Coaching youth basketball can be an extremely rewarding experience. Having the opportunity to guide young athletes in developing the skills necessary to play the game can make a huge impact in a child’s life. Helping kids understand the values of teamwork, dedication, and sportsmanship is something that is necessary in our communities. Coaching does just that, but it can also be a difficult and time-consuming job. Here are some tips to help the youth basketball coach.
Practice Planning
Always have a plan for practice, and as you make your plan, always plan for more. For example, if you have a one-hour practice, design your plan to account for an hour and a half or even two hours. If you ever get through all of your drills and still have time remaining in your practice, you are going to need to fill that practice time. If you are over-prepared, you will never have to worry.
Your practice plan should include a short warmup at the beginning of your session. From there, you can begin with your basic fundamentals and conclude your practices with more team-like drills where players are simulating events that may occur in a real game.
The Warm Up
Our bodies, adult and child, are not like those of animals. We cannot simply get up and begin running at full speed. We need to properly warm up. As a coach, you want to structure the first part of your practice to get your players’ bodies warm.
Warming up can be done a number of ways. Often, coaches will have players run a specific number of laps around the court at an easy pace. Some may do the same but run the length of the floor and back a few times. Coaches can get creative with their warmups and actually teach some basic fundamentals at the same time. Have players dribble the length of the floor and back at an easy pace. Players warm themselves up while, at the same time, work on improving their dribbling.
How to Motivate Players
Motivating players is something that may take coaches a while to learn. One of the first things coaches must understand about their players is that each one is different. Some players will respond to a more “rah-rah” type of challenge from their coach. Others might need a coach to be more consoling and build them up in a different manner.
One of the easiest ways to motivate players is to have them compete against each other. One idea is to have a drill where you offer a reward to the winner or winners. It could be something as simple as the player who makes the most free throws during the day’s practice gets to wear the “free throw chain” until the next practice. You would be surprised at the things that motivate athletes of all ages.
Must-Use Drills
If you are going to coach youth basketball there are certain skills that must be learned. The most basic of these are dribbling, passing, and shooting.
1. Dribbling Station: Have players dribble from a stationary position for 15 seconds with their right hand and then 15 seconds with their left hand. Work on the key points of emphasis while executing the drill. Players should be in an athletic stance with the ball tight to the body and dribble using fingertip control.
2. Passing Drill: Form three lines on the baseline. To start the drill, the center player begins to advance down the court by dribbling the basketball. The players on the right and the left advance as well. When the center player reaches the foul line, said player executes a chest pass to the player on the right. That player dribbles to half court and passes back to the center player who dribbles and executes a chest pass to the left player. This continues up and down the court.
3. Shooting Station: Shooting is one of the most basic basketball fundamentals. Like dribbling, keep the points of emphasis in mind as you do any drill. A simple “Around the World” shooting drill would have a player shoot from seven different spots around the free throw lane. The player begins with the layup from the low block of the foul lane. Next is a short jump shot from midway up the lane and then a longer jump shot from the elbow. After a free throw, players complete the same three shots in reverse order on the other side of the lane.