Take the Lead!

Congratulations, you've been tabbed as the team's "coach"!

While many youth basketbal coaches have eagerly volunteered to be a coach, there are also others who have reluctantly agreed to the position fearing their lack of experience and basketball knowledge makes them unqualified for the challenge of coaching youth basketball. While basketball can be a complex game, the best thing for a new coach to do is to keep things simple at first. Be prepared for practices with drills designed to help your players learn the fundamentals, and be enthusiastic about teaching the game of basketball. Regardless of the circumstances of how you became the "coach", the one thing you need to do immediately is to take ownership of the role and become the team's leader. This is necessary because you'll soon realize that both the parents and players will look to you for organization, information, and direction from day one.

Becoming the leader doesn't mean trying to do everything yourself.

Be sure to recruit plenty of help in the form of assistant coaches, scorekeepers, and always know who to go to in your organization when various issues arise.

As the season progresses there may be many challenging times dealing with constantly changing schedules, players, parents, winning and losing, etc. As you face these challenges, always let what's best for the team and the development of your players be the guiding force in making your decisions.

First Contact

• Once your team has been selected and contact information has been provided to you, it is a good idea to personally phone all your players/parents and introduce yourself as their coach for the upcoming season.
• At the initial phone call, it's best to know the date, time and location of your first practice - it will save you another round of phone calls.
• Make the initial call brief as it will be better to go over details with parents and players face-to-face.

First Practice - Parents Meeting

At the first practice it is recommended that you meet with parents at some point while an assistant coach works with the players. This is usually best done at the end of practice as the parents arrive to pick up their kids.

• Introduce yourself and tell the parents a little bit about you, your basketball experience as a player or coach (if any), and maybe a basic overview of your goals for the season.
• If you have practice schedules and/or game schedules hand them out at this point - if these schedules are still in a state of change, it's better to wait until they are more definite before handing them out.
• Be familiar with your organization's guidelines and philosophy and communicate it. For example you may be coaching a highly competitive AAU team where winning and playing time is at a premium vs. a coaching in a recreational/instructional league where player development is the first priority.
• Explain the way you would like parents to contact you about any issues concerning player conduct, playing time, scheduling conflicts, etc. List all of your contact information on any schedules you hand out.
• Advise parents on what kind of conduct is expected of them as spectators during home and away games. Tell the parents that you will be setting a positive example for them as a coach and you would appreciate that they do the same as spectators.
• It is highly recommended that you collect all of the parents preferred email addresses at this point and make it clear that all future general team communications about practices and games will be delivered via email.
  1. Be prepared to make exceptions since email is not something all parents may have access to.
  2. When collecting email addresses, get the parent's address and not the player's. Also be sure to get the work and home email if possible.
  3. Make a "group" address book listing in your email application with the collected emails. This will make it very simple to address emails to everyone on the list.
  4. Use attachments to include items like driving directions, registration forms, game schedules, etc. This is better than handing out print copies which sometimes get lost or never make it from the player to the parent.
• Recruit volunteers! If you are part of a volunteer organization you'll need assistant coaches, scorebook keepers, and possibly even someone to run the clock and scoreboard during games. Don't let parents off the hook if no one volunteers and don't be afraid to press the issue reminding them that the success of the organization is based on parent participation as volunteers.

First Practice - Players Meeting

Players are generally very anxious about a new coach whether they show it or not. For this reason it's a good idea to have them take a knee for a few minutes before the first practice and go over some of the following recommended items.

• Know the players' names! If you have a roster but don't know who is who, go around and place the name with the face.
• Let the players know your expectations for conduct in practice and games.
• Do you have basic rules or does the organization you coach for have rules and guidelines they should know about? For example, contacting the coach if they will miss a practice, suspension for misconduct in games, etc.
• Your goal for the upcoming season. For example, if you're at an instructional level, improvement in each player and the team should be your main goal. If you're coaching at a competitive level, maybe the league championship will be the goal. Make this clear very early on.
• What equipment is needed for practices and games; water bottles, reversible jersey, etc.
• What is your philosophy about playing time, designating player positions, etc.
• Encourage the players to talk to you if something is bothering them about what position they are playing, how much they are playing, or plays or concepts they don't understand. Also offer plenty of information on training and drills they can be doing on their own to make themselves better players.
• Instruct the players to always stop and listen when they hear a coach's whistle

Be prepared for your practice!

• At the very least, you should have a general outline of areas you want to work on for each practice. As mentioned before, stress the fundamentals as much as possible. Here's an example of a very simple practice outline: 1)Dribbling drills, 2)Shooting drills, 3) breaking the full-court press, 4) go over inbounds plays, 5) rebounding fundamentals 5) 2-1-2 zone defense basics
• You can also be more detailed about your practice planning. For example, creating a practice outline and designating time limits for each area you are working on allows you to stay on schedule and not get caught short on time at the end.
• Avoid prolonged periods of inactivity during the practice. This is especially true at the younger levels. If you want to explain a play, a fundamental, or some other concept, do it while with a demonstration by a player or yourself.
• Related to the above, keep all your players in action whenever possible. If your doing a half-court drill requiring 5 players, send another 5 players with an another coach to the other end of the court to do the same drill. When kids start standing around, they quickly become distracted.
• Be consistent and use repetition to improve skills. You should have a core set of drills that your players do every practice that reinforce the fundamental skills of the game: dribbling, passing, shooting, rebounding, and defending.
• Resist the urge to scrimmage (see below).

• Avoid the temptation to constantly scrimmage!
  1. The mistake many youth coaches make in practices is scrimmaging too soon and too often. This usually happens because the coach has run out of ideas on what to do next. Having a practice plan prepared will help avoid this problem.
• Why not scrimmage?
  1. Younger players need to develop fundamentals first and even older, more experienced players need to use practice time to reinforce fundamental skills.
  2. Without learning the foundational skills of offense and defense like setting screens, jab-steps, denying the pass, etc., your scrimmages will not be productive.
  3. Your practice time is the only chance you have to go over offensive and defensive sets, inbounds plays, press breaks, etc. Your players will be better suited for your games if you work on these areas instead of scrimmaging.
• Scrimmaging isn't inherently bad. Here's some tips on running a good scrimmage:
  1. If it is an intra-squad scrimmage, split up your players equally by position and skill.
  2. Designate assistants to either referee or coach a squad.
  3. Referees should have a whistle and be encouraged to call fouls as they would be called in an actual game! You'll soon notice that the game will get out of control if fouls are not called as they should be.
  4. Simulate game conditions by shooting foul shots, having the referee handle the ball on out of bounds calls, etc.
  5. Encourage your players to work on plays and defenses you have been covering in practice. Switch from zone to man-to-man defenses, call inbounds plays, and use full-court presses. If your players are struggling to execute now, it's a good indication that some things need to be worked on more in your practices.
  6. Scrimmage at the end of your practice only after you've covered everthing you had planned to do.

Depending on the level of basketball you are coaching, playing time can either be a trivial matter or a source of contention among players and parents. In more competitive environments you will often get pressure from parents, players, administrators, etc. to justify the way you are managing your players' playing time. If you base playing time on a fair and objective criteria, you will have confidence in making your decisions and standing by them.

Always encourage your players to speak with you first if they are not satisfied with their playing time and role on the team. At the same time explain to them that they should be prepared to hear an honest evaluation from you as to why they aren't playing more minutes or playing a certain position. For example, you may have a point-guard who is prone to turnovers when attempting to break the press. This player needs to know they must work to improve their ball-handling and passing skills in order to strengthen this part of their game.

• Here are some recommended playing time guidelines to consider:
  1. At the beginning of the season, make players and parents aware of the competitive level your team is playing in and how it will relate to playing time. In instructional or recreational leagues, all players should be rotated and player fairly equally. In a highly-competitive league, it may be much different. In this scenario, in order to be competitive you may be forced to play certain players much more than others as game conditions dictate. At this competitive level, all your players should be encouraged to compete with their teammates for playing time as this intra-squad competition is healthy for a team.
  2. Your team's sponsoring organization many times has rules about how much playing time a player should minimally get. Do your homework and make sure you are informed on this topic.
  3. If your league does have playing time requirements per player, designate somone on your bench to track the minutes for each player. By delegating this task to someone else, you'll be free to concentrate on strategy rather than worrying if your players are getting their required rotation.
  4. If you are in a very competitive league and find it hard to get all your players equal playing time while still winning, see if you can pick up some extra non-league games or scrimmages. This will allow you to give some game experience to your less-skilled players without the pressure of having to win.

• Have some basic rules about your players' pre-game conduct. They should be instructed as to how early to arrive, where to meet, what equipment to bring, etc.
• You should have a pre-game warmup routine that your players should practice and be expected to run through unsupervised.
• Remember to designate scorekeepers, game-clock operators, and other responsibilities ahead of time so you're not scrambling to fill these spots at tip-off.
• Be aware of the game rules before tip-off. Sometimes things can be different depending on where you are playing. Always have a brief meeting with the coach of the opposing team to be sure you're both on the same page regarding the basic rules.
• As the game begins, identify what type of defense the other team is playing. If it's zone you'll want to attack differently than if it is man-to-man.
• Make adjustments as the game progresses. If the other team is pressing full-court you may want to get in another skilled ball-handler for the sake of a rebounder. If you are getting beat on the boards you may want to try a bigger lineup.
• Use your timeouts sparingly but don't be afraid to use them. If it is a close game, always try to keep a timeout for end-of-game situations.
• Make your communication clear and concise. Many times it is good to use hand signals for different offensive and defensive sets. In timeouts, instruct your players to hustle to the bench and listen to your instructions. You should be the only one talking unless you solicit feedback from a player or coach. Timeouts are very short!
• Be prepared for game situations. It won't be long before you find yourself coaching a game one-point down, with the ball, and ten seconds left in the game. You're players will look to you for a play off of the inbounds so be ready! Many times a simple screen will work.
• Be a good example of good sportmanship before, during, and after the game. This should also be the rule for your players.
• Jot down notes after playing opponents; you'll probably play them again this season.

• An equipment bag big enough to hold several basketballs. The nylon mesh variety are relatively inexpensive and durable.
• At least 4 basketballs. Be aware that there are different sizes according to age group and men’s vs. women’s official size. Youth leagues usually use an official women's size ball up through elementary school ages; check with your league. Try to have at least one high-quality game ball as it is traditional for the home team to provide the ball.
• A whistle on a neck-rope. Also having a couple of extra clean whistles is a good idea.
• A whiteboard with a court diagram on it and a couple of dry erase pens. These boards are easily found at sporting goods stores.
• An official scorebook. Try to start every season with a new book and only have that team’s game for that season in it.
• First-aid kit. Check with your league as to what items need to be or are recommended to be included.
• A binder with your plays, team schedule, roster, and other documents you may need at hand for practices or games.
• Scrimmage vests if your team has not been supplied reversible practice jerseys.
• An extra game jersey or two.
• For practices, some small orange cones can come in handy when setting up drills.