only evidence of my not having been completely hallow in what I said. I was quite concerned, as he’s a bit of a perfectionist, that he’d cut himself after he had a poor showing on Day 1. When I talked with Tom, I told him that while his shooting accuracy might not be there he had beautiful form and we’d work on his shooting this season together.
So that’s the team. I really do think they’re more talented than HP’s 6B team and if that’s true we’ve got a real chance of being better than the .500 team I thought we’d be. That said, practices don’t start for a month so in the meantime we’ll be focusing on HP which is meeting weekly.
The initial 5 on 5 was nice, but far more instructive were the uneven 5 on 5 teams. The second team made up of Brian, Cameron, Dante, Jack P, and Tom showed that they could run, at least for a bit, with a team of Andrew, David, Justin, Lucas, and Scott. At one point during the game Justin got the ball at the 3 point line, Dante was sticking back giving him space (as he’d been told to do last season by me). Justin decided to take the shot. It was gorgeous and a perfect swoosh. There were murmurs of approval. There was then a great moment (at least from my perspective) when I said, “We don’t settle for that shot after 1 pass”. The murmurs went away.
More interesting was the way Team 3 played. This had 3 players on the very close bubble: Jack M, Jake, and Noah. Noah and Jack M stood out above the others. In fact perhaps the sweetest play of the night was a pass Jack made to Noah cutting through the lane which resulted in Noah making an easy lay-up. Basically those two were competing for the last slot. Each team plays two games, with it being 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th followed by 2nd vs 4th and 1st vs 3rd.
I then sent them off for a water break and conferred with Jon. He reiterated his support for Cameron and Dante, which I both agreed with. Cameron in particular won me over with his speed on defense. I conferred with people online and with Jon in person and with all of them pushing Dante, and Dante doing much better than Jake, inside (though Jake is likely a better shooter) that suggestion was given and accepted. In the end Jon didn’t seem to have any feel for Jack, but felt that Noah would play well and admitted that he liked the family and that was likely coloring his view. I agreed Noah had a great family. However, by the end of the water break I felt that Jack was the better player and I had made the tough decision in my head.
I gathered everyone around and talked about how now was the time to be supportive of friends who didn’t make the team. How, if you made the team you needed to be committed otherwise you were stealing a place from someone else who could have been a good member of the team. I also reviewed what would happen. I would give them the note card, talk about the strengths and areas they could improve and they could either stay or go at that point.
When this was all said and done, Emily, my boss at the Park District, came into the gym upset with me for having done this. I didn’t back down, and raised the points that everyone found out equally, I told players they could walk outside the gym after they found if they wanted (and explicitly sat by the door, for just this purpose. Overall, I hope I did the right thing by these kids by giving some immediate feedback, but I don’t know. I do know I was respectful to and upbeat about every kid who didn’t make the team. Hopefully that means something, but having to confront ones peers, as they choose to do, couldn’t have been easy. It won’t be an option again for the future, which in some ways is nice, as it takes my unease out of the equation.
Notable Cuts
Kevin – My first cut. He took it really well and set the precedent of staying in the gym. I wished he had gone out and not been able to handle, seemingly, the news so well.
Noah – He could barely hold it together when I told him that he hadn’t made the team. I told him I really did think he had improved tremendously and if he kept working hard and improving that he’d stand a real good chance for next year. I specifically suggested that he play a bunch with his brother so he can play against someone bigger and work on that. I really like Noah, despite my aggravation over his lack of focus at practice. If the final decision had been between Noah and someone who hadn’t been on the team last year, I’d have given the nod to Noah. I really hope he works hard this coming year.
Daniel – This kid did something which surprised me each night at tryouts. He kept hanging on barely and was a surprisingly tough cut. I think in most years he’d have made a GL team. A real nice kid.
Godie – The other player from last year besides Noah to get cut. I think he knew it was coming. Wasn’t a whole lot to it. He’d really have to work hard and improve a bunch just catch up to where players were this year, let alone where they’ll be in a year.
Meet the Team
So while I still feel upset and confused about the cuts, I feel an equal amount of excitement over this year’s team. I think this team is better than HP’s 6B team, and in fact I am going to try and arrange a scrimmage early on just to prove that very point. I think we are, top to bottom, a better team than last year.
Me - Hopefully I’ll be able to be a good enough coach for the talent assembled. My friend Jeff asked me if the key to being a good team was coaching throughout the season or picking the right players at the start. I said I didn’t know. If it’s the latter I think I did a good job. If it’s the former, only time will tell. I will say that I am in a much better place professionally and given my recent success at work, and coaching last year’s basketball and baseball teams I don’t lack for confidence right now. At the same time I worked REALLY hard on preparing for tryouts which I’m pleased about. Confidence and hard work are good things, I would hope, to be in a coach.
Andrew – As I mentioned I started with Kevin, which was done semi randomly, and then went down the list alphabetically telling each player. For some reason, on impulse, when I got to Andrew I asked him what he saw as his strengths and weaknesses. He identified something which I don’t remember and shooting as his strengths. He identified rebounding as a weakness. I think I perhaps did this to get a sense of his personality as he was pretty quiet overall. Anyhow, after I did this and told him he’d made the team (I immediately told all the people who didn’t make it, as I just felt that was right) he let out the biggest sigh of relief. I’ll be interested to see how he fits into the team dynamic but I think I’m going to like him.
Brian – I haven’t really talked much about him, other than that he was a given. He’s a great shooter. His ball handling skills aren’t as great as I would like and he does make passes which get intercepted. The biggest deal is that he had a rough bout of injuries a year ago. Coming into last year’s tryouts he had just gotten a cast off after 4 weeks after breaking his ankle at camp. A week after practices started he broke his other ankle. I don’t think he’d full recovered by March. However, at this years tryouts he was quick, as he was at least years tryouts. Hopefully he’ll stay injury free this season. He is a rather large hot head and can really go off on himself, and others, though more often on himself (or at me because of himself). So there’s that whole side. But he’s also a kid who, if he likes them, will go out of his way for others. I wasn’t surprised he would talk up another player after Night 1, not to tell me how to do my job, but because he was worried that the kid had had a bad tryout. He is just thoughtful, being the only player on the team, for instance, to ask me when my birthday was. On his note card, I had listed two areas for improvement. I told him the first was based completely on last year and that was playing team basketball and that he hadn’t done anything to the contrary during tryouts. Of course that was also true last year which is why I put it on the card anyway. I also talked with him on his tendency to try and play defense in a way that allows him to steal passes, at the risk of leaving his man open. When we did the triangle passing drill on Day 1, I noticed him doing this, just as he had last year. The nice thing about Brian is that I this year I start with a huge amount of built up trust with him. I know on multiple occasions he’s said, when I’m not around, that I’m awesome and his best coach ever. This has, and will, make dealing with him easier than it would have been otherwise.
Cameron – Before I talk about Cameron now, let me post what I said about him last year during tryouts
Cameron is a blob. He doesn’t do anything great, but he doesn’t do anything poorly either.
Well that’s certainly not true any longer. Cameron has tremendous speed. He is, I believe, after Jack P and David our fastest player. Jon pointed out that you can’t teach speed like that and I had to agree. When it was time for Cameron to come up, I told him how glad I was to have seen him on the first day of tryouts cause he was the last player I cut last year. I told him that he’d improved tremendously and congratulations on making the team. My impression is that he’s more of a me first player right now rather than a team player. I am hopeful, and optimistic, that the general team ethos we have will rub off on him.
Dante – First I should say that when I was debating about whether or not to take Dante, I wasn’t fair to him. Of the three areas I was evaluating (athleticism, basketball skill, and attitude) I focused entirely on his short coming, athletic ability, rather than on his tremendous strength of attitude. I’m real glad several people focused on that and pointed it out to me. I mean the kid practically hugged me when I told him he made the team. I commented to him how his post play had really improved and he said he’d gone to a camp for that. I’ll have to ask him what camp that was since it did him a lot of good as he was a bit of a weak player inside last season and I gave him the Dirk Nowitzki award to recognize the fact that he had a pretty good mid-range shot. I told him that the big thing this season was going to be his speed. I wasn’t worried about it on offense, but was concerned about it on defense. He took this area to work on the best of anyone in that you could tell he genuinely wanted to improve on it. I told him he’d have to work hard to earn his minutes and he seemed excited by the challenge.
David – David should be the best player on the team. David should be the best player on either team in many games. He’s fast, can use either hand to dribble penetrate. Guarding him in practice is always a pain. Best of all he’s not selfish in the least. He, more than me, deserves credit for the unselfish ball we played last year. With his example, my encouragement fell on receptive ears. I will say that this tryout format allowed me to do something that I’m not sure I could have ever done otherwise and that is for me to tell David honestly how much I respect not only his basketball ability but also how he works hard to be better. I had never told him that last year. I had done so in other ways, and I think he knew that I knew how special he was but I felt it was important for me to vocalize it to him. His areas for improvement was that he needed to show more often that he was having fun playing basketball and to not feel the weight of the team on his shoulders. I told him how he knows that I don’t run the offense through one person and that already I could see people who had stepped up after he quit starting to defer to him (Lucas and Scott were both guilty of this) and that it didn’t have to be that way, so he could relax and just do his best. Finally, I told him that I was going to ask a lot from his defensively. I said that I was going to have to ask him to guard big guys this year as we have a bunch of people who can guard guards but fewer who can guard inside guys. He nodded his head in understanding. As our talk ended I commented how I was glad he’d come out as I’d heard a rumor that he was trying out for the JCC team and he chuckled in a way that told me that was not a serious consideration. That made me feel good.
Jack M – In the end Jack made the team because he’s short but he knows how to compensate for that as much as possible and he sees the court well. He is also surprisingly good at penetrating going left or right which takes defenders by surprise. I was tough on Jack. I called him over and asked him why he deserved to make the team. He talked about his ball handling and passing. I agreed with both of those areas. I asked him why maybe he wouldn’t make the team. He couldn’t come up with anything. I gave him a moment to think and he still couldn’t come up with anything. So I told him that he was one of the 10 most skilled players out there, but that I was concerned about what things would be like for him this season. How I was concerned that being a gamer the losing would bother him. I told him how he’d really stepped up for us last year when David left the team, but that there is a lot more talent on the team this year and he’d have to earn every minute he played. By this time he was incredibly choked up. I then told him he had made the team. He kind of spit out “I thought I wasn’t going to.” As I’ll talk about when I get to Tom, I didn’t really weigh the three factors equally, but I am glad to know that as a coach, I have enough credibility in Jack’s eye that even though I told him he was one of the 10 most skilled players that I would leave him off the team because of the other factors. I ended with Jack saying that I really had confidence that he’s older and more mature now and so I have confidence that he could handle these issues. I then repeated myself, not for effect, but more out of nervousness. Conciseness would have been better in this situation so it was unfortunate that I didn’t deliver this last point more effectively.
Jack P – It is little known but September 19th besides being International Talk Like a Pirate Day is also “Give Jack a hard time at tryouts” or at least it was in GL. Unlike with Jack M, I told Jack P right off the bat that he’d made the team. I then told him that I’d considered not taking him after Night 2’s tryout. I then explained to him how it was ridiculous for me to even think about that. I told him how his speed and defense were too good to not have on the team, but that he was the lowest percentage shooter last season. And how missed shots drive me nuts. I will be explaining to everyone later how a missed shot is, in my eyes at least, the same as a turnover since we are giving up the ball every time we miss a shot. I told him that this season he was going to either have to improve his shooting percentage or we’d have to find other ways for him to contribute on offense. Jack just shook his head that he understood, but Jack is always a bit of sphinx when I talk seriously with him and so I’m not sure what was going on inside his head. I really wish if I knew it was “Coach is wrong and I’m going to show him” or “Coach is wrong and is an idiot” or “Ok I’ll have to do better” or “I’m awful”. I just don’t know. I do know that Jack was new to GL last school year and he had been a leader in Massachusetts so he’s got some good qualities there, even if he doesn’t yet have a firm place in the social structure here yet.
Justin – Poor Justin was the last kid to go. He actually talked some tonight and I think I’m going to really like him and will be a kid who I’m going to have to shield to some extent from his father. I told him how impressed I was with his shooting ability and that the 3 point shot he did was a beautiful shot. The admiration in my voice was clear. However, I also told him that he could ask people on the team about how I have sat people who have shot beautiful shots like that without working the ball. I also told him that I put on his note card as an area for improvement “It sometimes seems like you’re half a second behind what is happening” but that I wasn’t sure that was true at all. I said that I had detected something in his playing which bothered me but couldn’t place my finger on it yet but that we had a full season to figure it out. I also told him how I was real happy he came out for the team this year as I’d noticed how good he was when we played against him last year. Justin is going to be an incredible tool for us to have on offense. If he, Brian, and David can give us some credibility on the outside, causing other teams to guard us closely there, in particular Justin drawing out the big man, or forcing a team to go to zone, I think we can then use our speed to take advantage of them. The possibilities of Justin excite me.
Lucas – Lucas is a great kid. Where as last season I forced him to play post, he has grown more up than out and I’m not sure he’ll have the bulk to do that this season. I also know that we’re doing a much more sophisticated defense this year and that Lucas is going to struggle with that at first. Not a whole lot to say here as he was an easy pick as he just has a lot of good qualities, but nothing as outstanding (or negative) as some of the others. I had a real hard time, in fact, coming up with an area to work on and ended up putting “Being more of a leader on the floor” as he’s a real quiet kid but one everyone likes. He was, based on his name, the first kid to make the team. I’ll also point out that his father just LOVES me and his mother likes me a lot too. It’s nice having a couple of parents so firmly in your corner.
Scott – Scott told me he played guard a whole bunch at camp over the summer and kind of enjoyed it. I’m sure he did. I’m glad he’s willing to do that. I hope he’s still a scrappy kid as we need kids who can guard big kids. Sadly, like Lucas, he’s grown more up than out, and I don’t know if he’s big enough to play the post anymore. I hope he is though since he’s a tough defender, probably the best on the team after David. The neat thing about Scott right now is that he really doesn’t know just how good he is which makes him so absolutely enjoyable to coach since he’s got so much potential but works so hard.
Tom – Noah was probably a better basketball player during tryouts than Tom. However as I’ve said from the beginning Tom could make the team on attitude alone as long as he showed me SOMETHING. When talking about how I was looking for athleticism, basketball skills, and attitude, I talked extensively about attitude and didn’t really explain athleticism. Yet, when compiling the team I only really considered attitude as a secondary factor. It was ALMOST enough to keep Cameron and Jack off the team but in the end their talent won out. Noah was a mixed picture but overall positive in the attitude category and he didn’t make the team in favor of athleticism and skills. I’d like to think if we didn’t have so much talent I would follow my own dictum better, and in fact advocated that very position to Jon during his 4th grade tryouts for a couple of players. I don’t like it when my rhetoric and actions don’t match up so I will have to really rethink about this in the future, but for now it is simply a disappointment with myself. I think I would be less disappointed with myself if I’d considered this more in the case of Dante. I did think about it in Lucas’s case but he was a nearly automatic player so that doesn’t really count for anything. All that is a long way of saying, I think the world of Tom and he is the only evidence of my not having been completely hallow in what I said. I was quite concerned, as he’s a bit of a perfectionist, that he’d cut himself after he had a poor showing on Day 1. When I talked with Tom, I told him that while his shooting accuracy might not be there he had beautiful form and we’d work on his shooting this season together.
So that’s the team. I really do think they’re more talented than HP’s 6B team and if that’s true we’ve got a real chance of being better than the .500 team I thought we’d be. That said, practices don’t start for a month so in the meantime we’ll be focusing on HP which is meeting weekly.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Tryouts Day 2
Tryouts
Before the tryouts began I called over each of my players individually from last year and sat down with them. I told them that I was talking to everyone from the team
last year and this didn’t mean they were going to make, or not make the team. I told them how we were going to move up to A. Could they handle losing more than last year? I also said that we’ll be having some new kids on the team. Could they handle a new role? Obviously all the kids were going to say yes to both of these points, However, it was a pointed I wanted to start making early, as while it won’t sink in yet, I’ve planted the seeds to hopefully prevent a possible problem later on.
I started off by having them recap the highlights of what I was looking for. Not surprisingly they did a great job. I then also talked a little more about how tonight will be working, in terms of calling over each player individually and telling them whether or not they made the team. Then we got started.
I started off with them first running a full suicide and then a half suicide. This gave me some good information about their speed, something I hadn’t paid attention to yesterday. Next I gave them 45 seconds to get in order by height. Much to my surprise they did it in 30 seconds. I thought for sure that this would give me an opportunity to make them run again, instead I lavished praise on them for their accomplishment. We then did Animal Rebounding, basically with groups by height, though I did cheat some (for instance I had Scott go with the tall group, instead of David). Overall, as I expected, my players from last year did better than others, as they were more used to the physical nature of the drill. After the big guys took too long to go to 5 points I cut it down to 3 and it moved much more quickly. Following this we did a 3 man weave down, 2 on 1 back, which went better than I expected, though I very dumbly wasn’t making notes as it was going on so I can’t give specifics about it. I really regret that. After that it was time for some 3 on 3, followed by full court lay-ups to end the night. In the full court layups instead of a minute I gave them 45 seconds and with the exception of Rodrigo (1), Kevin (5), and Colin (5), everyone got 6 or 7, about the same as they got last night in a minute. The bad part is that overall things went really well. In my end of practice speech I told them how genuinely impressed I was and how some of them are going to just have bad luck, in that they were born in a year with a lot of talent. I went home in a real funk because of how tough I knew my job was going to be.
The Players
Here’s where we’re at with the players. I am not really going to comment, for the most part, on guys who have made the team, preferring to save that for my “Meet the Team” post that’ll come later. Players are classified as on my try-out sheet tonight as either black (made the team), green (almost for sure made the team), yellow (on the fence), and red (cut).
Cameron – Cameron showed he had the skills, but not the decision making. He passed up shots he shouldn’t have passed up and took shots he shouldn’t have taken. He showed that his skills deserve to be on the team, we’ll see if his attitude follows. He’d be a green, if not black, except for my concerns there, instead he’s a yellow.
Tom – Was not present last night. I really hope that he’s there tonight as he’s a green. I do know he was frustrated with himself (as so often happens) after the first night. My fear is that he cut himself when both Jon (for his talent) and I (for his heart) had marked him as likely pick-ups. I almost called him to check that he was coming back (as he and Gordie were the only two to show up Night 1 but not Night 2), but we’ll see. I really hope he didn’t cut himself. Green
Scott – Black
Brian – Black
Jack P – Black
Rodrigo – Slowest kid out there, with no real discernable skills. Red.
David – Black
Jack M – Ahh Jack M. Jack M is probably the 7th or 8th best player there. However, the chemistry issue is what is holding him back. While he could certainly earn a higher place, he’s likely to have a greatly diminished role this coming year. Not to mention we’re going to lose more. Both of these things are going to be hard on him. Evidentially, Jack has a football game tonight and Jack’s mom wants him to go to that, while Jack (sensing that he’s on the border) wants to be at the tryout. I frankly hope he’s not there so I can have some extra time to think about him.
Andrew – He was a for sure yesterday. However, he did not do well in the 3 on 3 or in Animal Rebounding. He’s still a green, but I have concerns about him being a tryout kid rather than a gamer.
Daniel – Daniel, by many accounts, should be cut. Except he’s a great kid. Oh and he finished first in his (short) group for animal rebounding. That counts for something. Just barely a yellow.
Matthew – His dad and I talked a little before practice. The kid loves basketball. Except he’s short. Matthew commented to me how frustrating it was that players were taller than he was. I remarked back that we’re going to be a short team compared to others. Red.
Justin – Black
Jake – He’s weak inside. He’d be a post player if he made the team, so that’s a huge negative. That said he’s got pretty good ball handling skills and speed given his size. He needs to show me he can play inside tonight.
Noah – My second heart breaking kid. Noah has improved so much since last March. I asked him, as tryouts were ending, if he’d practiced a lot during the off season. He said he’d played every day at camp. It showed. However, he’s not likely to be one of the top 10 players. He is very coachable, in that if you ask him to work on something he’ll work on it. Not to mention how grateful he is for every moment of playing time. Then there is the fact that tonight, during tryouts, he decided to try and climb up a wall. If he makes the team I know I will be spending a lot of practice time in management of him. There are quite a few pluses and minuses for him in both ways. The true definition of a yellow.
Dante – My third heart breaking kid. Dante is such a great kid, and, to my surprise, he finished second in Animal Rebounding. That said he is painfully slow, second slowest after Rodrigo. What I need from him most of all, is defense. We’re going to be playing some big kids and we’ll need to shut them down. If Dante can’t do that, his offense is less important. If he can do that, the fact that he’d be slowing us down on offense could be forgiven. In all likelihood he and Jake are competing against each other for a slot.
Miles – Speaking of speed, Miles seems to be faster with the basketball than without. He’s got a great sense of humor. I think if I were teaching his class, he’d be one of my favorite students. But he’s short and despite the desire and love of the game the skills aren’t there. Red.
Kevin – Kevin is a potential post player, except his ball handling and aggressiveness aren’t anywhere close to where they’d need to be to make the team. Red.
Colin – Colin is a big ole nothing. His skills aren’t poor but nor are they great. He’s very quiet so I have no sense of his personality even. Red.
Gordie – Gordie, along with Tom, was 1 of 2 not to be back for the second day of tryouts. I simply can’t imagine his skills are going to surpass others I’ve been looking at. Red.
Lucas – Lucas came in and played exactly the way I’d hoped he would. Black.
Tonight
So by my count there are 6 players on the team. I have basically resigned myself to taking 11, so we have 8 players competing for 5 spots. With this football game going on I am guessing that we’ll have fewer players tonight, which is nice because it will give me some flexibility on the players who aren’t there. Hopefully my Yellow players will be there to make the cases for themselves.
The plan for tonight is to do some 5 on 5 games. The teams, for the first gaeme, tentatively, are:
Team 1: Andrew, Jack M, Kevin, Rodrigo, Scott
Team 2 Brian, Jake, Lucas, Matthew, Noah
Team 3 Daniel, Gordie, Jack P, Justin, Miles
Team 4 Cameron, Colin, Dante, David, Tom
These teams should have a mixture of kids who are making it, not making it, and on the fence, with a variety of positions. The second game will be with teams made up of
Team 1 Andrew, David, Justin, Lucas, Scott
Team 2 Brian, Cameron, Dante, Jack P, Tom
Team 3 Colin, Daniel, Jack M, Jake, Noah
Team 4 Gordie, Kevin, Matthew, Miles, Rodrigo
These teams are not balanced, but instead giving me more of a chance to see how they interact with each other. The goal is to play 1 game with each of these teams for 5 minutes each game. That should take a tad over 20 minutes. I’ll then run, depending on what I need to see, either Animal Rebounding, or doing Full Court Jump shots.
And then it will be time for the 1 on 1 conferences. Last night after tryouts I stayed up late creating a notecard for each of the 20 kids. They will receive a notecard which looks like this (with better formatting)
I will bring each kid over, thank him for trying out, tell him if he’s made the team or not and hand him his notecard. I’ve pre-written out strengths and weaknesses for each kid, but am also prepared to revise, as necessary, tonight. While this is going on, I will have a game of continuous knockout going on in the other side of the gym. After the kid gets his notecard he’ll have the option of either rejoining the game or going outside to wait to be picked up. I have heard from someone who has done this before that a surprising amount of kids who get cut will want to stay. When I write next I should have a basketball team.
Before the tryouts began I called over each of my players individually from last year and sat down with them. I told them that I was talking to everyone from the team
last year and this didn’t mean they were going to make, or not make the team. I told them how we were going to move up to A. Could they handle losing more than last year? I also said that we’ll be having some new kids on the team. Could they handle a new role? Obviously all the kids were going to say yes to both of these points, However, it was a pointed I wanted to start making early, as while it won’t sink in yet, I’ve planted the seeds to hopefully prevent a possible problem later on.
I started off by having them recap the highlights of what I was looking for. Not surprisingly they did a great job. I then also talked a little more about how tonight will be working, in terms of calling over each player individually and telling them whether or not they made the team. Then we got started.
I started off with them first running a full suicide and then a half suicide. This gave me some good information about their speed, something I hadn’t paid attention to yesterday. Next I gave them 45 seconds to get in order by height. Much to my surprise they did it in 30 seconds. I thought for sure that this would give me an opportunity to make them run again, instead I lavished praise on them for their accomplishment. We then did Animal Rebounding, basically with groups by height, though I did cheat some (for instance I had Scott go with the tall group, instead of David). Overall, as I expected, my players from last year did better than others, as they were more used to the physical nature of the drill. After the big guys took too long to go to 5 points I cut it down to 3 and it moved much more quickly. Following this we did a 3 man weave down, 2 on 1 back, which went better than I expected, though I very dumbly wasn’t making notes as it was going on so I can’t give specifics about it. I really regret that. After that it was time for some 3 on 3, followed by full court lay-ups to end the night. In the full court layups instead of a minute I gave them 45 seconds and with the exception of Rodrigo (1), Kevin (5), and Colin (5), everyone got 6 or 7, about the same as they got last night in a minute. The bad part is that overall things went really well. In my end of practice speech I told them how genuinely impressed I was and how some of them are going to just have bad luck, in that they were born in a year with a lot of talent. I went home in a real funk because of how tough I knew my job was going to be.
The Players
Here’s where we’re at with the players. I am not really going to comment, for the most part, on guys who have made the team, preferring to save that for my “Meet the Team” post that’ll come later. Players are classified as on my try-out sheet tonight as either black (made the team), green (almost for sure made the team), yellow (on the fence), and red (cut).
Cameron – Cameron showed he had the skills, but not the decision making. He passed up shots he shouldn’t have passed up and took shots he shouldn’t have taken. He showed that his skills deserve to be on the team, we’ll see if his attitude follows. He’d be a green, if not black, except for my concerns there, instead he’s a yellow.
Tom – Was not present last night. I really hope that he’s there tonight as he’s a green. I do know he was frustrated with himself (as so often happens) after the first night. My fear is that he cut himself when both Jon (for his talent) and I (for his heart) had marked him as likely pick-ups. I almost called him to check that he was coming back (as he and Gordie were the only two to show up Night 1 but not Night 2), but we’ll see. I really hope he didn’t cut himself. Green
Scott – Black
Brian – Black
Jack P – Black
Rodrigo – Slowest kid out there, with no real discernable skills. Red.
David – Black
Jack M – Ahh Jack M. Jack M is probably the 7th or 8th best player there. However, the chemistry issue is what is holding him back. While he could certainly earn a higher place, he’s likely to have a greatly diminished role this coming year. Not to mention we’re going to lose more. Both of these things are going to be hard on him. Evidentially, Jack has a football game tonight and Jack’s mom wants him to go to that, while Jack (sensing that he’s on the border) wants to be at the tryout. I frankly hope he’s not there so I can have some extra time to think about him.
Andrew – He was a for sure yesterday. However, he did not do well in the 3 on 3 or in Animal Rebounding. He’s still a green, but I have concerns about him being a tryout kid rather than a gamer.
Daniel – Daniel, by many accounts, should be cut. Except he’s a great kid. Oh and he finished first in his (short) group for animal rebounding. That counts for something. Just barely a yellow.
Matthew – His dad and I talked a little before practice. The kid loves basketball. Except he’s short. Matthew commented to me how frustrating it was that players were taller than he was. I remarked back that we’re going to be a short team compared to others. Red.
Justin – Black
Jake – He’s weak inside. He’d be a post player if he made the team, so that’s a huge negative. That said he’s got pretty good ball handling skills and speed given his size. He needs to show me he can play inside tonight.
Noah – My second heart breaking kid. Noah has improved so much since last March. I asked him, as tryouts were ending, if he’d practiced a lot during the off season. He said he’d played every day at camp. It showed. However, he’s not likely to be one of the top 10 players. He is very coachable, in that if you ask him to work on something he’ll work on it. Not to mention how grateful he is for every moment of playing time. Then there is the fact that tonight, during tryouts, he decided to try and climb up a wall. If he makes the team I know I will be spending a lot of practice time in management of him. There are quite a few pluses and minuses for him in both ways. The true definition of a yellow.
Dante – My third heart breaking kid. Dante is such a great kid, and, to my surprise, he finished second in Animal Rebounding. That said he is painfully slow, second slowest after Rodrigo. What I need from him most of all, is defense. We’re going to be playing some big kids and we’ll need to shut them down. If Dante can’t do that, his offense is less important. If he can do that, the fact that he’d be slowing us down on offense could be forgiven. In all likelihood he and Jake are competing against each other for a slot.
Miles – Speaking of speed, Miles seems to be faster with the basketball than without. He’s got a great sense of humor. I think if I were teaching his class, he’d be one of my favorite students. But he’s short and despite the desire and love of the game the skills aren’t there. Red.
Kevin – Kevin is a potential post player, except his ball handling and aggressiveness aren’t anywhere close to where they’d need to be to make the team. Red.
Colin – Colin is a big ole nothing. His skills aren’t poor but nor are they great. He’s very quiet so I have no sense of his personality even. Red.
Gordie – Gordie, along with Tom, was 1 of 2 not to be back for the second day of tryouts. I simply can’t imagine his skills are going to surpass others I’ve been looking at. Red.
Lucas – Lucas came in and played exactly the way I’d hoped he would. Black.
Tonight
So by my count there are 6 players on the team. I have basically resigned myself to taking 11, so we have 8 players competing for 5 spots. With this football game going on I am guessing that we’ll have fewer players tonight, which is nice because it will give me some flexibility on the players who aren’t there. Hopefully my Yellow players will be there to make the cases for themselves.
The plan for tonight is to do some 5 on 5 games. The teams, for the first gaeme, tentatively, are:
Team 1: Andrew, Jack M, Kevin, Rodrigo, Scott
Team 2 Brian, Jake, Lucas, Matthew, Noah
Team 3 Daniel, Gordie, Jack P, Justin, Miles
Team 4 Cameron, Colin, Dante, David, Tom
These teams should have a mixture of kids who are making it, not making it, and on the fence, with a variety of positions. The second game will be with teams made up of
Team 1 Andrew, David, Justin, Lucas, Scott
Team 2 Brian, Cameron, Dante, Jack P, Tom
Team 3 Colin, Daniel, Jack M, Jake, Noah
Team 4 Gordie, Kevin, Matthew, Miles, Rodrigo
These teams are not balanced, but instead giving me more of a chance to see how they interact with each other. The goal is to play 1 game with each of these teams for 5 minutes each game. That should take a tad over 20 minutes. I’ll then run, depending on what I need to see, either Animal Rebounding, or doing Full Court Jump shots.
And then it will be time for the 1 on 1 conferences. Last night after tryouts I stayed up late creating a notecard for each of the 20 kids. They will receive a notecard which looks like this (with better formatting)
Name
Thank you again for trying out. It is very hard to fully see a player in 2 or 3 hours but below I have given you an idea of what I saw as your strength(s) and as your area(s) for improvement. Whether or not you make the team I hope you work on your game this season and you choose to try out again in 6th grade.
Strength(s):
Area(s) for improvement:
I will bring each kid over, thank him for trying out, tell him if he’s made the team or not and hand him his notecard. I’ve pre-written out strengths and weaknesses for each kid, but am also prepared to revise, as necessary, tonight. While this is going on, I will have a game of continuous knockout going on in the other side of the gym. After the kid gets his notecard he’ll have the option of either rejoining the game or going outside to wait to be picked up. I have heard from someone who has done this before that a surprising amount of kids who get cut will want to stay. When I write next I should have a basketball team.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Tryouts Day 1
This is long. Sorry for the length, but a big reason I do this is to help me get my thoughts down and tonight I have a lot of thoughts.
Before the Tryouts Begin
The great thing about teaching is that when I’m doing it, I can’t think of anything else. I am completely absorbed in what I am doing. The bad thing is that I have a new position that has a lot more downtime. All day long was killing me. Anyhow, at lunch I check my e-mail and see one from Lucas’s dad. I anxiously open it up. He wanted to let me know that Lucas wouldn’t be there (Cubs game) but would be at the next two nights. I was so thankful for this as I had all the uncertainty over the triplets. I could just imagine showing up and seeing neither the triplets, nor Lucas (who with-out the triplets I would anticipate would become far more important for our offense).
Anyhow I was unable to concentrate after school ended so I left a mountain of work and came home to try and relax before practice. I waited as long as I could and then went to the gym, the 4th/6th grade coach, Jon, and I had agreed to help out each other during practice. I get there and there are a few 4th graders already there. And then who should show up but Tom. God bless him. I let him know he’s more than an hour early and so he goes away to practice some before hand. I then go in to help with the 4th grade tryouts. A little less than 15 minutes before the start of our tryouts I go out there to start writing down names, as I hate referring to someone as #3. Besides Tom and a kid named Rodrigo, there is a kid named Cameron who tried out last year. I was REALLY happy to seem Cameron as he nearly made the team last year (it was between Cameron and Gordie). With at least 1 anticipated opening I was glad to see him.
I went back in to the 4th grade practice for about 5 more minutes and then headed back out to registration as they were coming in fast and furious. I get out there and who do I see, but Scott and Brian? Despite my anxiety about them I was really happy to see them. And then, as if in a movie, Cameron moves and who should appear but David. I was blown away. And then it is just one kid coming after another. In the end we have 19 kids tryout. I was hoping to have closer to the 16 from last year. 19 just blew me away, especially as I know that at least one more player (Lucas) will be there tomorrow.
The tryout
As soon as the 4th grade is done I have our team go to the far side of the court so I can give my intro speech. As I explained, it’s about the only time they’ll see me read off a paper. I’m a very good extemporaneous speaker and so it takes a pretty special occasion for me to do more than just jot down talking points. However, I wanted to make sure I didn’t leave anything out and that I used carefully considered language in a couple of areas. Of course I go through the effort of writing down, and revising, my speech, even practice it 2 or 3 times, and I get there and realize I don’t talk about having fun so I’m forced while watching the 4th graders to add some on that. Here’s the speech I delivered:
Overall the tryouts went well. I had them do a couple of dribbling drills, with both hands, to warm up. We then did full-court layups, followed by 1 vs 1 dribbling. Next we did triangle passing. I then gave them the choice of a shooting drill or a rebounding drill and they voted for the shooting drill. We then concluded with some hard running, something I don’t really do during practices, as it’s a shortcut to see who can really dig deep.
To be honest the number of players through me as it was more than I was expecting, but not so many that I needed to go to the back-up plan I had, and would have gone to if we’d been closer to 25. Things took longer than expected, of course, and I didn’t get anywhere close to done with my plan, but that’s the way I like it.
I then gathered everyone in and told them that on Wednesday, if they’re at the tryout they’ll find out that night if they made the team or not. Otherwise they’ll have to wait for it to be posted. I also explained that each of them would get a card saying what they had done well and what they could improve on. I am planning on making clear tomorrow that they will find out privately if they made the team or not. The idea is to be humane, not to publicly humiliate a kid.
The Players
I’ll just say that with-in a few minutes of practice it became clear that not only were we going to be an A team, but we might be a better A team than I was expecting. Going in order on their tryout number.
Cameron – He’s clearly improved from last year, both absolutely and relative to his peers. Jon put him down as a yes. I see him as a maybe. We’ll have to see how he does in games.
Tom – I talked about how possibly there could be 11, though my plan was to take 10. If Tom’s not in the top 10 he’d be a reason to take 11. I think that highly of the kid. He was very unimpressive to me, but Jon has him as a yes, which is a relief.
Scott – One of the triplets. I think it’s possible he’s a better all around player than David at this point. In fact, in our two objective drills (full court layups and hot shots) he had the highest combined number of shots. He’s a definite yes.
Brian – Second of the triplets. Had the second highest total between our two objective drills. His defense looks better, which isn’t surprising as his ankles should both be fully healed from a bad run of luck he had last year. Definite yes.
Jack P – Jack P is in real danger of not making the team. His ball handling is excellent. However, his shooting continues to be abysmal. I should have NO problem finding ball handlers on the team, so he’s going to need to impress me with his defense tomorrow. Jon has him as a yes.
Rodrigo – This kid is big but uncoordinated. Seems like a real nice kid. My only definite No.
Brian H – Last of the triplets. Last year he was one of the two best players I saw play. Like so many early stars his peers are catching up to him. However, if he was 4th Grade Hall of Fame material last year, he’s at least All Star level this year. After tryouts I very privately talked to his mother. I said that I have at least 20 players trying out and it wouldn’t be fair to give him a slot if he can’t commit to the full season. She said she understood but that I really needed to talk to her ex-husband. Of the adults involved in the triplets lives (mother, step-mother, father, and two care takers) he is by far my least favorite. The jerk came to 3 games, including playoffs, last season, where as step mom was at 2/3. Dad and mom alternate weeks of custody so that means step mom was there weeks that she didn’t even have the kids at her house. Anyhow, I am going to have to call dad tomorrow. Definite yes.
Jack M – Jon didn’t have a yes or no for him. If he makes the team his role is going to be reduced. Last season he was missing for our first play-off game against a team we’d KILLED two time previously. As he was our main point guard besides David, we, not surprisingly, had offensive problems that day such that their coach thought we were going to lose our next game. If we’d had the same team that day we would have, but Jack was the difference. However, he’s short, and his peers have caught up to him in a lot of ways. He’d be a soft yes (like Tom) if not for one other factor: he’s very fragile emotionally. Losing was really rough on him. Even losing a drill in practice was rough on him. So more losing and a less featured role? Could be poison for chemistry.
Andrew – This kid appeared out of the woodwork, but I am hardly complaining. He told me before tryouts that he had a broken foot last year when it was time for tryouts. This kid looks to be a good, though not great, dribbler, passer, shooter, and on ball defender. Definite yes.
Daniel – I have no real sense of this kid. Jon has him as a definite no and his absolute scores aren’t very high but I have at least remember which kid he is before I make him a no.
Matthew – Tried out last year for me and then played on the B team for JCC, our arch rivals (more on them in a second). He was actually the worst scored player at last year’s tryouts. At our game against them I paid extra attention to him and felt that I had made the right decision cutting him. He’s definitely no longer the worst player on the court, but is still a likely no.
Justin – Justin’s being at tryouts alone would have equaled the karma balance of possibly losing David to JCC. JCC was a team which had a player as good, if not better, than David, this kid’s name was Luke. We played 3 epic games against their A team and 1 semi-epic game against their B team (where they actually brought Luke down just to give him a chance to beat us). Justin was on their B team. I heard he was from GL and was astounded that he was on their B team. He was a great player, he was able to dribble, pass, shoot, and rebound. I know his mother commented at our game on how much nicer I was than his coaches. And I was. Anyhow getting this player to tryout out for our team was something I had previously hoped for, but had recently, in my anxiety, forgotten. And I didn’t even mention the best part: he’s a center. Even playing up in the After the triplet’s he was the first kid who I marked down as a yes. Really funny? I’m waiting with the triplets for them to be picked up and Brian starts telling me how good Justin is and how maybe he didn’t show it tonight but that he’s really good inside. And I’m thinking, don’t worry, Brian. I’m salivating at the thought of having a true center. Definite yes.
Jake – I don’t remember this kid, but he had the best score of any kid on Hot Spot so I need to give him a second and third look. Jon also didn’t comment on this kid.
Noah – You could tell he had worked on his skills as he’d definitely gotten better since I saw him last spring. Jon marked him as a maybe and he’s a tentative yes for me.
Dante – I found Dante very uninspiring. Jon has him marked down as a yes and he’ll likely make the team because having a back-up center is good and he’s a great kid. But man is he slow. I mean he’d be the slowest kid I took.
Miles – Jon has him marked down as a no. I continue to like this kid, though not as much as last year. I was impressed with his defense so he’s got a somewhat neutral slate as far as I’m concerned.
Kevin – No comment from Jon or I. Can’t really remember anything he did, good or bad.
Colin – Another kid who I don’t remember much about. Jon has him as a no and I think I agree.
Gordie – Jon has him marked as a no. And I think I agree. But I feel like I owe it to him to give him a few more chances. I had prepared myself for this so while it makes me sad, at least I saw it coming.
Going Forward
We didn’t play any games tonight. My new practice plan for tomorrow looks like this:
The idea is to spend most of the time on 3 on 3 and 5 on 5, ideally 40 of the 60 minutes, though I have a feeling it’ll be closer to 30-35. No Jon tomorrow so that changes some of what I will do. Wednesday will then be a lot of games, with the exception of a drill or two to see some skills for kids on the border. Between definite and probable yeses I have 7 players, Scott, Brian, David, Andrew, Justin, Tom, and Lucas so there are at least 13 kids fighting for the last 3 (maybe 4) spots. Wednesday will be brutal for me, but after today, which was better than the best case scenario I’d ever envisioned (getting the triplets plus Justin), I’m fine with it, especially as I know it’s the right thing to do for the players, and that counts more than how I feel.
Before the Tryouts Begin
The great thing about teaching is that when I’m doing it, I can’t think of anything else. I am completely absorbed in what I am doing. The bad thing is that I have a new position that has a lot more downtime. All day long was killing me. Anyhow, at lunch I check my e-mail and see one from Lucas’s dad. I anxiously open it up. He wanted to let me know that Lucas wouldn’t be there (Cubs game) but would be at the next two nights. I was so thankful for this as I had all the uncertainty over the triplets. I could just imagine showing up and seeing neither the triplets, nor Lucas (who with-out the triplets I would anticipate would become far more important for our offense).
Anyhow I was unable to concentrate after school ended so I left a mountain of work and came home to try and relax before practice. I waited as long as I could and then went to the gym, the 4th/6th grade coach, Jon, and I had agreed to help out each other during practice. I get there and there are a few 4th graders already there. And then who should show up but Tom. God bless him. I let him know he’s more than an hour early and so he goes away to practice some before hand. I then go in to help with the 4th grade tryouts. A little less than 15 minutes before the start of our tryouts I go out there to start writing down names, as I hate referring to someone as #3. Besides Tom and a kid named Rodrigo, there is a kid named Cameron who tried out last year. I was REALLY happy to seem Cameron as he nearly made the team last year (it was between Cameron and Gordie). With at least 1 anticipated opening I was glad to see him.
I went back in to the 4th grade practice for about 5 more minutes and then headed back out to registration as they were coming in fast and furious. I get out there and who do I see, but Scott and Brian? Despite my anxiety about them I was really happy to see them. And then, as if in a movie, Cameron moves and who should appear but David. I was blown away. And then it is just one kid coming after another. In the end we have 19 kids tryout. I was hoping to have closer to the 16 from last year. 19 just blew me away, especially as I know that at least one more player (Lucas) will be there tomorrow.
The tryout
As soon as the 4th grade is done I have our team go to the far side of the court so I can give my intro speech. As I explained, it’s about the only time they’ll see me read off a paper. I’m a very good extemporaneous speaker and so it takes a pretty special occasion for me to do more than just jot down talking points. However, I wanted to make sure I didn’t leave anything out and that I used carefully considered language in a couple of areas. Of course I go through the effort of writing down, and revising, my speech, even practice it 2 or 3 times, and I get there and realize I don’t talk about having fun so I’m forced while watching the 4th graders to add some on that. Here’s the speech I delivered:
Hi. My name is Coach and I’m going to be coaching the 5th grade team this year. I want to start by thanking everyone who came to tryout, but especially those who tried out last year and didn’t make it. I really respect those of you who did this as it’s not easy to try-out for a team, get cut, and still come back to try again. Let me say to everyone that coming into tonight I was so excited and nervous that I can only imagine how you feel.
That said, I’d encourage you to go out there have fun and do the best that you can. You only have two or three hours to show me your talent, so first impressions are important. Anything that you take home with you will be something that I don’t know about. For that reason don’t hold back.
I plan on taking 10, or possibly 11 players, but more likely 10. My goal is to put together the best possible team, for THIS YEAR. My guess is that this will include some of the same players from the team I coached last year and some players who I didn’t coach last year.
How will I decide who will make up the best possible team? I’ll be looking at your (use fingers) overall athletic ability, your basketball skills, and your attitude. Let me explain what I mean by attitude.
How hard are you willing to work? Whatever shape you’re in, are you willing to push it and try and get in better shape? I’ll notice people who keep digging deep when they’re tired and people who give up easily when they’re tired.
Do you know how to listen? We’ll be doing a bunch of different drills, some of which might be new. Its OK if you don't know a drill, but its not helpful to you if you do not pay attention to directions.
And are you willing to actually follow directions? I’d rather someone look a little awkward trying something new than repeat a bad habit that they’re comfortable with. For instance, we’ll be doing layups from both sides. If you use the hand you’re more comfortable with from the other side and make it, I’ll like that less than the player who misses but uses the correct hand on the correct side. If you’re not willing to try new things, all of the coaching in the world won’t make you better.
Finally, do you think basketball is fun? I love basketball; it’s why I coach. I hope to be able to coach a team who enjoys playing basketball.
With that said, let’s get started. I need X equal lines on the baseline.
Overall the tryouts went well. I had them do a couple of dribbling drills, with both hands, to warm up. We then did full-court layups, followed by 1 vs 1 dribbling. Next we did triangle passing. I then gave them the choice of a shooting drill or a rebounding drill and they voted for the shooting drill. We then concluded with some hard running, something I don’t really do during practices, as it’s a shortcut to see who can really dig deep.
To be honest the number of players through me as it was more than I was expecting, but not so many that I needed to go to the back-up plan I had, and would have gone to if we’d been closer to 25. Things took longer than expected, of course, and I didn’t get anywhere close to done with my plan, but that’s the way I like it.
I then gathered everyone in and told them that on Wednesday, if they’re at the tryout they’ll find out that night if they made the team or not. Otherwise they’ll have to wait for it to be posted. I also explained that each of them would get a card saying what they had done well and what they could improve on. I am planning on making clear tomorrow that they will find out privately if they made the team or not. The idea is to be humane, not to publicly humiliate a kid.
The Players
I’ll just say that with-in a few minutes of practice it became clear that not only were we going to be an A team, but we might be a better A team than I was expecting. Going in order on their tryout number.
Cameron – He’s clearly improved from last year, both absolutely and relative to his peers. Jon put him down as a yes. I see him as a maybe. We’ll have to see how he does in games.
Tom – I talked about how possibly there could be 11, though my plan was to take 10. If Tom’s not in the top 10 he’d be a reason to take 11. I think that highly of the kid. He was very unimpressive to me, but Jon has him as a yes, which is a relief.
Scott – One of the triplets. I think it’s possible he’s a better all around player than David at this point. In fact, in our two objective drills (full court layups and hot shots) he had the highest combined number of shots. He’s a definite yes.
Brian – Second of the triplets. Had the second highest total between our two objective drills. His defense looks better, which isn’t surprising as his ankles should both be fully healed from a bad run of luck he had last year. Definite yes.
Jack P – Jack P is in real danger of not making the team. His ball handling is excellent. However, his shooting continues to be abysmal. I should have NO problem finding ball handlers on the team, so he’s going to need to impress me with his defense tomorrow. Jon has him as a yes.
Rodrigo – This kid is big but uncoordinated. Seems like a real nice kid. My only definite No.
Brian H – Last of the triplets. Last year he was one of the two best players I saw play. Like so many early stars his peers are catching up to him. However, if he was 4th Grade Hall of Fame material last year, he’s at least All Star level this year. After tryouts I very privately talked to his mother. I said that I have at least 20 players trying out and it wouldn’t be fair to give him a slot if he can’t commit to the full season. She said she understood but that I really needed to talk to her ex-husband. Of the adults involved in the triplets lives (mother, step-mother, father, and two care takers) he is by far my least favorite. The jerk came to 3 games, including playoffs, last season, where as step mom was at 2/3. Dad and mom alternate weeks of custody so that means step mom was there weeks that she didn’t even have the kids at her house. Anyhow, I am going to have to call dad tomorrow. Definite yes.
Jack M – Jon didn’t have a yes or no for him. If he makes the team his role is going to be reduced. Last season he was missing for our first play-off game against a team we’d KILLED two time previously. As he was our main point guard besides David, we, not surprisingly, had offensive problems that day such that their coach thought we were going to lose our next game. If we’d had the same team that day we would have, but Jack was the difference. However, he’s short, and his peers have caught up to him in a lot of ways. He’d be a soft yes (like Tom) if not for one other factor: he’s very fragile emotionally. Losing was really rough on him. Even losing a drill in practice was rough on him. So more losing and a less featured role? Could be poison for chemistry.
Andrew – This kid appeared out of the woodwork, but I am hardly complaining. He told me before tryouts that he had a broken foot last year when it was time for tryouts. This kid looks to be a good, though not great, dribbler, passer, shooter, and on ball defender. Definite yes.
Daniel – I have no real sense of this kid. Jon has him as a definite no and his absolute scores aren’t very high but I have at least remember which kid he is before I make him a no.
Matthew – Tried out last year for me and then played on the B team for JCC, our arch rivals (more on them in a second). He was actually the worst scored player at last year’s tryouts. At our game against them I paid extra attention to him and felt that I had made the right decision cutting him. He’s definitely no longer the worst player on the court, but is still a likely no.
Justin – Justin’s being at tryouts alone would have equaled the karma balance of possibly losing David to JCC. JCC was a team which had a player as good, if not better, than David, this kid’s name was Luke. We played 3 epic games against their A team and 1 semi-epic game against their B team (where they actually brought Luke down just to give him a chance to beat us). Justin was on their B team. I heard he was from GL and was astounded that he was on their B team. He was a great player, he was able to dribble, pass, shoot, and rebound. I know his mother commented at our game on how much nicer I was than his coaches. And I was. Anyhow getting this player to tryout out for our team was something I had previously hoped for, but had recently, in my anxiety, forgotten. And I didn’t even mention the best part: he’s a center. Even playing up in the After the triplet’s he was the first kid who I marked down as a yes. Really funny? I’m waiting with the triplets for them to be picked up and Brian starts telling me how good Justin is and how maybe he didn’t show it tonight but that he’s really good inside. And I’m thinking, don’t worry, Brian. I’m salivating at the thought of having a true center. Definite yes.
Jake – I don’t remember this kid, but he had the best score of any kid on Hot Spot so I need to give him a second and third look. Jon also didn’t comment on this kid.
Noah – You could tell he had worked on his skills as he’d definitely gotten better since I saw him last spring. Jon marked him as a maybe and he’s a tentative yes for me.
Dante – I found Dante very uninspiring. Jon has him marked down as a yes and he’ll likely make the team because having a back-up center is good and he’s a great kid. But man is he slow. I mean he’d be the slowest kid I took.
Miles – Jon has him marked down as a no. I continue to like this kid, though not as much as last year. I was impressed with his defense so he’s got a somewhat neutral slate as far as I’m concerned.
Kevin – No comment from Jon or I. Can’t really remember anything he did, good or bad.
Colin – Another kid who I don’t remember much about. Jon has him as a no and I think I agree.
Gordie – Jon has him marked as a no. And I think I agree. But I feel like I owe it to him to give him a few more chances. I had prepared myself for this so while it makes me sad, at least I saw it coming.
Going Forward
We didn’t play any games tonight. My new practice plan for tomorrow looks like this:
Introduction Have players recap yesterday’s speech as a reminder/intro for players not there yesterday INDIVIDUALLY TELL FOR CUTS
Suicides
Full-court lay-ups
Animal Rebounding
Three Man Weave/2 on 1 back
Guts
3 on 3
5 on 5 no dribble
Thank yous INDIVIDUALLY TELL FOR CUTS
The idea is to spend most of the time on 3 on 3 and 5 on 5, ideally 40 of the 60 minutes, though I have a feeling it’ll be closer to 30-35. No Jon tomorrow so that changes some of what I will do. Wednesday will then be a lot of games, with the exception of a drill or two to see some skills for kids on the border. Between definite and probable yeses I have 7 players, Scott, Brian, David, Andrew, Justin, Tom, and Lucas so there are at least 13 kids fighting for the last 3 (maybe 4) spots. Wednesday will be brutal for me, but after today, which was better than the best case scenario I’d ever envisioned (getting the triplets plus Justin), I’m fine with it, especially as I know it’s the right thing to do for the players, and that counts more than how I feel.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Well tomorrow is the day I’ve been anxiously anticipating for quite a while. Tomorrow I have the tryouts for GL. The way it’s working this year is that there are tryouts Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for an hour each night. In order to be eligible for the team, a player must come to two of the three tryouts. We’ll have a full court and six total baskets to use for the tryouts.
Last year’s team compiled a 20-5 record, winning the Conference Tourney and finishing second for the season, despite losing the team’s best player (and one of the league’s best players at that age), David, part way through the season. The reason for the team’s continued success after losing David was David’s two brothers, Scott and Brian. I heard a very unsubstantiated rumor over the summer that David was going to play on the team of our dread arch-rivals, JCC.
At first I was concerned that I would lose Scott and Brian, as well as David, to the team. I had invested a lot of time and effort into both of the, especially Brian, and it hurt me to think that some other coach would reap the benefit of what I’d done and it especially hurt to think that it was going to be those *&!$# at JCC. Now I’m concerned that they’ll be back. Because if they come back we’re in a very awkward place. The Commissioner of the league talked about moving us up to the A Conference from the B Conference last season. With David, there is no question that is where we belong. After all, we went into the HP tourney and won their fourth grade A level tourney. Without David we were the second best B team, as MP1 was really better than us. We only beat them in the Conference tourney since their best player was home sick. If we moved up to the A Conference and got crushed week after week that doesn’t seem good. .500, what we’d be with David, I can handle. Team that other teams beat up upon? Not so excited about that possibility.
On the other hand, if all three triplets go, it’s clear we’re a B level team. We’re an upper mid level team in that case, again something I’d be just fine with. I’ve already thought of some ideas about how we’d change things up in this case, even. So much of my anxiety is over whether any of the triplets will show up.
Now as these paragraphs make clear, I am not going to pretend that the tryouts are an even playing field. Several players from last year have a lower bar to cross. The triplets, for instance, are unlikely to go from having been 3 of our best players to not being one of the best 10 of 15 or so (remembering that I got 16 for last year’s tryouts). After the triplets, Lucas has the lowest bar to cross. While he’s not the most intellectual player on the team, he’s a gifted natural athlete (on the day we won the Conference tourney, having played two games, he then went to a hockey game and help them win their championship as well) and a quite kid who doesn’t, I think, have a mean bone in his body. In our first play-off game, we struggled and a large reason for that struggle is that we were missing Jack M. The problem with Jack M is that he’s short, and if we’re moving up to the A Conference especially this could be a problem. But again I imagine he’ll make the team.
Then there is the middle group of Dante & Jack P. Jack P is a great athlete, however his poor shooting was a fairly big problem by the end of the season. If he’s improved there he could actually be one of the team’s best players. If not, well it could be interesting. Dante was our big man last year. He’s not much of a physical presence, but he is coordinated, if slow, which is nice to have in a bag man.
Then there is the bottom group of Tom, Gordie, and Noah. Tom was the heart of the team last year. He’s every coaches dream in that not only does he work exceedingly hard, but he’s a leader who’ll encourage others to work hard. That said he had dropped over the course of the season from being a mid-level talent to one of our three bottom players. However, I’ll be looking for a reason to take him. Gordie and Noah are more of a mixed bag. Noah, without a doubt, showed the most growth relative to where he started. However, he still wasn’t all that great by the end of the season. And then there is his behavior. On the one hand, the kid was grateful for every moment he played in a game since he knew he wasn’t the best. On the other hand, he was often off task on practice, enough that it was aggravating. He’s a good kid, but distractible, which makes it frustrating to coach him at times. Finally, there is Gordie. Gordie who had been a star in earlier years. Except that Gordie was the shortest player on the team (“beating” Jack M by a smidge). And bigger players took advantage of that. He led the team in turnovers despite having played the fewest minutes per game. And sitting on the bench killed him. Mind you he averaged 13.3 minutes a game, which is a lot considering we have 28 minute games. But when the fourth quarter came around and I would shift players in and out and he was rarely one of those players? It killed him.
What will kill me is cutting a kid from last year, as I really do genuinely feel affection for each and every kid on the team. While that would be hard enough, I have decided that any kid who is at the tryouts on the last night will find out that night whether or not they make the team. So cutting a kid who I like from last year will be hard, but I told the team last year when the subject would come up, and I’m going to say it in my opening speech, that my goal is to put together the best team for this year. And I mean it. I know that it is quite likely that some kid will be there who is better than at least one of my players from last year. I’m also going to have a check on me to make sure I’m not viewing last year’s players with tunnel vision. The other boys travel coach, Jon, will be assisting me with our tryouts, while I assist him with his. This second pair of eyes should help.
I have planned out Days 1 and 2 of tryouts. Here’s what we’ll be doing.
The things with question marks mean that they might get scratched depending on how long these are taking and what I feel like. I really want to get Animal Rebounding, a drill which shows aggressiveness and post play, in there at some point so if I don’t get it in Days 1 and 2 it’ll be there on Day 3 for sure (I’ll explain how it works when I actually use it). Guts is a drill where players are simply asked to run sprints until they can’t anymore, and then a new player does it, giving them a short break, and then they do it again. Not jogging mind you, but sprints. If they do it right, it won’t take very long but will be a good drill to help determine desire and commitment.
So I’m ready to go. I have my introduction speech all set to go (which I’ll post with the Day 1 recap). I have the plan laid out. And now it’s just waiting until 7:15 tomorrow to get going. I will be posting an update on how things go either tomorrow night after practice, or more likely Tuesday before Day 2 of tryouts.
Last year’s team compiled a 20-5 record, winning the Conference Tourney and finishing second for the season, despite losing the team’s best player (and one of the league’s best players at that age), David, part way through the season. The reason for the team’s continued success after losing David was David’s two brothers, Scott and Brian. I heard a very unsubstantiated rumor over the summer that David was going to play on the team of our dread arch-rivals, JCC.
At first I was concerned that I would lose Scott and Brian, as well as David, to the team. I had invested a lot of time and effort into both of the, especially Brian, and it hurt me to think that some other coach would reap the benefit of what I’d done and it especially hurt to think that it was going to be those *&!$# at JCC. Now I’m concerned that they’ll be back. Because if they come back we’re in a very awkward place. The Commissioner of the league talked about moving us up to the A Conference from the B Conference last season. With David, there is no question that is where we belong. After all, we went into the HP tourney and won their fourth grade A level tourney. Without David we were the second best B team, as MP1 was really better than us. We only beat them in the Conference tourney since their best player was home sick. If we moved up to the A Conference and got crushed week after week that doesn’t seem good. .500, what we’d be with David, I can handle. Team that other teams beat up upon? Not so excited about that possibility.
On the other hand, if all three triplets go, it’s clear we’re a B level team. We’re an upper mid level team in that case, again something I’d be just fine with. I’ve already thought of some ideas about how we’d change things up in this case, even. So much of my anxiety is over whether any of the triplets will show up.
Now as these paragraphs make clear, I am not going to pretend that the tryouts are an even playing field. Several players from last year have a lower bar to cross. The triplets, for instance, are unlikely to go from having been 3 of our best players to not being one of the best 10 of 15 or so (remembering that I got 16 for last year’s tryouts). After the triplets, Lucas has the lowest bar to cross. While he’s not the most intellectual player on the team, he’s a gifted natural athlete (on the day we won the Conference tourney, having played two games, he then went to a hockey game and help them win their championship as well) and a quite kid who doesn’t, I think, have a mean bone in his body. In our first play-off game, we struggled and a large reason for that struggle is that we were missing Jack M. The problem with Jack M is that he’s short, and if we’re moving up to the A Conference especially this could be a problem. But again I imagine he’ll make the team.
Then there is the middle group of Dante & Jack P. Jack P is a great athlete, however his poor shooting was a fairly big problem by the end of the season. If he’s improved there he could actually be one of the team’s best players. If not, well it could be interesting. Dante was our big man last year. He’s not much of a physical presence, but he is coordinated, if slow, which is nice to have in a bag man.
Then there is the bottom group of Tom, Gordie, and Noah. Tom was the heart of the team last year. He’s every coaches dream in that not only does he work exceedingly hard, but he’s a leader who’ll encourage others to work hard. That said he had dropped over the course of the season from being a mid-level talent to one of our three bottom players. However, I’ll be looking for a reason to take him. Gordie and Noah are more of a mixed bag. Noah, without a doubt, showed the most growth relative to where he started. However, he still wasn’t all that great by the end of the season. And then there is his behavior. On the one hand, the kid was grateful for every moment he played in a game since he knew he wasn’t the best. On the other hand, he was often off task on practice, enough that it was aggravating. He’s a good kid, but distractible, which makes it frustrating to coach him at times. Finally, there is Gordie. Gordie who had been a star in earlier years. Except that Gordie was the shortest player on the team (“beating” Jack M by a smidge). And bigger players took advantage of that. He led the team in turnovers despite having played the fewest minutes per game. And sitting on the bench killed him. Mind you he averaged 13.3 minutes a game, which is a lot considering we have 28 minute games. But when the fourth quarter came around and I would shift players in and out and he was rarely one of those players? It killed him.
What will kill me is cutting a kid from last year, as I really do genuinely feel affection for each and every kid on the team. While that would be hard enough, I have decided that any kid who is at the tryouts on the last night will find out that night whether or not they make the team. So cutting a kid who I like from last year will be hard, but I told the team last year when the subject would come up, and I’m going to say it in my opening speech, that my goal is to put together the best team for this year. And I mean it. I know that it is quite likely that some kid will be there who is better than at least one of my players from last year. I’m also going to have a check on me to make sure I’m not viewing last year’s players with tunnel vision. The other boys travel coach, Jon, will be assisting me with our tryouts, while I assist him with his. This second pair of eyes should help.
I have planned out Days 1 and 2 of tryouts. Here’s what we’ll be doing.
Day 1
Introduction
Full court dribbling: right and left hands with jump stops every quarter court (2x?) With fingers?
Power lay-ups?
1 vs 1 dribbling and defensive slides
Full-court lay-ups (One minute each at each side basket) or Rebound Lay-ups (Throw up ball, outlet to coach, coach passes ahead, player collects ball and performs lay-up)
TRIANGLE PASSING Drill
Break up team into 3 Lines. Line 1 is at top of the key, Line 2 is on baseline 3 pt. line left, Line 3 is baseline 3pt. line right.
2 players start in the lane on D. First player in each line moves forward to the nail hole (center of ft lane) and each of the blocks. Thus your triangle. The three offensive players try to complete 10 passes without causing the offense to leave their spot by more than about 6 inches. The 2 defenders can do anything they want to steal the ball but must follow this one rule, someone must always guard the ball. Offense can not throw passes above eye level, too easy. So you must use your jab step to keep the defender back, pivot to pass, step through to pass, read the D. Fouls are allowed.
Hot spots
Animal Rebounding/Knockout?
3 on 3 (At least 10 minutes)
Running?
Thank yous
Day 2
Introduction Have players recap yesterday’s speech as a reminder/intro for players not there yesterday
Dribbling Crossovers, through the legs, behind the backs, 1 vs 1 with choice of move
Other of Full-court lay-ups (One minute each at each side basket) or Rebound Lay-ups (Throw up ball, outlet to coach, coach passes ahead, player collects ball and performs lay-up)
Three Man Weave/2 on 1 back
Guts
Free Throw Shooting
Water Break
3 on 3?
Animal Rebounding/Knockout?
5 on 5 no dribble
The things with question marks mean that they might get scratched depending on how long these are taking and what I feel like. I really want to get Animal Rebounding, a drill which shows aggressiveness and post play, in there at some point so if I don’t get it in Days 1 and 2 it’ll be there on Day 3 for sure (I’ll explain how it works when I actually use it). Guts is a drill where players are simply asked to run sprints until they can’t anymore, and then a new player does it, giving them a short break, and then they do it again. Not jogging mind you, but sprints. If they do it right, it won’t take very long but will be a good drill to help determine desire and commitment.
So I’m ready to go. I have my introduction speech all set to go (which I’ll post with the Day 1 recap). I have the plan laid out. And now it’s just waiting until 7:15 tomorrow to get going. I will be posting an update on how things go either tomorrow night after practice, or more likely Tuesday before Day 2 of tryouts.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
HP Clinic 1
My post about my GL tryouts will be going up tomorrow, but today is a special bonus post since it was the first of 3 clinics for HP basketball. Today was my first chance to start to put together what my team was going to be like. These clinics are option so of the 11 players on my team I think 8 of my 11 players were there. The clinics were divided into 4th/5th and 6th grade clinics. Today’s (and next Sunday’s, I believe) was focused on defense. With the younger age group this meant a lot of footwork drills, while the older group did a bunch of work with man to man defense, something I’m sorry my kids didn’t get.
I think my team has definite potential from what I saw, though they don’t know yet that they’re my team as it’s a secret until Tuesday (dumb if you ask me). Things sort of started off perfectly as one of the first kids to arrive was Adam, a short quick player who will be a guard. So he was shooting and being 9 was doing what many 9 year olds do in using their upper body, rather than lower body in shooting. After he’d missed a couple of shots outside his range I suggested he try using his legs to get more power. Fortunately he made his next couple of shots.
The twins Ben and Jon (they’re not identical so I THINK I can tell them apart) both look like they’ll be good players and are likely to be my post stalwarts. At the end of the clinic their father was waiting in the gym as the players were attempting to make 70 full court layups, with four balls, in 4 minutes. Their father made a “suggestion” to one of them that was not well received by the son, not to mention was not a suggestion I’d have made.
Then there is Gavin. Gavin is going to be a show boat. We were doing a free throw drill and he bragged to me how he made 5 shots (a legitimately good amount in that drill) and then repeated it 2 more times as I talked to some other player. I finally said “that’s pretty good but I did hear you the first time”. Not really pleased at my lack of awe he proceeded to try and tell another coach, at which point I pointed out that his individual accomplishment didn’t mean as much considering it was a team oriented drill. Fortunately, Gavin’s mother thinks I walk on water so at least I’ll have parent support to start with.
Besides this my players are a kind of mush in my head though again I was overall pleased with them. The exception to this is Josh. Josh is a shorter pudgy kid who did not impress me with anything today and very much looked like B team material. From what I saw today he wouldn’t have made my GL team last year so for him to be on the A team is remarkable and I will be paying pretty close attention to him next week in the hope that he just had an off day.
I did talk to Brian about the switch asking him “Should I be worried about the change”. His answer was no, but really the answer is yes. He went “we want you to be successful” and then explained how there is a lot of potential BS with the 6B team and they didn’t want me, as new to the program, to be caught up in that. He also commented how well the players responded to me, especially during a drill that I was able to lead.
I still think that the 6th graders would have been fun to coach. And I know I could have handled them, as one player said to a friend after I had just asked him not to sit down “He scares me but he seems awesome” which I like as an initial impression. I feel more excited about the team now that I’ve seen some of the talent, as I hadn’t paid too much attention to the talent during tryouts (why would I bother?). Interestingly enough, the one kid who I had pegged as a good player is on the B team. Hopefully that’s a good sign.
I think my team has definite potential from what I saw, though they don’t know yet that they’re my team as it’s a secret until Tuesday (dumb if you ask me). Things sort of started off perfectly as one of the first kids to arrive was Adam, a short quick player who will be a guard. So he was shooting and being 9 was doing what many 9 year olds do in using their upper body, rather than lower body in shooting. After he’d missed a couple of shots outside his range I suggested he try using his legs to get more power. Fortunately he made his next couple of shots.
The twins Ben and Jon (they’re not identical so I THINK I can tell them apart) both look like they’ll be good players and are likely to be my post stalwarts. At the end of the clinic their father was waiting in the gym as the players were attempting to make 70 full court layups, with four balls, in 4 minutes. Their father made a “suggestion” to one of them that was not well received by the son, not to mention was not a suggestion I’d have made.
Then there is Gavin. Gavin is going to be a show boat. We were doing a free throw drill and he bragged to me how he made 5 shots (a legitimately good amount in that drill) and then repeated it 2 more times as I talked to some other player. I finally said “that’s pretty good but I did hear you the first time”. Not really pleased at my lack of awe he proceeded to try and tell another coach, at which point I pointed out that his individual accomplishment didn’t mean as much considering it was a team oriented drill. Fortunately, Gavin’s mother thinks I walk on water so at least I’ll have parent support to start with.
Besides this my players are a kind of mush in my head though again I was overall pleased with them. The exception to this is Josh. Josh is a shorter pudgy kid who did not impress me with anything today and very much looked like B team material. From what I saw today he wouldn’t have made my GL team last year so for him to be on the A team is remarkable and I will be paying pretty close attention to him next week in the hope that he just had an off day.
I did talk to Brian about the switch asking him “Should I be worried about the change”. His answer was no, but really the answer is yes. He went “we want you to be successful” and then explained how there is a lot of potential BS with the 6B team and they didn’t want me, as new to the program, to be caught up in that. He also commented how well the players responded to me, especially during a drill that I was able to lead.
I still think that the 6th graders would have been fun to coach. And I know I could have handled them, as one player said to a friend after I had just asked him not to sit down “He scares me but he seems awesome” which I like as an initial impression. I feel more excited about the team now that I’ve seen some of the talent, as I hadn’t paid too much attention to the talent during tryouts (why would I bother?). Interestingly enough, the one kid who I had pegged as a good player is on the B team. Hopefully that’s a good sign.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Sunday’s tryouts were a little better in that I figured out some stuff to do, rather than sitting around doing nothing. I also wisely (I thought) wrote down the names and numbers of the players to start to get a grasp of who was who. It was funny, the guy who coached the 4th grade team last year that I knew named just about every player there and said “you won’t be having him”. I disagreed. I also felt validated as there was one short kid who I had pegged yesterday as a potential starting point guard for me. At Sunday’s tryouts he played really well. So well I worried that he might have played onto the A team. Turns out that that the professionals had marked him as a likely cut after day 1 but were now seriously unsure about whether he was going to be on A or B. It was nice to have picked out some real talent that others had initially over looked.
One of the duties I had was to wait outside while everyone was picked up in between tryouts. After the 5th grade tryouts a kid asked me if I coached GL last year (he was one of many to do so). I said I did and he said that he had played on the dreaded JCC team last year. I asked him if he was trying out for them again and he said no, but when I followed up gave me no reason why. I was hoping he would bad mouth them so I could reinforce my negative image of them.
Then I get a phone call yesterday. Brian left me a voice mail and said that after looking over the kids and parents they were concerned about the make-up and would I be willing to move “down”, err over, to 4A. I called him back and agreed.
I have quite a few different feelings about this. On the one hand, I had originally wanted to coach an A team. However, after watching tryouts I grew really excited by the prospect of being able to do some neat stuff with sixth graders, who were absolutely light years ahead of the 5th graders, who were substantially ahead of the 4th graders. It was going to be a new challenge and I was excited by it. So on that level I was disappointed. However, I am happy about having an A team to coach. More than anything I wanted talent to work with and I had originally thought that to be an A team, though that had morphed into the B team. Then there is the whole fact that I have been effectively demoted before even starting. It’s a bit of an insult to me and I think I’m actually going to talk to Brian about it when I see him on Saturday. That said it doesn’t really bother me, as much as I think it should bother me, so I simply want to make it clear to him that I think of myself as capable and agreed to the change to be, well, agreeable and not out of inability. There is also the benefit that my life will be slightly less insane as the 4th graders only practice once a week until January as they are expected to play in house league.
Regardless, the teams are up. And I have 11 players. I am NOT excited about that. My ideal number to be at a game was always 8 or so since everyone got good playing time that way. Having one more player to juggle is going to make it that much harder to get everyone quality minutes AND to still go for victory. It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure. The only player on my team who I know is Gavin, who is the younger brother of Alec and Austin, volatile players from my baseball team. And because I can’t seem to coach a team lately without siblings, I also have a set of twins. I seem to recall that one twin was considerably better than the other during tryout so I am really hoping that twin 2 wasn’t the 11th player on the team because his brother was going to be on the team. Man that would suck so much to not only have 11 but have the 11th be a place who doesn’t deserve to be there. Hopefully that’s just not the case (or at least that brother is so good to make up for it ).
Anyhow what I’m really excited, and nervous, about is GL. As I mentioned last entry, I had a realization: I am a different sort of coach than most. Where most do drills, I try and do games as much as possible. At one point Eric, the head of HP Athletics, said to me “Bet they don’t do this at GL” and I could whole heartedly agree. I think that GL does it better, or at least I do it better. My tryouts are going to look substantially different than what went on in HP. We’re not going to have any crab walks (where they put the ball through their leg, take a step, put the ball back through their legs, and so on down the court) as that’s not a real basketball skill. We’re going to do a drill for rebounding. We’ll include more than 1 competition (not counting scrimmages). Hell, at the HP tryouts they never even bothered to introduce the people there. Talk about intimidating.
Anyhow, I hope to have an entry this weekend about my plan for GL’s tryouts. GL’s tryouts which are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Have I mentioned that I’m excited and nervous? Yeah I have. But I really am both at the prospect of seeing who will or won’t come out. Who has improved. Who that didn’t make the team last year is ready to step up and join the team. More about all of this over the weekend.
One of the duties I had was to wait outside while everyone was picked up in between tryouts. After the 5th grade tryouts a kid asked me if I coached GL last year (he was one of many to do so). I said I did and he said that he had played on the dreaded JCC team last year. I asked him if he was trying out for them again and he said no, but when I followed up gave me no reason why. I was hoping he would bad mouth them so I could reinforce my negative image of them.
Then I get a phone call yesterday. Brian left me a voice mail and said that after looking over the kids and parents they were concerned about the make-up and would I be willing to move “down”, err over, to 4A. I called him back and agreed.
I have quite a few different feelings about this. On the one hand, I had originally wanted to coach an A team. However, after watching tryouts I grew really excited by the prospect of being able to do some neat stuff with sixth graders, who were absolutely light years ahead of the 5th graders, who were substantially ahead of the 4th graders. It was going to be a new challenge and I was excited by it. So on that level I was disappointed. However, I am happy about having an A team to coach. More than anything I wanted talent to work with and I had originally thought that to be an A team, though that had morphed into the B team. Then there is the whole fact that I have been effectively demoted before even starting. It’s a bit of an insult to me and I think I’m actually going to talk to Brian about it when I see him on Saturday. That said it doesn’t really bother me, as much as I think it should bother me, so I simply want to make it clear to him that I think of myself as capable and agreed to the change to be, well, agreeable and not out of inability. There is also the benefit that my life will be slightly less insane as the 4th graders only practice once a week until January as they are expected to play in house league.
Regardless, the teams are up. And I have 11 players. I am NOT excited about that. My ideal number to be at a game was always 8 or so since everyone got good playing time that way. Having one more player to juggle is going to make it that much harder to get everyone quality minutes AND to still go for victory. It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure. The only player on my team who I know is Gavin, who is the younger brother of Alec and Austin, volatile players from my baseball team. And because I can’t seem to coach a team lately without siblings, I also have a set of twins. I seem to recall that one twin was considerably better than the other during tryout so I am really hoping that twin 2 wasn’t the 11th player on the team because his brother was going to be on the team. Man that would suck so much to not only have 11 but have the 11th be a place who doesn’t deserve to be there. Hopefully that’s just not the case (or at least that brother is so good to make up for it ).
Anyhow what I’m really excited, and nervous, about is GL. As I mentioned last entry, I had a realization: I am a different sort of coach than most. Where most do drills, I try and do games as much as possible. At one point Eric, the head of HP Athletics, said to me “Bet they don’t do this at GL” and I could whole heartedly agree. I think that GL does it better, or at least I do it better. My tryouts are going to look substantially different than what went on in HP. We’re not going to have any crab walks (where they put the ball through their leg, take a step, put the ball back through their legs, and so on down the court) as that’s not a real basketball skill. We’re going to do a drill for rebounding. We’ll include more than 1 competition (not counting scrimmages). Hell, at the HP tryouts they never even bothered to introduce the people there. Talk about intimidating.
Anyhow, I hope to have an entry this weekend about my plan for GL’s tryouts. GL’s tryouts which are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Have I mentioned that I’m excited and nervous? Yeah I have. But I really am both at the prospect of seeing who will or won’t come out. Who has improved. Who that didn’t make the team last year is ready to step up and join the team. More about all of this over the weekend.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
HP Tryouts Day 1
Basketball season is officially upon us again. Since last season, I had an agonizing decision about what team to coach this year, as HP, came through with an offer for basketball. After a lot of contemplation, I decided that I would do both teams, which everyone agrees is insane. So today was Day 1 of tryouts for HP.
Basically it sucked. Not because of the players (more on that shortly) but because of the format. The way HP does tryouts is that they have the coaches as basically extra help. The tryouts themselves are conducted by Brian and Eric, my two bosses at HP. They also bring in some coaches from a local D3 school to be the evaluators. This already was a bad situation. Making things worse is that I don’t think I acquitted myself very well in the few things I was asked to do. I felt very unsure of my place, as it seemed to be clear that I was to be semi-invisible and so that’s what I did. I would have loved to have been able to not be in the backseat, but driving, but that’s not the way it was. Oh and further making things suck? I had to be there all day, for all three teams tryouts, and the gym was sweltering. It was just not good from top to bottom.
Also making this hard is that I will be coaching the sixth grade B team. I saw a lot of talent out there, but it’s hard to have any idea, since I have 0 input on the decision making, to know which players I might end up with. My gut tells me I’m going to get 3 or so tall guys without a lot of athletic ability. This will be interesting as I prefer an athletic game, but am sort of excited at the possibility of having to stretch myself as a coach and do a more post oriented game. What makes this even more funny is that the coach of last year’s 4th grade team is coaching again and told me how he wants a post player to build around, where as I was most impressed with a couple of 4th grade guards. I think we’d both be happier flipping roles, but oh well. Unlike in 4th grade, I think it is possible to have a team that plays really well due to post play at 6th grade. I have no conception of these kid’s names so when the list goes up on Wednesday I’m going to have no idea about the talent I’ll have. Anyhow, tomorrow the second day of tryout. According to the tryout plan, they end the tryout with kids divided up roughly based on their ranking so I should have an idea, based on who is in the second group of 10 who my players likely will be.
GL’s tryouts are a week from Monday and I’m so nervous and excited about those. More about that, as well as my realization about myself as a basketball coach, later on.
On a more housekeeping note, I’m committed, once again to doing this blog. However, with all agreeing that coaching 2 travel teams is a form of mental insanity, I’m not quite sure what I’ll be doing for this blog this year. Not sure if it makes more sense to focus more intensely on one of the teams, or try to do a less in depth coverage of both. We’ll find out as we go along, I suppose.
Basically it sucked. Not because of the players (more on that shortly) but because of the format. The way HP does tryouts is that they have the coaches as basically extra help. The tryouts themselves are conducted by Brian and Eric, my two bosses at HP. They also bring in some coaches from a local D3 school to be the evaluators. This already was a bad situation. Making things worse is that I don’t think I acquitted myself very well in the few things I was asked to do. I felt very unsure of my place, as it seemed to be clear that I was to be semi-invisible and so that’s what I did. I would have loved to have been able to not be in the backseat, but driving, but that’s not the way it was. Oh and further making things suck? I had to be there all day, for all three teams tryouts, and the gym was sweltering. It was just not good from top to bottom.
Also making this hard is that I will be coaching the sixth grade B team. I saw a lot of talent out there, but it’s hard to have any idea, since I have 0 input on the decision making, to know which players I might end up with. My gut tells me I’m going to get 3 or so tall guys without a lot of athletic ability. This will be interesting as I prefer an athletic game, but am sort of excited at the possibility of having to stretch myself as a coach and do a more post oriented game. What makes this even more funny is that the coach of last year’s 4th grade team is coaching again and told me how he wants a post player to build around, where as I was most impressed with a couple of 4th grade guards. I think we’d both be happier flipping roles, but oh well. Unlike in 4th grade, I think it is possible to have a team that plays really well due to post play at 6th grade. I have no conception of these kid’s names so when the list goes up on Wednesday I’m going to have no idea about the talent I’ll have. Anyhow, tomorrow the second day of tryout. According to the tryout plan, they end the tryout with kids divided up roughly based on their ranking so I should have an idea, based on who is in the second group of 10 who my players likely will be.
GL’s tryouts are a week from Monday and I’m so nervous and excited about those. More about that, as well as my realization about myself as a basketball coach, later on.
On a more housekeeping note, I’m committed, once again to doing this blog. However, with all agreeing that coaching 2 travel teams is a form of mental insanity, I’m not quite sure what I’ll be doing for this blog this year. Not sure if it makes more sense to focus more intensely on one of the teams, or try to do a less in depth coverage of both. We’ll find out as we go along, I suppose.
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