I am new to coaching basketball for jr. high girls (grades 6-8) and I have found it quite enjoyable for the most part. My assistant coach and I are having some difficulty with a couple of the girls and their lack of motivation. Both of us have put our heads together to tackle the problem but we haven't seen any results yet. The girls don't want to hussle in drills or games, they don't want to try difficult or more advanced drills, and they often arrive a minute or two late to practices. So far my assitant coach and I have tried doing team get togethers to foster some commeradery among the girls thinking that those with low motivation were shy without friends (most of the girls go to different schools than each other). This helped, but not in the way we had hoped. We threw some fun drills into practice to help disguise the hard work needed to complete the drills. This was successful for ball handling in one spot, but adding any running to the drill made them give up. Some other girls seem extra motivated because of the things we have tried (which is great), but we are still not getting any more commitment or involvement from the other girls. One of the low motivation girls is also very far behind in her skill set than the other girls. We have tried to pay a little extra attention to her during the fundamental drills to get her up to speed, but without the motivation it has not helped. During games she begs and pleads for more playing time - this bad habit began last week durning a game in which she was seeing more playing time than ever before. She throws fits when we take her out of the game and whines when we don't put her in. We have 11 players so we can't evenly substitute and she doesn't handle her time out very well - even after having explained why things have to be that way. I know this is fostered by her parents as our family in the stands have overheard them complaining about their daughter not being in the game and poking fun at the coaches. She kills the gametime excitement for her teammates, interrupts the coaches during huddles, and leaves immediately after the game instead of staying with the team to talk and have snacks brought by the parents. I'm almost on my last thread with this girl but the season is so close to over I don't want to give up now. Can anyone help with these problems?
