Oyster River Youth Association Basketball

Oyster River Youth Association Basketball

“The Manual”

By: David Burrows

1. Coaching Youth
2. Parents
3. Sportsmanship
4. Pre-K
5. Suggested Skill Drills For Every Practice Grade 3 to 12

1. Coaching Youth

Introduction:

Throughout the past eight years I have kept several journals with the intention of being organized and to help future youth coaches. I consolidated the journals into this manual. I have tried to include everything possible: Suggestions, tips, age appropriate drills, and my experiences. If you take one thing from this manual it was well worth my time putting this together.

BE ORGANIZED and BE EARLY- it is important for the players and the parents to have confidence in you. Parents will love you if you are organized with your practice plan/game sub rotations/ and email correspondence. It is important to be the first person to practice and to the games. Trust me when I say this, stuff happens. One year I had to clean the court off at Mast Way because the gym class had monkey bars and mats all over it. Before Saturday games it takes the lights a while to warm up. Chairs and the scoring clock needs to be set up.

My personal philosophy of coaching youth:kill them with kindness. I positively reinforce youth girls/boys whenever I can. I believe in “sandwiching.” Here is an example, “Anna, you are shooting well and your form works, but if you tucked your elbow in moreyou would hit a few more shots that you have been missing.” The first thing I learned coaching youth girls or boys is they will internalize criticism and the stress will last a long time. The biggest advice I can give any new coach is to KEEP ITFUN. Even when you are working on basic drills make sure you are enthusiastic. If you want to work on jump stops, sweep, and pivoting make it FUN. I like to try and steal the ball away from the playersas they pivot sweep. They love trying to keep it away from the coach.

Girls/boys love to talk with their friends. It is no mystery. My first year coaching at the 3rd and 4th grade level I had one team that could not stop talking. The talking was so bad it was affecting practice. The next practice I told the girls that I wanted to reward them for their hard work. For the first 10 minutes of practice I let the players chose any drill they wanted and they could talk as much as they wanted to their friends. But, after the first drillthey had to focus on basketball. It worked really well. Not only did the first ten minute chatter rule rid the girls of excess energy but the girls no longer showed up late to practice. I usually had a few stragglers but after implementing this rule the girls did not want to miss out on the first ten minutes of practice.

KEEP THEM MOVING. It is important to have the players not stand around for a long period of time. Move from one drill to another quickly. I find being organized with a practice plan extremely helpful so I don’t waste time and I can move drill to drill. Keep the players moving, get them tired, and build water breaks into your practice plan.

I was given this advice by my wife and it has helped me. She told me to coach my players like they were my own children. The most important thing you can teach any young player is self-confidence. That is what coaching youth is all about. Yes, basketball skills are important. If you can teach self-confidence while teaching basketball skills it’s the biggest gift you can give to our youth in my opinion.

Summary of Important Tips

I use these principals at every age group and it works

*Be organized and be early—self explanatory

*Kill the players with kindness- positively reinforce whenever you can. Build them up.

*Sandwiching- when you must correct a mistake use the sandwiching approach.

*Keep It Fun-who wants to play basketball and not have fun?

*Chatter Rule- First ten minutes let the kidsgo nuts

*Keep them moving-don’t give the kids a chance to lose focus

*Self-confidence- biggest gift we can give the girls is self-confidence

1. Parents

Put yourself in their shoes. If I drop off my daughter for a few hours I want to feel confident and assured that my daughter is in good hands. Parents want reassurance. Before the season I will send a generic email that introduces myself, provides contact information, and gives a guideline of rules. I have included an example of an email in this manual.

The first thing I tell parents is I understand that there will be times you will be late picking up your child, it happens, but I will never ever leave until everyone has been picked up. It is important to tell the parents this. I will ask the parents to please allow me to be the coach during practice and games. Every year I will have one player who will look into the stands for coaching from their dad or mom. I try to put a stop to this from the start. Except for the high school age groups I welcome all parents to stay at practice and participate or watch. I encourage parents to help at practice. At games if I have an overzealous dad or mom who likes to work the officials or coach his daughter from the stand I will have this dad help me with the scorebook or keep the clock. Keep this dad or mom busy!

It is very important to establish boundaries. Every year I seem to have one player who likes to give hugs. Some parents do not even mind. But it is NOT APPROPRIATE. I always ask parents to please tell their daughters/sons it is not appropriate to hug the coach. Set this boundary immediately.

It is very important to get to know the janitor in each gym. They are a valuable resource for many things. Lost items/need them to unlock a door/help with bleachers etc……The Janitors I have had the chance to know have been awesome. Typically I have one player on each team that is always the last one to be picked up. Never put yourself in a position where there can be an issue. If my daughter is sick and not at practice and I have a girl that is waiting to be picked up and I am alone with this girl I will seek out the janitor to stay with me until the girl is picked up. I have never had a janitor tell me no. It has happened four times in seven years. Protect yourself from potential headaches.

I believe in having 100% transparency. I probably over email my parents. I would rather the parents have all the info. I will send weekly emails outlining the schedule. I will also send a reminder the Friday before the weekend game. In this email I will remind the parents the time of the game, location, and directions of the venue. Before I use to send this email parents would complain about the ORYA website being too hard to find etc…. Email them yourself and it will save you players showing up late to games or not at all. After each game I will send an email to each player/parent telling them the good things they did in the game. You will be surprised how the parents and the girls love getting these emails.

If you have any issues with a parent for any reason it is important to let cooler heads prevail. Do not hit the send button on any email until you have slept on it, and had it reviewed by your wife or husband. Get the director involved. Parents should not be complaining about playing time at the lower levels or any level. All players play equally at ORYA. I have had parents volunteer their basketball expertise or suggestions. I will listen. I can honestly say in my eight years I have had only a handful of issues and these issues were the result of a child not making a tournament team. Get your director involved.

Summary Tips Dealing with Parents

*Reassurance- send welcome emails, preseason meeting, meet the parents

*Keep Mom or Dad Busy- keep overzealous parents busy with scorebook or clock

*Establish Boundaries- Tell parents hugs from their children is NOT APPROPRIATE, ask a janitor or parent to stay with you if you are alone with a child

*100% Transparency- keep parents informed, invite them to help at practice

*Cooler Heads Prevail- you will have parental issues, keep cool & get director involved

1. Sportsmanship

This is a big one. We are a reflection of ORYA and our community. From the start please be crystal clear with the players and their parents. We do not yell at referees. We do not call other players names. We do not yell at the other coach. We do not get into a debate with the opposing teams parents. The only time you speak to an official IMO is if a game is becoming too physical and the girls are in jeopardy of getting hurt. Never show up an official by yelling. During a stop in play ask politely if you can speak to him in regards to tightening up the calls. “sir, I am concerned as a coach that the game is getting out of control and one of these girls will get hurt. The calls have been fair both ways, but could you call the game tighter to slow these girls down. I will tell my girls to relax.” Safety is #1.

It is important to show respect to our janitors and the visiting teams janitors. Pick up after yourselves. Trash, water bottles, etc……we are guest in these facilities even on the weekend when you are at home. Free use of the gyms is a privilege not a requirement.

1. Pre-K

Keep it fun and keep them moving! You will need help and more the merrier. Please make sure you have enough balls for every child. At this level you cannot teach all of the proper fundamentals. Your goal is to keep it fun and positive. This age group is learning hand/eye coordination and seeing if they want to continue playing in the future. Keep it fun, and positively reinforce.

Successful drills:

-dribble relay

-introduce them to finger taps, figure 8’s between legs, around the waist

-have them dribble w heads up, have them yell the number you show them on your hand

-dribble, blow the whistle and have them come to a jump stop and pivot sweep. Try to steal the ball away from them

-red light/ green light

-teach them bounce passes (most important pass), chest passes, over the head pass

-Teach them a jab step

-monkey in the middle- have players form a circle with one player in the middle. One ball gets passed around using bounce passes and keeping it away from the monkey in the middle. Alternate monkeys.

-show them the proper fundamentals of a layup

-Right Hand Layup- jump off left leg, shoot w right hand

-Left Hand Layup- jump off right leg, shoot w left hand

-teach them proper defensive position- have them tap their feet and when you blow the whistle have them slap the floor and yell DEFENSE. Parents and kids love this one

-Duck Duck dribble goose- girls sit in a circle one goose and each dribble is a duck. Hand the ball to the new duck then sit down

1. Suggested Skill Drills For Every Practice Grade 3 To 12

Every practice I work on the following skills for proper fundamental development. IMO it is important to work on these skills starting at the 3rd grade level and work on them at every age group all the way to Varsity. I did a lot of these every day in college. I practice these skills every practice. I tweak the drills throughout the year so the kids don’t get bored but this is the base foundation of skills I teach at every practice. It will take 20 to 25 minutes to complete the following:

Warm up- I have them dribble with their opposite hand for 3 laps. I then bring them close to me and have them do finger taps to get proper basketball feel. I have them wheel the ball around their waist. I then have them do figure 8’s between their legs. I then have them dribble with their right hand w/ their eyes looking up. I will hold out a certain # of fingers so the players can yell out the answer in order to keep their eyes from not looking down. I will then have them dribble w/ their left hand. I will have them cross over left to right and right to left. After this series I will have them go back to dribbling w/ either hand and instruct them when I blow the whistle they are to put their ball down and find somebody else’s ball. It is a fun drill that gets them moving.

Dribble Series

Dribble Series warmup—I will line up the players along the baseline each w a ball. At the whistle I will have them dribble SLOW w their right hand under control. Ball being dribbled with their finger tips. The ball does not go above their waist. I will have them dribble slow under control all the way to the other baseline. I will then have them dribble to the other baseline with their left hand.

Stutter Step—after warming up the players with a dribble up and back w their right and left hand I will line them up again at the baseline. I will have them dribble w their right hand and when they get to the first foul line I will blow the whistle and have the players do a stutter step. I will have them repeat the stutter step at the half court line and the other free throw line. I will have them comeback from the other baseline by dribbling w their left hand. The dribbling speed should be slow and under control. Kids at this age go to fast and the ball is usually flying all around the gym. Have them go slow.

Jump stop and two pivots—I will line up the players on baseline and have them dribble w their right hand. When they reach the first free throw line ill blow the whistle and they will come to a jump stop. I will go to each player and try and knock the ball away lightly. The players are to sweep the ball away and pivot twice. Right handed players pivot w their left foot. Vice versa for left handed players. I repeat this at the half court line and the other free throw line. I will have them do it again but dribbling w their left hand on the way back to the other baseline. The kids like when the coach tries to swipe the ball away.

Cross over dribble—Have all the players lineup at the baseline again. When the players dribble w their right hands to the first free throw line blow the whistle and have them cross over to their other hand. Repeat at half court and other FT line. Repeat again coming back to the other baseline.

Pull Back and explode-- Sometimes players will get trapped in the open court. I teach my players that sometimes when two players are running at you do not stop your dribble. Keep dribbling and dribble back a step to create some spacing and then split the trap by exploding through and splitting the trap. Line up the players at the baseline and at the first FT line blow the whistle and have them keep their dribble, dribble shuffle backwards w a small step back step and then have them dribble forward fast changing speeds. Repeat at the half court line and the other FT line. Repeat with the opposite hand on the way back to the other baseline.

Inside Out Dribble-- If you do not know what this is call me and Ill demonstrate. Hard to explain by writing it.

Passing Series

I will have one player team up w another player. Every week I will make sure they rotate team mates. Please explain to the players that the most important pass in basketball is the bounce pass. 90% of passes in any basketball game should be a bounce pass. For this passing series drill I have the players execute a jab step before they execute a pass. A jab step is a fake. You fake the pass and step out with your foot like you are making a pass. I show the players when I make a pass my thumbs are pointing down after I have passed the ball. By having your thumbs pointing down it creates a proper follow through and the ball will have some zip to it.

Bounce Pass—Jab step then the ball gets bounced to their passing partner approx. 3/4th the way. The receiving team mate should have their hands up ready to catch the ball. The receiving partner should be also stepping into the pass to catch it. Players should be communicating w each other by calling out their name. The ball should be bounced so the team mate can catch the ball around the chest area.