Help...I need some help with team unity. I manage a team, I have a head coach. We are having a few issues with girls that are the better players giving others hard time for not giving them the ball. Its in its infant stages now but I want to cut it out now. I raised a bball player who went on to play at the college level, this is now my grandkids team. I know how destructive this can be and I refuse to let it take hold. This is a second grade girls team. I am having a meeting with kids about what team means. Any suggestions? I will point out Team stands for together, everyone, achieves more theory. Plus make them understand that I have never seen a sinlge girl beat a team of 5. I am open to suggestions

I ran into a similar problem that I could forsee happening this year with my 3rd grade boys team. I have three kids that are naturally gifted with high bb IQ and some kids who are just starting to play. The 3 are good kids that are by nature not mean spirited - but they are EXTREMELY competitive.

Prior to the 1st practice I had this season, I had an "expectations" talk with them. I talked about the 3 things we will be great at (and got some great feedback on this forum as well). one of those three things is "Being Positive", I pressed them about being positive with each other, parents, coaches, ref's, etc. But the real work for me came in practice. You can tell them to be positive with each other all you want but working on them throughout practice along with teaching fundamentals is a different story. When we do drills, for example, lay-ups. If the shooter makes it, I kept pressing them to say nice job, give high fives or whatever as the shooter makes his way back to the line. If he misses, they'd say, "Nice try, you'll get it next time". If I didn't hear this from the majority of the line, I'd ask them, "Are we being positive?" and then they'd start it up again. It took about 4 or 5 practices of badgering before they started doing it on their own and by the time we started scrimmaging, I could see them cheering each other on. It was a great transformation. It may not be a pretty answer but it's worked for me.

Secondly, I pulled those three off to the side before the "expectations" talk and spoke to them as a group about being leaders and what that means. I felt by talking to them together (as opposed to individually), they all felt like they could rely on each other to be leaders and that helped as well.

I have a strong belief that the little things matter ... though it may not ... but it's what I believe in :)

There are far more BB savvy coaches on this forum than I am. I'm curious about their response as well.

Here are two things that I did in my summer camps to develop leadership and team play....

1- A NO dribble game, this forces players to pass the ball to almost every player so they get into a position for a good shot

2- A game to SIX with 5 players.... EVERYONE must score one basket before any player can make the final shot... OR / YOU can decide who makes that shot....This game really got them to play TEAM ball because everyone had to score... they worked very hard to get the weaker players a shot until they made one.

Just a few thoughts that worked for me.... good luck and I hope this helps.

Thanks for the tips. My coach is a young dad who is doing his best. And beings that I am a female, its a tightrope at time s to walk. He is very motivated to making his daughter a superstart, and sometimes that zealous might be talking to her at home like a parent about basketball rather then a coach. My daughter was humble the whole time she played as a young girl never being mean to another and often helping, so this is a new area for me.
I will try to speak with him about it and see if we can solve this problem. I

There might not be anything you can do if the behavior is reinforced at home by the parents and parent/coaches. I like Brent's approach with emphasizing the intangibles (like staying positive). If you can pick one or two things, it can help. Maybe not this year, but through osmosis this emphasis can help. I still remember my second grade teacher and how important honesty was to her. She said "one of the worst things you can do is lie". I don't know if I learned anything else and didn't think anything of it as a 2nd grader, but looking back, her emphasis on honesty made a lasting impression on me.

No dribble games for young kids are great too! Actually we still do no dribble drills in high school and they are very beneficial.

Also keep in mind that second graders are completely different than adults and it's very easy for parents and coaches to forget that (all of us do it, myself included). Most second graders still have issues with "sharing". They not might say "that's my toy, you can't play with it!!!" anymore, but they still have some of that mentality left over. If you watch young kids interact at home or on the play ground you see it. Young kids think about themselves, and now you are telling them to "share" the ball? A second grader by nature doesn't want to pass THEIR ball to someone else. They are probably thinking, these coaches must be crazy. Why would I pass this ball that I love to shoot and dribble with? So be aware that part and maybe the entire issue is just age. And if I'm being completely honest, I don't believe second graders should be playing 5on5 basketball, if any basketball at all. It's just too young and there are better ways to develop young players. But that's a whole other story which we won't go into. The point is that their brains, bodies, and emotions aren't developed to do the things us coaches and parents want and think they should be doing on the basketball court.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Thank you everyone. I went and took a few courses on positive coaching. I got ideas from there and here. I have printed up posters to present to the girls.. I learned about filling the emotional tank, and found a great tanker truck which I named the emotional tank which I printed on a large poster. I plan to help the girls figure out how to help each other fill their emotional tank first by writing down suggestion on this poster and then by putting it into practice using terms to make their teammates feel good. Such as nice pass, nice defense, good hustle. I will not focus on shots made because at this age, we have girls who cant make any shots yet, I want them to feel part of this team and valued. I am also taking over half of the practice, Our head coach is leaving after this session, so I figured it was time to not have a parent coach, and jump in and be more then just the administrator. I have the most experience by far in helping a young lady into becoming successful at basketball and life. I feel we are missing some key items from our skills bucket. I feel we haven't started with the basic skills and build upon that in a progressive nature. So back to that square, how to catch the ball, then how to pass stationary, how to pass moving, etc. (passing?? we are supposed to pass...what??) Whats a good defensive stance, number one, why do defense, and build on that. Really back to the beginning, I think one of our problems is we were wildly successful our first league out, oftentimes winning by an embarrassing amount, I have never enjoyed winning by a landfall. It may take time to back up but I think its important. One of the things of course is the wide variety of skill development in the girls. I plan on trying to encourage everyone to spend time at home by doing 5 minutes workouts I have seen here to help them master their ball handling skills. I have a huge bag of items left over from when my daughter played I used to make baskets as motivational kinda things before big games. I am going to offer each kid a chance to get into the grab bag and get an item for working on their skills at home. I have set up a form for the girls to track the time they are putting into basketball. 5 minutes a day 6 days a week is our goal. If they do 30 minutes a week they get a prize. Trying to get parents and kids on board with working on ball handling, passing etc so they can help their daughters be successful without making them have unrealistic expectations. I have made a website and put sample workouts up, I have also made a notebook of 5 minutes things to do at home. We have have a girl whose mom is a track coach, she is going to do our warm ups, based on agility type stuff, agility ladders, plyo stuff, feet speed type things, to help break up and keep practice fun and upbeat. Trying to get more parents involved so we don't have that my dad is the coach mentality thing.

This sounds like you have a great handle on how you want to deal with all of this... especially being POSITIVE. Seems like you are super organized and have a plan. Remember, these are young girls so be super patient with them and make sure the kids and you have FUN..

Don't be surprised of some of these things don't woirk, just be flexible and adjust your plan. The attentiion span of young kids is nil to begin with. Keep your drills short and start at their level.

Passing and catching will be a big thing here... and once you start doing that on the move , things will get tougher for them.

I can see that you have spent a great deal of time on this and I ope things go well for you and the team.

You might take a look at Bob Bigelows DVD regarding Coachimg youth basketball. Good luck

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/store/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=8&cat=Coaching+Youth+Basketball

It's encouraging to see a coach put this much effort into things and being positive, I wish more coaches did this. Several excellent ideas.