Hello guys , been awhile since I have visited the site but I see its still a great site with lots of good stuff . This year I am back to coaching . My youngest son is in kindergarten this year and I am coaching k-1 . Been awhile since I have been with this age . I have some ideas as what i want to do with them but as always I am asking and looking for ideas to add or even some donts . I feel like I have learned from watching my oldest Blake grow up playing things that I should have done different or things I felt like kids lacked being taught .
Today was our first practice . I basically get 1 1/2 hrs twice a week with these kids . Today we started with a few stationary ball drills .... Smacked the ball , a little finger tip toss above our head ,ball around our head , around our waist , around both knees , around right leg , around left leg , figure 8 . If a kid needed to roll the ball in figure 8 motion around legs I was ok with it . We will learn and we will get better . We dribble right hand with a left hand arm bar with good posture and switched to left hand dribble with right hand arm bar . Then we dribbled right hand and cross over to left in on motion and back and forth a couple times . After that we dribbled on the move . 1/4 court hand hand switched to left hand went to half court switch back right hand went to 3/4 court switch to left and finished out . We did this 3-4 times. Then I let them kinda speed walk if u can full court right hand and back left hand . We then paired up and learned 3 passes . Bounce pass , chest pass , over head pass . Next we learned a right hand lay up . Here I had them take 1 step with left foot and jump bringing right knee up and shooting for square but no focusing on making shot focusing on footwork . After that we shot a normal type 5 foot jump shot . Focusing on form and hand under ball bend knees and correct release I tried to stress shot the ball don't throw it at the rim. Last thing we learned on day one is defensive stance . Slide our feet knees bent hands out etc . We slid left and right and back peddled staying in our stance We did a little drill on baseline where we defensive slide from corner to the lane back peddled to foul line defensive slide across foul line and then sprinted to baseline and hand up to challenge shot and then defensive slide back to the other corner . We did this several times focused on keeping stance and not crossing feet always hand up on shot and finishing the drill off . This summed up our day . These our things I plan to do every practice . I am not even remotely worried about offensive stuff ,. I want to stress fundamentals ( dribbling , passing , catching , shooting form) and defense . I plan on m2m defense btw . And getting back on D and always stop the ball weather its ur man with ball or not . When I do offense I plan on a 5 out offense kinda like focusing on dribble drive or pass and cut . My thinking is I want every kid to have guard skills and be able to put the ball on the floor and go make a play and pass and catch .
I apolagize for the long thread but I want to do these kids right and not just teach mine but all . I have seen to many kids as Blake grew up that was huge when they was little and was labeled a center and stop growing in middle school at 5'10 with no guard skills to play at high school level . If anyone sees anything I did wrong please correct me or if you have any suggestion or practice plans for this age would love to hear your ideas . Also We have 3 teams rules ! #1 have fun #2 try as hard as you can #3 have fun !!

Hi Des -

How is Blake doing? He's in high school now? Knocking down the 3 ball with ease I would imagine. :-) Say hi to him for me.

Yes, that was a long thread LOL ............. It seems like you are going to do a lot of work on fundamentals which is a GREAT thing. I should have said this first... you have to be a Saint to work with this age group.... they have the concentration level of a water bug.

Have fun with them and they will have fun too! Find things they like to do where they can learn some fundamentals along the way. I am thinking that maybe you should play a lot of 3 on 3 stuff in practice, that way they will have to learn all the skills....... and how the heck would you pick out a center at this age??? LOL Unless you have some kid that is 6 feet tall already ..... I agree with your thoughts on that.... at my summer camps we taught all the skills to all the players, regardless of size.

One game they loved was (use the number of players you want to play with .... 3 on 3, 4 on 4, 5 on 5 etc.... The game is to ONE MORE POINT than the number of kids playing ... and everyone must score before anyone can make the last shot,

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Thanks coach sar I will tell Blake . He seems like an old man lol but he actually just turned 13 and is in 7th grade now . But ur right he is shooting the 3 ball well . Probably is his strong point . He sees the floor well and seems to have a high basketball IQ . I think he probably will be best used as a 2 guard cause he shoots so well mid range and 3 ball ! Season starts in a week so ill let u know how he plays this yr! Thanks and we will work with these k-1 kids ! Blake is helping me when he can and actually like it . He says he would like to be a coach someday lol but I do think helping these kids is a good for him and they actually look up to him ecspecaily his little brother .

Only 13..... out of site out of mind? Although I did refer to him a few months ago when I thought I was talking to you.
Glad to hear that his game is getting better, especially his shooting. How tall is he now? I think he should keep working on his PG skills, you never know where they can take him in the future.

I gurantee you that PG or 2 guard,..... IF he can shoot it, the coach will find a way to get him shots. I had several PGs that could shoot the ball, trust me, I'm not stupid.... I got them shots. I had a few that couldn't shoot a lick too.... but they did a great job running the team. PG skills + shooting skills.... I don't know if he can take the ball to the basket... I would think he can from the little I saw him play, but that is another skill to add to his arsenal. Hard to stop someone who can shoot the 3 ball, mid range and take it to the hole... and still be able to find the open man. The complete package so to speak. IF you get a chance, post another video of him - would be nice to see how far he has come.

Thanks coach sar . I will for sure post a video clip of him soon . Blake is 5'4 right now and has just started the puberty thing lol and never has had that big growth year yet . . I really honestly believe he will be somewhere around that 6 ft range when done. He does a nice job driving to the basket also and he does see the open man in traffic ! Just needs to learn what a bounce pass is more often lol . I have always stressed with him like u said be a COMPLETE all around player . If ur struggling in one area u can still help ur team win in other areas . Never be one diminsional . Offensively he does all phases pretty good . FT's , mid range , 3's , driving and finishing either hand , plus seeing floor and passing .

Whew! Coaching K/1st is a tough gig, lots of energy and the attention span factor makes it even more challenging. Sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what to do, since your older son has already gone through it. I started at the K/1st level and have helped a few coaches over the years with their K/1st teams. Every time I do it, it blows me away how much energy it takes to coach them.

A few suggestions from my experience:

-get an assistant
-ask parents/siblings to help in practices (e.g. chase balls, set up cones, help with drills, etc..)
-make up goofy names for everything from your team name (if possible) to the names of the drills
-put the Novocaine in before you drill. In other words, when you're doing a drill to teach a concept, make it fun and game-like if possible
-avoid kids standing lines
-lots of ball touches - passing games, dribbling games
-keep the practice moving with the drills lasting 5-7 min max
-come up with a simple team cheer (including parents gets it really going)


Bonus: Get a stuffed animal that represents your team. If you're the bears, get a small bear and bring it to practice and to games. Before the game, everyone has to touch the bear (parents included) for good luck. The bear sits on the bench with everyone during the game. Let the kids bring it through the line when they shake hands at the end of the game. Trust me, this is usually a big hit with the kids. My son (age 14) still has a collection of our team stuffed animals in a box somewhere from our K - 3rd grade days, everything from a meerkat to a gorilla.

It sounds like Blake has a good all around game.... make sure he doesn't forget about defense!! LOL Hitting the growth spurt huh.... now comes the fun... good luck with that. 5'4 at 13 is a good size for a guard type player right now.... 6' after he finishes growing ... would make a good point guard and with all his skills... who knows how far he can go. Get through middle school and the next goal is to be a HS varsity player.

Suggestion for him... have him write down 1 or 2 things every day before practice.... things to improve upon, something new every day. We did that with our Varsity, seemed to help them a little bit. Looking forward to seeing him play.

Rob has given you some good ideas and anything that you can come up with to make this fun for them will help everybody involved. Patience is a virtue with this age group..... especially with this age group.

When enlisting helpers, make sure that they are on YOUR PAGE .... you can always use a lot of Indians, NOT too many Chiefs. Thats probably not very PC but you get the idea I am sure.

Great point. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is essential, especially at the younger levels. Coaching K-2nd grade is like herding kittens who've had too much Starbucks.

EDIT: One other thought, clearly communicate your philosophy and what parents can expect from you at the beginning of the season. It will save a ton of headaches down the road. If you're a big picture, lots of touches, kids have fun coach and 1/2 your parents have winning as the #1 goal, it's good to get that out of the way up front.

I love this one. lol

Hey there -

Have Blake watch the movie part with Doug Collins as he talks about MJ and what MJ has to say about his defense.

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/defense/defense-crossover-step.html