CoachJohn

I think you will like being a part of this coaching community.I have learned much having been here and communicated with other more skilled coaches. I'm looking at that link you were kind enough to include in your thread.Personally I can't wait to get the season going again.What age group do you coach?I coach 7/8th grade boys.Go back through my threads and you'll find out a little about me and what helps/hinders me in becoming the coach I want to be.Looking forward to sharing more ideas.Welcome!!! Coach, I remember when I started by first varsity coaching position nearly 11 years ago. I was the youngest head basketball coach in the state of Oregon, coaching varsity men's basketball at a small school in the eastern part of the state. I spent most of my time searching endless hours, high and low for great basketball resources that would cure my thirst for the up coming season. Even though the season is 7 months away, you can never get a jump on your coaching strategy too early. I was lucky enough to coach both men's and women's varsity basketball and find a great deal of success doing both. You can find a great deal of 'sound' advice by participating in these forums--which is why I check in every now and again. I must say, the link to Coach Mac's Basketball playbooks I provided in my initial post is growing like wildfire. I'm not sure people really believed the way I preached the value of a $10 e-playbook. Personally, I love their Monster Flex series. If you're a young coach the one thing I can offer you in advice when coaching middle school youth, don't make things to complicated. Use strategy like the flex and a man-to-man defense to build fundamentals. Your ability to teach fundamentals is what will provide you opportunity to advance within the coaching ladder. I'd love to help more where I can. Please feel free to ask any questions. Again, check out the great resources avaliable on the web like Coach Macs at http://www.coachmac-basketball.com I've learned alot over my 1st 3 years coaching at this level and my 2nd school now.Too be a skills coach and not necessarily a drills coach.Maybe you could help me as I was going to address this topic on this forum tonight when I got time.My question is do you stay with the same plays(playbooks)year after year so the kids can learn and be comfortable.Obviousely this is the level we play alot of man2man because thats what the next level will require(High School).I've got the man 2 man,2-3 which personally I don't like because it's a lazy man's defense,the 1-3-1 Trapping defense is my favorite.We don't take care of the ball on offense and we get beat back down the floor alot for easy fast breaks.My emphasis this year will most definetely be that the practices have to be harder than the games.This school is not used to winning and I'm trying to change that.They can't keep a coach longer than a year so I told'em as a promise that I'll be there for 3-5 years to give them some reassuarance.Also something else they've never had in there town is a basketball camp which is going to be called Katz Camp that I'm putting on.I'm a passionate coach as you may can tell but Im 43 years young.lol Keep the conversation going please. We build upon our play book each year, this helps the kids be able to run a variety of offenses and defenses and then variations of them. By starting basic and then adding stuff that will fit to your players skills helps them gain confidence.

As Im used to teaching the game of basketball is that essentially what Im doing by having this camp.Teachin it but dont get mad like I would when Im teaching it during coaching hours and that part of the year.Ya know if a kid is acting up you can tell him to do some laps kinda thing.When teaching this camp what are some of the do's and donts of makiing this a fun camp?It'll be here before you know it so Ive gotta stop wasting away and get going on it.After this year if all works out I'll have that 1 year under my belt and some idea as to what Im doing.So far I think the video presentation of this will come out good.Ive got video clips from like Michael Jordan(which kids look up to or have heard of)and Hubie Brown with whom Im learning a great deal from.Havent had to put together a presentation since school and none of us are spring chickens but today the temps are now in the 40'-50's so see there is hope. Here's what we do with our skills and drills camps. We run them two times a week for 3 hours at a time, broken down by age. We do this for four weeks. Starting out we spend 20 minutes on warm ups to get the blood pumping. We run four to five stations a night for 15 minutes a time. We teach each skill during this time with one to three students per coach, or assitant. When all of the kids have ran through each station, the coaches break them up into three man(woman) teams and have them play three on three full court for five minutes on and then a rest period. At the end we award the kids who have done the most improvement on the skills from the session before, this way they have an incentive to come back after practicing for the last few days. Even if they are not the most talented we get them excited because if they are poor and improve they get recognized and if they are good but do not work, we don't say a thing about it. We usually run stations of ball handeling, a passing station, some shooting, rebounding, offense (give and go) Screen and roll, etc. Over the past few years that we have done this, from 3rd graders through 8th graders our teams have really improved a lot, the kids are well rounded in the basics of the game and it makes it a lot easier to then teach them strategies during the season. By keeping it on going over a month, some kids miss some practices but we have them working for most of the summer. We are going to start a 3 on 3 leauge also this year and that should be fun.

Without a doubt, the players who can get shots off when open will be better. But what I was getting at is the muscle development and ability to develop proper form in shooting and how the kids who seem to dribble more and better develop this form quicker and have more range on their shots. I think you are correct, but I think this is because these are the kids that work at it more, or are more gifted athletes.