Become your own best coach

Thats the title of a great book from former swedish golfcaptain Pia Nilsson that I read many years ago.

Its written in swedish and I dont know if there is a english version, but its a great read about awareness in your training and being able to correct yourself into greatness. In simple words how to become your own coach and together with a coach and your own coachskills to make yourself better, I say watch out!

Another sport that are great in using the athleets in getting better is track and field. The older kids help and teach tthe younger ones, the groups are often of skill and not age. They have a coach, but the coach eachother to become as good as the can of course with a coach, but its better with 12 coaches than one.

Of course if they teach the right things, but that why the expereinced coach is there to deliever the goods for them to learn with the help of eachother.

I try to use that thinking in basketball, where I want my players to correct, teach, help their teammates in practise and in games. I have done this for many years and when you get it going it makes your job as a coach so much easier.

A bonus of this a discovered during the years is that many of my players go and ask the clubs by themselfs if they can become a ass coach with some young team.

I have never told my players you should become coaches, I think their focus should be on playing basketball. So in that way I have not done what all clubs I have been in have told me to do. "Its important they become coaches, referees, other stuff in club" I have always thought there is a time for everthing and their goals to become a great players shouldn`t be stopped by them beeing a ass coach and they lose 4 hours a week where they could rest, practise, study.

Still most of my players have later on become coaches, you dont tell kids what to become, you guide them, give them tools and then they can choose what to do with the tools you give them.

Let kids be kids and dont let the clubs bad recruitment in new coaches be the reason why you kids become coaches, they should become it because they want to do it. Not because the clubs says you should do it.

So if I as a coach give them a tools in how to teach to others, how to solve a problem, how to talk to different people, the understanding that if my teammate becomes better I become better mentality.

The odds are very high in favor of many becoming coaches at least for some years, to be a coach formany years you have to be a little bit insain :-)

Becoming a basketballcoach " Developing basketballplayers instead of teamplayers"

Maybe it sounds strange and too some it just crazy. At least thats how I guess some see it, when they only practise teamskills.

When you coach young players no matter if they play senior basketball or not, maybe a pure youth team or one 17 years old player at the seniorlevel, you have responsability to these young players to give them the tools to be the best they can be.

And as a new coach starting out its almost impossible withoput guidence and knowing what is needed. I have seen so many young players reach the seniorlevel very early since they hade talent, but once there almost all technical training stopped and development of the player only improves in areas like experience and playing fot the best of the team, sometimes also phsyicality they improve allthough veru rare in Scandinavia.

What do I then mean with the headline?
I have preached about developing individual players with understanding for teamplay and not teamplayers with a understanding for indivdual players.
YES, you will propably not win as much as the coach that is going for developing teamplayers, with tons of tactical stuff in eearly years, but you will win further on if you keep up the individual focus in practises.

YES, it will take a longer time for your team to play good basketball and get easy scores.

YES, it will be frustrating when you are playing that X and O`s coach who uses setplays with 3 backscreens and pick and roll in a very early age, but your reward will come, it just comes many years later.

I big issue for me is making the players think the game and of course then also understand the game. So my first offense is always a motion offense that I have used for many many years now. There are some rules in my motion offense, but it allows the players to create of the dribble, create from cuts, create from inside/outside game, using screens and I could just write all aspects of the game. Set plays will not do that, they give the player i solution and if that solution is denied by the defense, houston we have a problem!

If the player hasn`t learned the game before to advanced setplays, the will be very static and do many more turnovers and the offense will become like a traffic stop in Stockholm. Moving slowly, sometimes very fast, and if you are lucky you get a opening.

Back to the motion:

I use 9 positions in offense (corners, wings, point, lowposts, highposts)

The outsiderules are:
- If you cut to the basket you always cut to the weakside
- If you cut from the weakside, you continue to the strongside
- If you pass the lowpost you screen away

Insiderules are (there is no static center, but a insideposition)
- This players is the only ine who cans creen the ball
- If insideplayer moves outside with a cut, screen or spacning, he/she comes back in with a screen, cut:

Everytime a players comes to a new position hes/she has 2-3 seconds to make the best choice possible.

The best choice will always be:
Screen, cut or spacing (taking a new position without cutting to the basket)
One of these will always be the worts solution, but still it will not destroy the offense, like if somebody moveds the wrong way in a setplay.

How does offense start?
It can start in several different ways

In fastbreak
- PG`s can dribble the ball side, middle, diagonal to get the ball in play.
- They can fo course pass up the court also.

Halfcourt game:
- PG`s can dribble the ball to the wing
- PG can pass it and follow for handoff
- PG can start with dribble handoff
- PG can of course as most of the times just pass it to the wing.
- PG can call for wing players for a handoff at point.
- Insideplayer can come up and play pick and roll at the point to start the offense

Keys for developing a sound offense for youth as I see it are:
- Reduce dribbling, so its only used when neede
- Spacing, the most important as I see it
- Moving without the ball
- Reading and reacting or as some say act dont react (to me its the same thing, since you have to react, to act)
- Balltempo
- Creating one on one situations for the players

As the players get older screens become more and more common and learning the read the defense in screening situations is very important, but often forgotten, since its not needed so much in ages 0-16, if you set a screen it works many times without reading.

Once you get older the defense will have solutions fot that backscreen, donwscreen, staggered screen and now the players must be able to read the play and most cant, so they end up in the bench.

As a youth coach I think in the early years you should focus on spacing, moving without the ball and attacking from dribble or from basketballposition.

Note:
Attacking from the dribble doesn`t mean that every player who gest the ball, should dribble just because he can. I saw a game som days ago, where every players dribble the ball as soon as the got it in perhaps 80% of their offenses. It was TO´s heaven if there is such a place......and defense had a blast just standing and watching until they got the ball from a steal or a very bad shot.

Most new coaches have a superoffense that they saw at some seniorlevel or a offense they played themselves that they will start with and they see it work, so they dont see the problems with doing it.

They will to WIN makes us coaches do smart things but also very STUPID things and as have written many times as new coach you need someone to help you with experience so you get on the right track from the start.

There is that classic KISS
K= Keep I= It S= Simply S=Stupid and that a great law to follow in the begining of coaching.

But 95% will not if somebody doesn`t guide them.



Practises will be run from their setplays and they will become god at running THOOSE offenses, but do theese offenses really have all aspects of the game in them, well dont think so.

Coaches of seniorteams in clubs should be much more activ in getting the clubs youth coaches t do the right thing, since they need god players it should be a big priority, but moste times its not and that can only mean one of the following things:

- The coach doesn`t know what is needed, his team is doing OK and the players coming up is OK, so verything is OK......NOT! They should be the best they can be!

(If a club doesn`t have a skillplan for the players, HC`s need to act on it)

- The coach is just waiting for a new opertunity someother place

- The club doesn`t want him/her messing with the coaches, NO green light.

- He is afraid of conflicts with other coaches

- He is a seniorcoach, a maintainer, good with words and motivating players but knows very little of how to develop players. The same coach just plays 5-5, shoots freethrows, and shoots 2 and 2 even if he had 10 year olds as he would with seniorteam, maybe som waeve and some layups also :-)

In best cases technical drills without instructions and corrections.

Next chapter will be Developing basketballplayers


Chapter 1 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Empty book"

Chapter 2 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Doing wrong when doing right"

Chapter 3 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Will to win is to loud, the kids cant hear you"

Chapter 4 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Dealing with parents and players as a new coach"

Chapter 5 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Yearly plan and practiseplans, what to do"

Becoming a basketballcoach Chapter 5: Yearly plan and practise plans, what to do?

Most coaches in the world dont have the luxury to be employed and have a lot of time to prepare the season for the team and thats just a fact. For e new coach its even harder if he/she has nobody to turn to for inspiration and guidance on WHAT to do, WHEN and HOW to do it.

Often when you are a new coach you do a lot of drills in your practises and if you just asked yourself the BIG question WHY I´m I doing this drill, many of the drills would never been used by you since there should always be a reason why you use certain drills and their purpose should go hand in hand with you yearly plan and ages of your players. Ask the question!

Myself I think many coaches try to do too much with the yearly/weekly plans, and to much means that most will not be done. Instead I think especially as a new coach, you should follow a general rule in all areas of basketball and that is "as simple as possible" and do it 100% instead of 60-70% with championship papermateral with 34 pages and 56 diagrams, you see where I`m going with this.

Here is something from my early years;
I was told to take over a boys team and I had seen very little of the team, but my brain started to work overtime directly and a mad great plans for the team, almost made a little book with all the things we where gonna use/do and so on with the team.
I spent hours on this and was extremelly satisfied with my work, I think this was like my third year as a coach or something.
Satisfied with my work I went to first practise with the team and had my great "books" with me in my bag. After some minutes of the first practise, my "great" work was just a waste of time, they wasn`t even near the level I had made them up to be on the paper.........after the practise I threw all of the "books" in the garbage I had done to much and I´m very glad that I realized this is not for them, but here I think most coaches go ahead anyway and that shouldn`t be possible since all clubs should have somebody in charge of the quality of coaches and the teams educational plans for the players.

I have since some years ago myself started working from monthly plans that has general skills on what we will work on with the team, within that general skill, the drills can very and be stationary, to halfcourt, to fullcourt drills of course.

It could look like this:

September                              October                                                              

- Phys (MAQ, footwork)          - Phys (MAQ, footwork)                   

- Offense (1-0, 2-0,3-0)          - Offense (1-0,2-0, 3-0)                

- Defense (on ball, off ball)      - Indi skills (Basketball position)                    
- Teambuilding                       - Defense (on ball, off ball)                                

- Games (1vs1, 2-1, 3-2)       - Games  (1vs1, 2-2, 3-3)                  

* Indi skills= All offense skills done from basketball position.  
* MAQ = Muscle Action Quality my teams physical program (3 times a week with boys 98)

Here you can se the complete yearly plan for my boys born 98 season 2010/2011 (Its in swedish, but if you know that fys= physical, and Spel= games, you will understand)

Some coaches like to time everything in practises, how do you do it?

With a yearly plan like this in place its so much easier to plan the practises and so much easier to stop yourself from cheating in the educational plan for the kids. On educations sometimes this kind of yearly plans and other paperstuff becomes to much for many since its on the level of coaches with one job and that is to coach one or two teams as a profesional and that is not a reality for most living basketball addicts.

I have help many new coaches during the years with this kind of stuff and if you have any questions or need som help in any way just write me and if I can I will help you.

There are many books on the market wich say they can help you as a new coach, but most of them is really just there to make somebody rich and no matter how great they are if you dont have the skills to teach, they wont help much anyways.

Next chapter will be :  
Becoming a basketballcoach " Developing basketballplayers instead of teamplayers"

Chapter 1 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Empty book"

Chapter 2 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Doing wrong when doing right"

Chapter 3 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Will to win is to loud, the kids cant hear you"

Chapter 4 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Dealing with parents and players as a new coach"

Chapter 3 - Will to win is to loud - The kids cant hear you

What do I mean with that?
Well, again I go to myself when I started out as a coach. I never shut up during games i was telling the kids what to do in offense adn defense coaching/directing most of what happened on the court.

My teams played well or should I say I played well?
It took a couple of years before I realized that I wasn`t lettin the kids think the game, understand the game, I was simply controlling them like "puppets" in a way.

If you as coach shout "every" second on the game first of all in your will to win you stop a lot of progress for the players. Sure!, Propably you won`t play as well, make more mistakes, but we as coaches say that we learn from misstakes, so whats wrong with us. Well, nothing really.....difference in personalities is of course one, but our goal is the same to win (and for many to develop players), in most cases coaches calm down in couple of years I have heard its because his older and so on as a explationen, well I dont buy into that.

I instead hope that theese coaches that have calmed down have realized that screaming the whole game is waist of time and you will never see if what you practised has sunk into your players brains. Since you scream out everything. There is nothing wrong with passion and being active on the sideline at all, but there is a difference in being active and being a moviedirector instead of being a teacher of the game.

I changed in my way from screaming and running on the sideline, to standing still more and instead of screaming out, cut trough, swing the ball, now attack. Rotate in defense and drop down and so on.

To screaming out smaller things and instead of screaming it out I put mental notes in my brain. To my brain: "Coach, you are not doing this right in practise they still do it wrong, what can you do different in practise" Of course a talk about 1-3 things in breaks and timeouts and when players come out for a change, but huge differens between sreaming out to player when he/she is paying and talking when he/she has nothing else to focus about.

Dont know if you understand my thinking.....but this changed me and made me better I think.

There is missconception that I loud coach and a coach running the sidelines like a lunitic is being a good coach. Its easy to make that false assumption since you see a lot of commitment and passion and also often theese coaches do funny stuff or say funny stuff.

I truly believe that when you scream to much, you miss a lot of the game because you let yourself get stuck in situations that happens on the floor. Maybe a offense that went wrong, a call, a defensiv play and more, that you miss a lot of other important things. Simply your brain cant do it all and see the game.

I compaire coaching a lot with teaching in the school and practises are studying and researching to find the answers for the the tests that are coming up.If your are studying the right things going and doing it right, you can go on studying in, high shool, college, university and take higher level education and getting a great job and more.

Back to my point.......In school when kids to tests, the teachers dont stand in front of the class and call out what they should, write, draw, calculate and what order, and how fast and more. The kids know what they should be able to do, the have had lessons(practises) before the test, small tests maybe also, they have been shown, where to find all informatuion they need to do well on the test.

When they have a test in school the teachers sometimes speak, maybe a kids doesn`t understand what the teacher means with one question, how much time do we have left and so on. I think you get my point.

I will round of this chapter with, something that often goes hand in hand with the screamers of course everybody is not like this but.....You have to read between the lines :-)

Humiliation of players
One thing they do also that  I absolutly hate, they make fun of there own players or yell out stupid remarks to young kids. I have never understood how the parents can accept such a behavier in a coach. I have later in my "career" seen close up how parents of a team, thought that one of the lunatics, doing all of the above (+ didn`t teach them anything basketballwise) was "cool" and well he doesn`t mean so bad and so on.

Well if he doesn`t mean it, then he should be locked up somewhere with white walls and not coaching kids that will be shaped by this man mentally and so much more. Did all of the kids parents think it was OK?
No, but they didn`t want to make a fight and get hated by the other parents.

Well, thats thats throwing your kid to the wolves.....will he/she survive and be a good person/player, maybe, maybe....and maybe not.

Would you let your kids teacher in school behaive like some coaches do?
Well, answer is very simple
NO!

Chapter 1 - Becoming a basketballcoach

Chapter 2 - Becoming a basketballcoach

Look out for chapter 4 "Dealing with players and parents as a coach"