I am a first year coach of 1st and 2nd grade basketball. I told parents at the beginning of the year we would work on team concepts and fundamentals. Every practice I run a drill to get the kids into triple threat position (teach athleticism) and dribbling. I have dribble relay races and dribble follow the leader (me). Then I mix in footwork, passing, shooting (form and lay-ups) and finally spacing with drills and scrimmage.

I love getting your news letter with new ideas for drills. You guys are fantastic, I couldn't have done it without you.

Love the articles and advice. Please keep them coming.

Thank you for the kind words. We're glad we can help!

Looks like you're designing practices for today's youth

Great point-Coach Tony DeMatteo about today's kids - Doesn't think kids have changed; thinks ATTENTION SPANS HAVE CHANGED http://bit.ly/uAB4Il

Nice writeup - sent it along with other items to my son's middle school BB coach.

Bob Bigelow has some excellent videos about coaching kids. In fact there is a passing drill that is worth the video...I did a variation of it, but what he does is much much better.
Things I believe that should be taught at every practice from years of coaching up to the 8th grade:
Every practice for every age begins with ball handling. IE, moving the ball around the waist, the hips, each leg, the neck, drop catch etc. One thing I have added to the routine that I haven't seen others do is, squat, toss the ball in the air and jump to catch it.
Teach chinning the ball.
Teach pivoting.
Teach jump stop.
Teach jumping to catch the ball. Always.
These are all easy things to teach that improve their athleticism and their bball skills.
You will be amazed at how quickly their hand eye coordination improves and how rapidly TO's decline.

Oh, don't worry about winning. Teach them to play and have fun playing.

Great video, Clarence! Everybody should watch that video. And thanks for passing on the article.

It's funny you mention the design of the practice for today's youth. This occurrence happens to me almost every practice which are 90 minutes long. When I blow the whistle and bring everybody in to wrap up the practice, I'll get at least one puzzled look from a kid and he'll say, "Practice is over already?"

I like the drill, Michael! And then progress to throwing it off the backboard, chin, turn and outlet to player on the wing.

Joe,

Thats the mark of a well planned practice, you must be ending practice on a fun note... that always brings them back.

We used to end practice with "situations" The kids loved those and it was a great learning situation.

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I am limited to one hour of practice per week. Because of the time crunch I pre-plan every practice and keep it to the basics trying to use drills that teach multiple skills. The most important drills first and so on. But every week I find myself not getting to something I wanted to cover.

Thats a tough gig for anyone... the only thing you can do is to keep right on schedule.. if something isn't going well, move on to the next thing.. hopefully other things will go well and you might be able to pick up some time and go back on it. The last thing you want to do is keep on a drill for a long time and miss other important things. I learned that the hard way too.

Good luck

I am a first year coach for boys and girls junior high. Your resources have been extremely helpful! Thanks!

Great stuff, here guys. You could run a couple of seasons worth of things just from this one article.

I have coached various age groups and it amazes me how little time is spent teaching ball handling and footwork at the younger levels.

Everytime I read a Haefner article I learn something new or rehash something I have forgotten.

Thanks to Clarence and Mike for their input and links.

Keith,

I'm not sure what "younger" levels you are talking about.... YOUTH programs I would agree, mostly because they are volunteer coaches doing the best they can. Sites like this one can help coaches for all age groups - but especially the volunteer coaches.

If only those coaches knew of sites like this one, and all the coaching groups out there... there is a wealth of information out there, all they have to do is to be informed about where they can go.

I heard this somewhere... Don Kelbick I think, IF you cant pass or catch the ball, you cant play... I would add this.... being able to dribble with either hand and be able to defend.

I coach youth basketball I find your info very helpfull.i been coaching four years it still is a task but without this kind of info I wouldnt know were we would be thanks and keep it coming

This great information. Many of the ideas I have incorproated into my practices. One thing I have found is that with MS Word I can cut and paste different drills and have been using the same practice template for many years.

Thanks for some new ideas.