Mar

2

I am the assistant coach on my son David's 5th and 6th grade basketball team. All the kids on the team are first-year players, whereas the other teams have been playing together for several years.

At first, coaching these kids was like trying to herd cats. Now, after several weeks of practice and games, they are starting to understand the game. The head coach is a good guy and is great with the kids. He is really good at teaching them the fundamentals and building up their confidence. He never misses an opportunity to compliment the kids whenever they do something good!

I was honored when he accepted my offer to be his assistant coach. Since I do know a thing or two about basketball, he quickly turned over the "big men" to me. What I'm trying to drive home to these big men is that winning the battle under the boards is about being aggressive, tenacious, and willing to put up with more pain the other guy. Simply put, it's about being physical.

It's very rewarding watching the kids doing what you tell them to do, and succeeding.

One kid on our team is tall with some "mass" to his physique. But he's timid on the court, unsure of himself. So I have worked with him on becoming more aggressive. On defense, we've run drills where we've taught the kids what parts of the court "belong" to them. They know that when they hear me yell, "Taylor, get him out of there!" that they are to get in front of that man, elbow him in the ribs and push him out of the paint. If the guy tries to duck the elbow, then they know to do it with their hips. As a result, there are very few points scored against us in the paint. They can't score in close when they ain't in close! Also, the boys are getting a lot of rebounds.

Getting rebounds starts way before the ball bounces off the rim. Rebounding is about positioning your opponent so that he is in the least advantageous position possible. And the only way he can get into a better position is by exposing himself to your elbows or hips.

David is becoming a real master at this. During the last game, I heard the words I used to love to hear from the other team, spoken about David. Two of their players were arguing over who was going to cover him. Neither of them wanted the job. Why? Because David was willing to be more physical than they.

It's also fun watching the kids realize how important the role is that they each play on the team.

One young man named Brett has made great progress. He is not good enough at ballhandling to play guard, and he's not quite big enough to be a big man. Coach and I were discussing where to play him. I asked Coach to let me talk to him.

I asked Brett if we was willing to listen to me and do exactly what I told him to do. I further asked him if he was liked wrestling and pushing other guys around. He said yes to both. I told him that I was going to make him a big man and teach him how to dominate under the boards. His eyes got as big as saucers and his grin went from ear to ear! He was pumped. He asked where I was going to play him. I told him that on defence I was going to play him at weakside forward.

He looked crestfallen. I could tell that the phrase "weakside" had not been taken well.


I gave him an evil smile and told him, "Brett, that was the position that I played. And you're going to love it — because the weakside gets the rebounds."

Brett is a coachable kid. He listens to what I tell him and then executes as instructed. He is, at best, average height, but he is a rebounding machine!

Another of my big kids is Taylor. He's becoming an excellent defensive player. He had four steals in the last game and several rebounds. But offensively, he's struggling. He's intimidated by shooting, afraid he'll miss.

He gets several offensive rebounds per game, but always brings the ball down low instead of holding it high above his head to use his height advantage, then turns away from the basket, looking for someone to pass to.

This happened several times last game, so I substituted Taylor out of the game so I could talk to him. I told him that when he gets that rebound, I want him to shoot it right away. He gave me excuses as to why he couldn't do it — too many guys around me, guys grabbing the ball. I told him that it didn't

matter. I wanted him to do exactly what I told him to do. We talked about how much progress he had made and all the success he was having on defense because he had been listening to what I had coached him to do. He agreed that when he listened to what I told him to do, he had success.

So I told him what I wanted him to do: "Taylor, when you get an offensive rebound, I want you do three simple things and do them all at the same time. I want you to jump up, over and shoot!

He asked me what that meant. I told him that I wanted him to grab the rebound and immediately jump up as high as he could in the direction of a defender — jump into the defender — and then shoot.

He asked, "what if I miss?" I told him it didn't matter. If he missed, the refs would call a foul on the other team and then he'd get two free throws.

The very next time we were on offense, he got the rebound and did exactly as I told him. He missed. He also got fouled. He made one of his two free throws, which at this age is pretty good!

It's great to watch kids, who had no idea what they were doing, start to excel. It's very rewarding, especially when it's your own son. David has gone from being a tall kid who wasn't very good to being the dominant big man in the league. He has gone from making a basket or two a game and getting an occasional rebound to scoring in double figures and getting 20+ rebounds a game. One of his best traits is that he is coachable.

This experience has served to remind me how important it is to be coachable and to always focus on the fundamentals.

As I work with the kids and coach them, I don't see any of them as future NBA players, although you never know! What I see is the leaders of tomorrow, the doctors, lawyers, businessmen, researchers, money managers…


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