Still in love - thank you Dr J.Naismith

1891 Naismith invinted what we know as basketball of course it was played earlier like I think it was maya indians that played something similar with the head of the beaten tribe member cut of after winning the battle.

But I like Naismith version better.......

Directly when I found basketball as a youth I knew that this was me. First as a player and for the last 22 years as a coach. I fell in love with basketball and now as this season comes to a end I can look back and smile once again.

Looking towards the future is also positive and one is exctited of what  the future will bring for a basketball addictive Swede living in Denmark.
I know what I want, but its not up to me so we will see what time will bring me.

Looking back at this season I will always remember basketball as my savior. My father passed away in February and thank God I have basketball or I cant even guess where I would find strength to carry on. But knowing that I have like 28 players waiting for me to coach them every week and all the headache and joy they bring helps you escape reality and when you are ready to face reality they ares till there willing to work their asses of and listen to your wise (hopefully) words practise after practise and week after week.

The LOVE you get back as a coach is what keeps you going year after year. Its not the medals, the trophies its the humans you coach, to see them develop, to see them grow and find out who they are is coaching. All the systems in the world cant help you if you dont have foundamentally sound ground to stand on. I believe that I make a difference and to see former players succeed in whatever they are doing even if its not basketball is to me the real trophies. I cant put them in the cluboffice or in the closet, but in my mind I collect them all.

This season one of my former players (Alexander AKA Gorski) signed for NCAA D1 Wyoming Cowboys after spending a year at prep school Sunrise Christian Academy in Kansas. I have never ever been so nervous in life as for him getting his signature in place and it was a lot of years ago I coached him. But i know I made a difference and i know his goals with basketball, so even if my girls won the nordic championships for U16 teams this season its still second to him signing for a D1 school.

Many propably think I`m crazy in thinking so, but to me coaching is so much more than the game its about life.

But the way my girls won the U16 Nordic club championships has its own chapter
Take a look at this, we are down 2points after a 3 min overtime and my PG Caroline Hyldahl decides to knock down a 3 from downtown with 0 time left.
(Even benchplayers from the other team are on court celebrating)
Click on the picture to see the last seconds of the final

When preparing for something.....

....it doesn`t always goes as planned and it doesn`t matter how many times you been there as a coach it still hits you like a rock in the head.

It gives you headache and now brain begins trying to find solutions to compensate for things that didn´t go as planned. What I`m a talking about well for example, player or players gets sick, injured something happens that effects your prepairation for the big game, the tournament.

I had one of these "nightmaries" last week. We started practising again in the new year and I knew we would have one player still away on vacation. This is 6 days before the danish cup final, well had a double practise planned (11 players in team in total) 1 away on trip, that leaves 10 players, of course one gets sick - 9 left.

First practise one cant continue because of his fot is giving him problems - 8 left

Practise the next day 1 more player steps of - 7 left, one day off and practise again one player has to sit out.
Practise the next day (last practise before cup final) 10 players dressed, but 1 cant practise - 9 left

10minutes left of practise one of the teams best players looses his balance and of course sprains his ankle. The day before a get message from one of the injures players whom have moved pretty far away from where he used to live, he feels it cant work so he chooses to stop playing.

Gameday:
I was thinking what more can go wrong, but actually trains where in time and we had no problems at all. The player that sprained his ankle said he wanted to try his foot on the warmups. Halfway into the warmups he comes and says coach it cant be done. Stupid me of course I had some hope of him playing, but reality hit me hard there in the gym.

We actually started the game really nice in defense and played as I see it creative offense, but and there is always a but :-) As i wrote we played really nice "D" and we made them take bad shoots, but we didn`t block out at all. We are a very small team and they are big, so they punished us again and again on the boards.

Blocking out has to be done in some way or...!

Tried everyhting to get them to block out, but it was like the one thing just had disapeared from their skillset.
Very frustrating to watch and that continued for the most part of the game. But due to we played well in offense we where still in the game at halftime -7points. If we start blocking out its our game thats how I felt and what we agreed on.....but words, and answering "YES" "yes coach" "lets do it" aint the blocking out no players and sadly we continued to be spectators in rebounding situations. They had a 10p lead for most of the second half and I felt we need 2-3 stops and we can turn this around.

We had some moments where we came back really strong, but theey stoped our "runs" just in time. They won with 18 points and the killed us at the boards. They most have had 40p+ of second chance or third and that we actually where in the game for the most part anyway is something positive at least.

After that prepairation what could I exspect?
Well, if we forget about the rebounding issue me guys played their hearts out, we just forgot about one major important thing in basketball called REBOUNDING and I think after this game they will never forget again cause who wants silver instead of gold?!

Another year bites the dust - Welcome 2014

Well sorry for those who follow my blog I have really been out of fuel, energy to write in a long time.
Just to many things bouncing around that takes up most of the time and energy. Many of them aint something I wanna share to the world, so then I rather not write some bullshit blogs just because I have to, I wanna write because I want to not like a obligation. I write for me and if somebody finds that interesting I`m glad for that of course.

2013 has been a rollercoaster ride for me in many ways and my biggest joy comes from basketball, but my biggest disapointments also comes from basketball this year. I cant go in to details, maybe in a couple of years or my life long dream to write a book. Only time will tell what comes first :-)

So I´m gonna keep it as positive as possible in this "2013 end of the year" blog.
I go to work every week in a grocery shop not because I want to, not because I think its the greatest job in the world, not because of the money (believe me). I go to handle about 450 customers in 8hours per day because, then I can go to basketball at night and my bills are paid.

Going on 20+ years as a coach I still LOVE THIS GAME more than almost anything.
I know thats stupid but that how I feel and that hasn`t changed at all.

I`m right now coaching boys born 1998 and girls born 1998 and end of last season and the start of this season they have really made a old coach happy and proud as a rooster.
Season 2012/2013 ended with me having a total of 8 girls in the national teams and 3 of the boys in the Dansh national teams, both teams where invited to to the Nordic champioships in Sodertalje. Bosy team was out for redemption after a very bad Nordics championship in 2012 where the finished last 14/14 teams and it wasn`t loosing that was the issue, we played really bad and showed bad attitude.
A nervous wait and finally the news we where invited again and this time we where ready mentally and played some really nice games and reached our goal which was top 8 as we finished on 8th place. But we where 10points from playing for 1-4, so great character and we showed us worthy the invite.

Girls team was invited for the first time ever and they made a impact their first year finishing in 3rd place after loosing the semifinal against the winners Uppsala. After the semifinal I can still clearly remember the faces and body language my girls showed in the locker room. They where waiting for me to yell, critize them, to be mad you name it.
They looked scared for the first ever since I started with them.  Of course its never fun to loose and to loose a semifinal can hurt a lot even for a veteran like me.
After a while their body language and faces changed when they realized that their idiot for a coach was actually so proud of them and what they have achived that he almost cried in that lockeroom, not because of loosing because for their character, their development and their achievement in their first nordic championship ever.

A memory for life.....

During the years as a coach some players always makes a bigger impact in your life than others and most of the time its because of the time, passion and will they showed when you coached them. Those players are hard not to continue to follow after you stopped coaching them since you wanna know how they are doing with their bball dreams.

This year to former players of mine took huge steps in following their dreams and its a strange feeling to be so proud and happy for other people, but I know how much it means to them and that why I spent so so so many hours in the gym with them back in the day, cause they where for real and not only talkers the wanted to work for their dreams.

One of them landed a spot on a top 10 high school in producing college talent in the USA another after having a hard time deciding if he was gong to europe or college or wait for better offers from better colleges finally made up his mind and landed a spot on a prep squad in th USA from which he has a much better opertunities to find a really god college.

Alexander & Albert you are both two of my biggest memories from 2013, thank you for working hard and I really hope you both get what you deserve.

Dreams can become real.....


I love being right I pretty open what I think about most things and I have no problem in saying my thoughts on different things.
My father said you are so stubborn! And I answered is it really being stubborn when I`m always right? Should I answer incorrect, or not tell the truth so I`m not stubborn? :-)

Of course you should read this with a smile, but who doesn`t love beeing right?

In 2010 a started with my boys team born 1998 and after like 2 weeks the players asked "who do you thing will dunk first in our team?" I thought about for like 2 seconds and answered Oscar who where and still is the teams starting point guard. They looked amazed and came back with questions directly and suggested 2 other players on the team that most of the boys thought would dunk long before Oscar. Well this season Oscar is dunking and .....well just Oscar. I said last season that he would dunk before february 2014 and now its december 2013, so JACKPOT, BiNGO whatever I was right and I love it.

One of the greates things in 2013 was of course to follow swedish womens nationalteams success in the Euros and because basketball aint so big in Sweden, most people dont understand how huge their achievement really was, my hat`s off to you ladies you made a impact in a international level like our mens team never can do.

At the end of last season I had 8 girls and 3 boys in NT squads and for like a week ago U16 NT`s announced their 24 player rosters for 2014 summer Euros (they will cut more players in 2014)

But a write this with a smile since of those 24 U16 girl players I right now have 11 girls in that squad from my team. And in boys 24 NT roster I have 3 boys from my team.

I`m first of all glad for the players, second of very happy for the club that we are developing talent for the NT`s which I think is most important thing next to making more people love basketball in general. And for myself I`m so so proud that words cant describe how I feel so 2013 please go to bench so I can put in 2014 and scream GAMETIME!

A great man left us in 2013 and yes a troubled past, but I truly think he made up for that in most of his lifetime.



Nelson Mandela RIP

Its not the shoes!

Read Bleacher report about the "shoeless mice"

Wake up call

Nice inspirational video, enjoy!

After the rain comes the sun

Because of work and youth basketball tournament in Sweden with my two teams I havent been able to see as much as I wanted to from Eurobasket in Slovenia.
And of course my native country Sweden playing there for the first time many years was something I wanted to follow.

After the last couple of practise games I was almost in tears.....it didn`t look god at all and then after games against Greece and Finland I was looking for places to hide. You can loose in sports in so many different ways and who expected Sweden to beat Greece at least not me. Who expected Sweden to beat Finland, maybe I thought.

But the way they lost those games was not ok, but lets talk about the positive because it happened......Sweden resurected themselves and stod up form the dead on a 9 count.

Beat Russia....yeah, yeah the didn`t have all players and so on, they played bad.....so did Sweden in the first two games, that is how sports are. More ups and downs than San Fransisco, more happy feelings and sad feelings than the Titanic movie, whatever you know what I`m trying to say.

Im happy to say that after Eurobasket has ended for the swedish squad I`m proud to be a swedish basketball maniac. The future belongs to us.

We had a new star show himselves and I wrote on this blog before eurobasket that Ludde Håkansson should play PG for Sweden regardless that he is 17 years old. He is the best we got at that position and after some games he was standing there as first choice PG. Damn I love it when I´m right!


Jeff Taylor is a star and everybody that has followed him in Vanderbuilt already knew that if his NBA club allows him to play he will be a megastar, but the odds works against him. He far from one of the best paid players on his team, so bench for him. Hopefully he has created a problem for his bobcats know cause he played like a superstar in this Eurobasket.

We got Jonas Jerebko a perfect role player and sidekick for Jeff together with Ludvig Håkansson we have a leathal 3 combo. We have som really skilled young guns coming up in the ranks and yes the future is ours.

According to some basketball page Headcoach Brad Dean stopped after the last game as NT coach, so now its al about finding the right HC for the job and the right staff around him.

I know who I want as NT coach and I may be wrong but I doubt it!

Swedens NT goes Eurobasket in Slovenia

Well, watched the last game before the real deal in Slovenia for Sweden. Jonas Jerebko didn`t play at least not in the second half and that is what I had time to watch.

These are my thoughts about Swedish NT and chances in Eurobasket.

1. Have to play extremely disciplined in offense and get the ball to the right players to put up shots.
To be able to do that they can not be stationary and play NBA isolation.

Movement and sharing the ball, but still getting the ball to to right players at the right time is in my mind the key.

2. Yes, Ludde Håkansson is only 17 years old, but he should play PG as I see it.

3. Swedens is at the moment doing a terrible job on ballscreens and staggered screens if they go under ballscreens on purpose (which it looks like) they will be killed in the Euros.

4. Becides Jerebko, Taylor, swedens "bigs" Joakim Kjellbom and Brice Massamba has to step it up 2 levels.

5. Jeffrey Taylor is a quality player and if they will let him play next season in the NBA the whole world will see it, but it looks like he will show it already in the Euros.

6. Sweden has to hit their open 3`s I dont see that confidence in Swedens shooters that should be there or should I write has to be there.

7. Miracles can happen!