So I'll be coaching youth (8, 9, 10 year olds) in the upcoming season and I'm actually getting nervous that I won't do a great job. I've been reading multiple Youth coaching books, watching some DVDs, and I feel like I understand the simple concepts of what you want to teach at this level. I understand you want to focus on the fundamentals and I'm not worried about losing games to teams that might run zone defenses and all that jazz.

But I'm just worried about missing something while teaching the fundamentals. I don't wanna look back at the end of the year and say "Oh crap, I never told 'em to keep their elbows in!" or something along those lines. I know I'm gonna miss something.

And I'm running into the problem of skill progression, and what to teach first and so on. For example, I'm working on a practice plan for the first practice (which I'm guessing will be about an hour long each practice), and at first I had some simple dribbling drills. Then I'm thinking "These kids don't even know how to pivot", so I start back with pivots/jump stops first.

Just some random issues I'm having. I've ordered some DVDs to help (Teaching Kids to Shoot: A Guide for Parents and Coaches, Ray Lokar's Fundamentals Factory and Practice Planning Set, A Hierarchy of Skills for Youth Basketball) and I'm currently watching and re-watching Bob Bigelow's 3-set DVD. I just saw a lot of REALLY bad coaching last year and want to give these kids a chance to improve. Am I overworrying here?

Over worrying? This isn't the NBA.... relax and have fun with them... make sure they have fun... keep all your drills short... attention span at that age isn't the best :-)

Keep your drills simple also...
Passing and catching
Dribbling... you can add a jump stop and pivot at the end of the drill
Teach them some basic m2m fundamentals..
Shooting prinicples

If you are watching the Bigelow dvd.. you will see about keeping it simple. IF this is your first year of coaching... God Bless you for taking on this age group... don't worry about making mistakes... you ever watch any of the pro games? Believe me, I made plenty of mistakes when I started and I'm sure a lot along the way.

Make a plan of what you want to teach them over the entire season and then break that all down and work them in as the season progresses.

Good luck and have FUN - and make sure THEY HAVE FUN TOO.

Hi Ghayes,

Don't worry so much about missing anything.

If you take what Coach Sar told you cover, you will do just
fine.

Matter of fact, if you cover half of that your players will be
fundamentally ahead of teams.

Here's a twitter quote from Breakthrough Basketball..
"Concentrate on what you do have, not on what you don't." - John Wooden

Good luck!

Also, spread the word to other coaches in your league about this site.

I agree with the others... don't worry. You will screw up. So will your players. I still screw up and have been studying basketball for a long time. Just keep learning, do your best, and have fun.

I would not be too crazy about the players being perfect either. You don't want to correct players too often. Let them get reps, things will usually smooth out with reps. And give them some chances for self discovery. Good luck!

I worked with older kids, varsity HS boys and in practice I was pretty tough on them... made practices a lot harder than games... so during games I could let go of the reins and let them play.

You cant teach them everything over night so relax... like I said, everyone needs to have fun here.

What do you think of Bob Bigelows DVDs? What are you taking from them and using with your kids?