The 9 Most Important Questions for Every Basketball Coach. Ignore Them at your Peril.

Motivation, Rebounds, Teamwork, Defense, Trust, Honesty...some of the key words to success. Good post, thanks.

Speaking of the intangibles (5-9) the first question for every coach is to honestly ask themselves why they want to coach.
The lives of young people is at stake: their values, their morals, hopes, dreams, opportunities, and much more.
If you cannot adequately address these issues in your answer to that question you shouldn't coach.
For 1-4 just stay tuned to breakthrough basketball.

I agree with my fellow coach B Bighorn you need to be honest with yourself and ask why you want to coach?

As a coach we all want to win but it shouldn't be at the expense of losing our players both mentally and physically whether in the game or at practice. What we do and say at practices and games will impact our players when they go to the next level whether that be middle school, high school, or college.

Coach for all the right reasons and your rewards you get as a coach will be bountiful.

Great thoughts. I couldn't agree more. WHY DO YOU COACH?!? Hopefully, it's to make every person you come in contact with a better person.

Here's why I coach. We set our teams up by draft. One week after our draft I find out my 1st round pick is going to miss every other game because his parents are divorced and his father won't bring him to the games the weekend he has him. I ask his coach from last year whats up with that. He just says the kid missed the games, excuse me, you just let him miss the games. Well, I call the father and as diplomatically as I can explain to him how much his son loves the game and how much fun it is to watch these kids play. To make a long story short,1st game he was going to miss the dad shows up to watch. I see the kid come into the gym, he sees me runs up to me with an ear to ear grin jumps up and gives me a double high five, still brings tears to my eyes seeing how happy that kid was to be at the game

Great story, Mike. I think every coach that truly coaches for the right reasons has one (or many) stories just like that.

Great post. I'm a new coach and this lays it out as simply as possible. My 8th grade boys will appreciate it. Thanks.

Yup, i believe each and everyone has their own style of coaching but the bottom line is well discussed in these 9 points and i believe that we coaches can all agree that we are the most important figure our players look up to. They all listen to us, and we too should listen to our players. Personally, i assess my players individually and don't shove things down their throats knowing they can't handle it. I make sure that they can do things i ask them to do coz this helps build their morale and eventually give them task which they believe they can do.
We are their 2nd parents. We make sure we guide them right to prepare them for the big fight in life.

Wow, Mike...... just, wow. I coach high school boys and
have never had anything quite so touching happen.
Thanks for sharing that....
Charlie

Thank you, all, for the stories and tips you share here. This is my first year coaching. I coach a 9-12 year old girls team. Without my assistant coach and breakthrough b-ball, Im not sure this season would have gone so well. Again, thanks for all the work that goes into this site.