I love Bo Ryan’s basketball coaching formula! And I found an awesome article giving you insight behind his consistent success. As an Iowa fan that watches a lot of Big Ten basketball, I see Bo Ryan and the Wisconsin Badgers quite a bit. It’s amazing what Bo Ryan gets accomplished every single year. He has things […]
Should You Use the Popular “High Ball Screen Play” For Your Youth Team?
I’d like to share my opinion on a popular ball screen play that I see all the time. While coaching my daughter’s 4th grade team, the high ball screen for the point guard is the most common play I see. Seems like almost half of the teams run a variation of this play. I hope I […]
What We Did With Our 4th Grade Youth Basketball Team – Offense, Defense, Skills and More…
My daughter’s 4th grade team had a great year. Tremendous improvement, lots of fun, and lots of life lessons learned… And even though winning is not a measurement of a successful season, or good youth coaching for that matter, we did win lots of games and tournaments without taking any shortcuts and by doing things […]
Helping Others On and Off the Court – Do You Have Any Ideas?
One of our team’s core values is to “help others”. As a coach, you find lots of opportunities to reinforce this core value in practice and games… You can help your teammates by passing the ball in games, you can hustle to get rebounds in drills so you partner gets more shots, you can rotate […]
Do Your Players Waste Time Before Practice? Give Them a Routine to Improve Skills
Do your players tend to take circus shots and mess around before practice? Typically, I find that 80% of our players talk and mess around…. while one or two players are doing something productive like practicing their form shooting. To solve the problem, I gave our team a routine to go through if they get to […]
Day 3 – 4th Grade Basketball Practice Plan (Had a Great Practice!)
We had a great practice with our 4th grade girls team last night! One of the best practices we’ve ever had. Here’s the practice plan… Go over core values. Form shooting with left hand (1 min) Form shooting with right hand (1 min) Footwork, lay ups, and shooting – spin outs (12 minutes… 1 min for […]
Video – The Race to Nowhere in Youth Sports
This is a great video that all coaches and parents of athletes should watch. I have shared the article version of this topic in the past — but the video expands on the article and is a must watch…
Youth Sports Specialization – How to Decide “IF” or “WHEN” Your Child Should Specialize
Here’s a good article I found about youth sports specialization. This is highly recommended reading for youth coaches and parents: The article give you an objective look at specializing in sports and what you should consider. In particular I like the distinction between “early specialization” and “late specialization” sports… “The relative desirability of specialization depends […]
The Effects of Positive Coaching
For those interested in brain science as it relates to coaching, here’s an interesting research finding from Case Western: http://blog.case.edu/think/2010/11/15/coaching_with_compassion_can_alight_upa_human_thoughts
The Race to Nowhere in Youth Sports
Here’s a really good article about youth sports. It’s a good read for both parents and coaches. http://changingthegameproject.com/the-race-to-nowhere-in-youth-sports/