Coaching Basketball

My son came home from school excited about the summer job he had found. He was going to be coaching basketball for the summer. He has played since he was a young boy, but coaching was going to be a new undertaking for him. My husband asked him what kind of style he was going to use in coaching basketball. The blank look my son gave him told me that he had not thought about style.

We started talking about the different approaches that there are to coaching any sport. My son said that the coach he learned the most from had a hands on approach. This coach would play with them and would show different techniques during the course of the game. My husband pointed out that coaching is more than playing with the kids, there is also teaching fundamental skills and team work.

We started researching coaching basketball. There are a number of techniques that can be used to aid in player development. With coaching basketball there are the fundamentals to teach, but also the concepts that go with all team sports, such as team play, sportsmanship and sharing. My son had not thought about the multiple concepts that go along with coaching, he was looking at getting paid to do something that he enjoyed. He started to realize that coaching basketball was more than shooting hoops with younger kids.

My son starting reading articles that focused on building skills and confidence levels in youngsters through coaching. He was starting to get concerned that this summer job may be beyond his abilities. My husband and I reassured him that he will be able to do this; he just needs to first have confidence in himself. Before you can be good at coaching or anything else; you have to be able to be coached yourself.

My son made an appointment to meet with the man that was the basketball coach when he played. This coach reinforced the points that my son was reading about in the articles that he had researched. You need to teach the fundamentals of the game and team sports in a way that kids will learn, and have fun in the process.

My son starts coaching basketball in a few weeks. I already know that he has learned a great deal himself in the process of getting ready to do this. I think that the coaching experience is going to teach him many things about himself over the course of this summer. He started out thinking that coaching was going to be fun, now he realizes that along with the fun comes responsibility. I think he has prepared himself well for the challenge.