First Time Coach - 4th 5th Grade Girls

Hello all.

First post here so we'll start with a little background.

Not actually a coach yet, but after watching my 4th grade daughter's rec team, I am going to volunteer and sign up to coach next year. I've never done basketball. Helped out on a few baseball teams and my daughter's softball team this past summer.

After a few years of asking her, and her saying "no, I don't think I want to play sports". All of a sudden this year, I want to play softball Daddy. Then this fall, I want to play basketball Daddy. So we're a little behind the other girls, but not by much. She a quick learner.

Like probably most parent coaches here, I played some in my younger years, and have watched a lot of basketball. I'm a college/high school fan. Don't care for the NBA game. I would say I have a better than average understanding of the game.

I have already begun thinking of how to teach these girls the game. Downloading and reading whatever I can find. I started a notebook. I have even started a rough draft of my opening talk. Stressing team ball, good fundamentals, fun and development.

Am I crazy?

So why am I doing this?

To try and teach these girls some proper fundamentals.

So as the months go by and I compile my program for these girls, I plan to post my ideas here and would really appreciate some feedback from some of you experienced coaches.

That will be all for now. Have to get back to my coaches manual.

I feel your pain. Here' some advice...

Teach them great man to man defense fundamentals. Put players in all positions so they develop foot speed, coordination, etc. Posts should guard outsides and vica versa. I'd highly recommend getting a good man to man defense DVD so you teach them proper fundamentals. If you need help finding a good one let us know.

Play some type of full court 1v1 almost every day (I prefer advancing through gates instead of shooting so they get more reps). 1v1 full court develops ball handling for all the players, agility, on ball defense fundamentals, and foot speed. If I could only pick one drill, that's probably what I'd choose.

If I could only pick two drills, I'd pick 1v1 and 3v3. You can modify the rules all kinds of ways to make the drills productive.

Use some type of motion offense (no plays or wasting time in practice trying to get young kids to memorize plays that they will just screw up in games anyway).

Use a motion with interchangeable positions. All players need to catch the ball outside, inside, and all over the court so they develop ball-handling skills. Do not pigeonhole anyone into the post.

Put learning how to play basketball ahead of learning your system. This is paramount. Almost all your time should be spent on things that will help players no matter what team or coach they play for in the future. If you spend hours getting players to memorize "your set plays," how does that help them in the future when they're on a different team? Instead, teach them fundamentals like spacing, cutting, screening, shooting, dribbling, 1v1 moves, passing, footwork, defense, and lay ups. All of those things will not only make your team better in the long run, it will also help those players in the future.

Lastly, your practices should allow your players to get as many touches on the ball as possible. Thousands of touches in a practice. That means little to NO standing in lines. Everyone has a ball. And fast paced practices that are lots of fun.

You can see some of the things we have done with our 3rd - 5th grade teams here:
http://jeffhaefner.com/coach/

Just a quick email before I go to work.

My most urgent goal right now is to design a progressive program for my daughter. She actually asked for extra coaching!! So I'm going to take advantage of that while I can.

I have her all next week. I take work and no school of course. So we're going to hit the YMCA one afternoon for as long as she can take it.

Gathering everything I can to help her. Will list the things I have written down later. I'm pretty much going to hit every beginner drill I can find. Then when she's tired, we'll walk around the court and talk about what she should do in different situations.

I need to hit foot speed drills. She needs help with her footwork as she's not a fast girl.

More later ... gotta go ...

Thanks for the tips Jeff. Yes, most of what you've said I've already picked up here on the website. I'll come back to your post later. For now I want to write down a few of my ideas here and see what you guys think. Have so many things going thru my head right now, I'll try to explain them as best I can. Not taking personal credit for any of them, I'm sure I read them somewhere before and just remembering them now.

Remember my daughter has only been playing for less than 2 months, 3 games, and about 6 or 7 practices with the "coach" I described above. I also record her games with my iPad and we do have a film session to look at her play. She likes that a lot. Seeing herself on the big screen.

Picking up her girl on defense / paying attention to the court and not other things. Having a small issue here. Seems to be getting distracted. She gets down the court then makes a slow turn and kind of stands there for a second. She eventually does get into proper defensive position thou. We've talked about how basketball is different than softball. You have to be paying attention at all times. There is no time to stop and pick dandelions like in softball.

So I thought of this. Told her no more daydreaming out there. You run hard to the middle of the lane. Turn around. Locate the girl with the ball and point to her. Then locate your girl, point to her, shuffle over to her and get into your proper defensive stance. Still keeping your one arm pointed at the girl with the ball. I think I'm going to ask her to call out the number of where the ball is on the court. At least whisper it to herself for now.

If I were to use this next year, I'm thinking the paint is "our house". You must defend your house. Have them all do the same thing. Start out in the paint then shuffle out to your girl and get into proper defensive position. They will of course ALL be calling out the number for where the ball is. Maybe once they have picked up both, they slap their knees (figure this also forces them to bend those knees) and yell "defense" or "our house".

Sound good?

One question, with the floor numbering. I want to do what most other coaches do. When looking at the basket from top of key (position 1), is 2 (wing) and 4 (low post/corner) on your left or right?

Coach,

So many great ideas, so many good suggestions, feels like there is nothing else I can expound upon.

I would like to add this small part though that I haven't heard mentioned yet. It will seem pretty basic, but I always find the reminder helpful, even in my own coaching.

4-5th grade girls. It's a game. Teach the game, teach the fundamentals (which you've already stated you are going to do). But remember to make it fun!

As far as numbering, I liked the Bo Ryan method for floor positions and numbering. Even numbers on the left side, odd numbers on the right. So 4 and 2 on the left, 3 and 5 on the right.

As far as assigning them positions, use the position numbers to give them their starting spots, but make sure the players are learning how to do everything. A position-less, non-specific form of basketball at this age will be more beneficial to them.

Hope this helps.

Try to make this a short story.

I got out a court chart and used some pieces from the Risk board game to show her some things.

We talked about the stack inbound play next to the lane every team is running.

So I lined them up as they do in the game video. This "coach" has them lined up parallel/perpendicular, to their girl. Hope that makes sense. Girl guarding the inbound pass is directly in front of her. Well what happened in the game is obvious. Pass into the lane, shot made more than half the time.

I asked her, what to you think about that? What do you notice?

This after a me finding some college games on Saturday and Sunday, making sure to pause the game and show her how proper man-to-man defense is played and where they position themselves. And me saying over and over, you have to protect the paint. We did this for both. The men's games Saturday, then we checked to see if the women play the same type defense on Sunday. Sure enough ... she discovered they do!

Back to the example, she looks at the board for about a minute and says, "well why don't we angle like this, so they can't pass it into the lane". And starts moving the pieces into position. YES Sophia. Perfect answer!!! Protect the lane, make them pass the ball into the corner. Couldn't have been more proud. It was great. Later that day she even came up to me and wanted me to do the same thing but with a different situation/question.

I will of course try to get them playing all positions on the floor.

May be difficult with one girl thou. She is already a full head taller than the next tallest girl. Her father has to run about 6'6" / 250.

If I do get this team next year. We'll probably only have two extra rules for our motion offense. Try to get every girl a touch before shooting, but Kenzie must get one touch. (Unless you have a layup of course.) Show them how looking for her can get them out of bad situations. Throw the ball up to Kenzie and regroup/re-set it up..

And my daughter is kind of slow herself. (I mean with the footwork, not in her head.) She's good size for her age. Upper 95% for both HT/WT. Not fat, not a skinny little rail, she's got the start of a good, solid, healthy "farm-girl" type body, like her mother. This "coach" has her playing the 4/5 position. Which is fine right now with her lack of experience. Most of the other girls won't pass to her. So I'm just telling her, box out, try to set a screen for Kenzie, and just move to the four areas around the lane, whichever one is open, and try to grab those rebounds.

They don't run any kind of offense from what I see. They grab the rebound, then just dribble as fast as they can to the other end and throw it up there. Notice I didn't say they "take a shot". No matter which girl it is, they all do that. My girl won't be doing that. Told her, you grab rebound, pivot and get the ball above head, look down the court to make a pass, then hand it off to the little short girl to dribble it up and hustle down to your position.

Hi j_hart,

I've done this age of basketball on the boys side for a number of years. To me, there is nothing more important at this age than ball handling. If you are in a position where only two or three players are expected to be primary ball handlers, you will be limited on what you can do in terms of transition offense as well as how to go about using the dribble to help you in half-court offense. Most teams of this age actually dribble way too much and they usually are not very good at it so it leads to turnovers. Maintaining spacing on offense and making quick, crisp passes to open players will lead to the best shot opportunities for the whole team. I preach "points in the paint" as the #1 statistic that we need to have in our favor in order to win the game. With limited practice time, it is impossible to make a good shooter out of anybody but you can work things to help your team. It's not really a drill, per se, but we do form shooting at every practice from very close in. We team up so that there are no more than two players at a basket. Start at the right block. The player there takes good, unrushed shots (high and soft of the corner of the window!) until they make 10 (adjust as necessary for your skill level). Then the other player does the same thing. Then we move to the left block. Then right in front of the hoop. Then we do the same thing from one step back of the original spots. By the time we are done, every player on the team has made at least 60 shots and it usually takes 10-15 minutes. This is a tremendous confidence booster for game time when they get the ball close to the basket and know they have a legit chance to score.

Regarding the fast break and going downcourt and throwing the ball up: I have a very athletic team this season and they were essentially outrunning themselves. 3 vs 0 or 4 vs 1 fast breaks are common. But at the speed they are dribbling, it's an incredibly difficult compound series of movements to a.) dribble as fast as you can, b.) pick up the ball with proper footwork and not travel and c.) shoot the ball to the basket softly off the backboard with all of your momentum carrying you out of bounds. A full-speed layup is NOT, in my opinion, the easieast shot in basketball for youth players. In fact, I believe that it's one of the toughest. Our solution was so simple: JUMP STOP! If there is any defender chasing them down, they run straight into the wall and my player gets plenty of time to set up and take a good shot. Our shooting % has nearly doubled since instituting the jump stop concept. The other advantage of the jump stop is that they will start doing this with every pass reception and if catching the ball with a jump stop, the player has the advantage of using either foot as a pivot foot without getting called for a travel (as opposed to catching the ball flat-footed and barely moving one leg but then moving the barely established pivot foot).

As for practicing this, our layup lines are a little different and I only have 9 players so this turns out to be less of lines and more of a rotation because once we start, everything we do in practice is GAME SPEED!: shooters at halfcourt in corner, rebounders with ball in hand at opposite half court corner. On the whistle, shooter sprints hard to basket and rebounder is allowed no more than 2 dribbles and a pass forward to the fast break teammate. Shooter must jump-stop and then take shot. Rebounder gets the ball and passes it back to shooter and they hustle back to opposite lines. After the drill starts, I blow the whistle for the next pair while the first pair is still clearing out. This creates an obstacle that the players must make a good pass over or through to get the ball to their teammate.

At first, it might be common for the shooter to back away from the pass as the ball is coming to them. It's critical that offensive players attack the ball when it's coming to them so the idea is to charge hard to the basket and catch the ball in a great position to shoot. If they back off, they will be down near the baseline at a far more difficult angle to make a shot.

.

For me it would be the ball handling and the form shooting. From what you've described, fundamentals are going to be sorely lacking at her practice. Players need reps at fundamentals to master them. And for this season, the coach is going to notice the basketball skills getting better (shooting, dribbling, etc.) and likely miss out on the hard work stuff (footwork, running, defense). Also - you cannot improve conditioning in an hour a week or just with an extra session when you have the opportunity. I never make my players do any running without a ball in their hand. Combine basketball skills with conditioning and don't do conditioning stuff on its own. My daughter played on a team where they ran "suicides" at the end of practice. It seems to be a long-standing tradition that basketball coaches run their players for no other purpose than to see them run. It's a waste of time! Kids will always do their best and play their hardest if motivated in a positive manner. And you can turn an ok-conditioned athlete into a superbly conditioned athlete by making them sprint 150 feet a few times a week. They would need to do it every day, multiple times to see any effect. The time is much better spent with a ball in their hands!

Sounds good.

Yes, I agree, I didn't really mean "conditioning-only" drills but more what you said, yes.

Everything with a ball. Got it. Was thinking even in our rest parts, where we take a break, talk and learn the court, she will either be dribbling, or probably just the around her waist thing. Not sure what that's called yet.

I want to hit at least two drills of each to start out, so we get a good balance. Then sort of let her decided what we go back to and reinforce. To some extent. Will still steer her in the direction of shooting and ball handling.

I'm not all that worried about her shooting. She already has good form.

I want her to leave the Y on Monday so when she gets in the next game she has the confidence to know what she's doing in the proper way to play. Not what those other girls are doing

Yes, make a list of what you want to work on in practice. I've been doing this for years and I still do that. Kinda of a master practice plan list to reference as the season goes on.

For numbers, I have never done that. I just teach terminology as I feel that will be more useful to them versus learning my numbers.
- top of key
- right wing
- left wing
- right corner
- left corner

I also don't want them running to the same spot. Here's the transition offense I use with 3rd, 5th, and 10 graders (basically fill corners first and then wings... the closest player to the right corner fills that, and so on):
http://jeffhaefner.com/coach/our-transition-offense-super-simple/

For the numbers I was talking about more for defense. To help keep her head in the game. I need to bring up her awareness and urgency. She's a smart girl, but tends to daydream. Gotta figure out how to turn that off when she steps on the court. I thought the numbers thing, and running to the lane first, then picking up the ball and girl, would be a good start.

On offense, with the team she's on this year, all I can do is show her the Form Drill, and when she's lucky enough to touch the ball in games, put it in. She probably touched the ball only 5 times the entire last game for the 16 minutes she played. The 5th graders just won't pass to her. They only make about 3 passes if they are lucky. Then it's either missed shot or stolen.

So about all I think I can tell her for now, is just move to an open spot. The four corners right around the lane, keep your hands up and try to gain position on your girl. Try to grab a rebound and put it up there like you can.

I have a good manual now. Took out everything but the E1 and E2 drills from the e-book. We'll see what she thinks about it. Plan to show it to her on the drive to family Christmas tomorrow. Crossing my fingers she thinks it's interesting. I just want her to read thru the drills to get familiar with them before Monday.

So cool.

Sent an email to a couple of the other parents.
One I knew from softball this summer.

The other is the big girl's mother. Talked to her a bit at the last game. She responded and was interested in helping next year. Doesn't know much, wasn't sure what she could do. However, said her husband is interested in helping out. Which is of course, who I wanted to help anyway. That's the 6'6" guy I talked about before.

Thanks for all the tips Jeff. Will definitely be putting together a package with some of your blog posts and ideas.

I plan to put this together for my asst coaches so we are all on the same page with what we're trying to do here.

Kudos for wanting to coach! One suggestion, don't forget to have some fun in all of this. It is real easy to get caught up in "coaching" and lose sight of the main factor which is kids wanting to have fun in this whole experience. Throwing in a few cool team chants, having a few fun game-like drills or having everyone wear their craziest socks one game can do wonders.

Best of luck!

Yes,definitely mix in some fun.

The mother of the big girl wants to help, but doesn't know much about the game. I think "fun" might be something she can help with.

Had a very good talk with the daughter during our drive today.

She even wanted to talk some X's and O's tonight. She drew up a court, put the pieces in place, and was asking me questions.

Seems very eager to learn! And learn the proper way to play.

Another parent contacted me about our session at the Y this coming Monday. Said her daughter was very interested, but they are currently out of town. Wants to plan something in the new year.

All looking good. Gaining some momentum here. Positive energy. I like it.

I have finally calmed down from the excitement of my daughter actually asking me to help her with her basketball game.

Was able to study the e-book over the last couple of days and picked out the drills we will use on Monday. Basically almost all of the E1 drills. With strong emphasis on the shooting and ball handling drills.