i would caution that too much competition at this age level can have a counter-effect. i have kids on my team who were, by the second practice, intimidated and had figured out they were far behind the other players. of course, when we do team competitions, we put teams of more experienced with less experienced players to keep things fair. but sometimes the competitive drills expose the weaker players - some will recognize that and it will spur them to work harder. but many others tend to be kind of introverted and passive by nature. i don't want their first experience with basketball to be miserable. so i encourage the team to have to do the same thing, in the same way. my hope is that the weaker players will have certain skills reinforced by watching the stronger players, and they all get the feeling of going through a drill as a team.

--Pat

[quote="flanders"]i would caution that too much competition at this age level can have a counter-effect. i have kids on my team who were, by the second practice, intimidated and had figured out they were far behind the other players. of course, when we do team competitions, we put teams of more experienced with less experienced players to keep things fair. but sometimes the competitive drills expose the weaker players - some will recognize that and it will spur them to work harder. but many others tend to be kind of introverted and passive by nature. i don't want their first experience with basketball to be miserable. so i encourage the team to have to do the same thing, in the same way. my hope is that the weaker players will have certain skills reinforced by watching the stronger players, and they all get the feeling of going through a drill as a team.

--Pat[/quote]

Excellent point. Kids at this age don't like to consistently lose the "competition." It's more important to keep them busy. But with 24 kids, that is almost impossible. If your lucky enough to have a full gym, 6 hoops and 5 assistants, you can make it work (ok I live in utopia). Groups of 4 at each station should keep them going enough. But more than that per group and they are destined to have some "stand around" time which leads to boredom. Last year I had a 10 to 1 ratio -- did not work. No matter what I did, someone was at the end of the line goofing off. This year, I have 5 to 1. I expect it to be much better.