Characteristics of a Great Coach

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When one takes on the responsibility of coaching a team, he has established himself as the leader. Inspiring greatness within his followers, a coach encourages his athletes to reach for the greatness within their selves. Inspiring the seemingly impossible, a great coach insists on going beyond one’s expectations to reach goals of tremendous magnitude. Manifesting the potential of the common man into the glory of victory, a coach is the steel behind the dedicated drive of success. A coach of a basketball team is someone who has the dedication to lead their team to a goal.

That goal usually is the winning of a championship. A great coach is often thought of as the coach who is the epitome of success. The “winningest” coach. The coach who has trophies and championship rings. A winning coach has the traits of integrity and grit which make them stand out in society. It takes mental strength for a coach to withstand the stress and criticism that comes with the day to day leading of their team.

There are many great coaches who have brilliantly led their teams to the top of their divisions with the ironclad determination that made them winners. Not all great coaches receive awards and honorable mentions nor do all win championships. But all great coaches touch the lives of their players and develop those players into the best people that they can become. Winning for a great coach is all about the creation of healthy people who can use their bodies and minds to make a better world.

Examples of great coaches to keep in mind when leading your team:

• Great coaches are leaders who are have integrity and honor.
• A great coach knows that character counts and teaches this by example.
• They lead by building relationships with people.
• They recognize the potential in others and inspire development.
• They have drive, believe in excellence, and organize their lives accordingly.
• They affirm, encourage, and have a positive attitude with those they coach.
• They rise to the occasion, adapt when necessary, and strive to overcome obstacles.
• They are organized, disciplined, and focused. They assist others to be the same.
• They are not afraid to allow others to excel beyond their own abilities.
• They are not threatened by the success of others nor any setbacks.
• They are hard workers; they pull up their sleeves and work alongside their athletes.
• They think outside of the box.
• They foster an environment of change and adaptation for accelerated growth.
• They believe in education and learning as a continuous process throughout their life.
• A great coach loves coaching and lets the world know about their passion.
• They involve their family and community to support their athletes.
• A successful coach knows their own methodology, belief system, principles, and system and do not back down from it. A great coach never apologizes for doing what he knows is right, good, and correct. Never.
• A successful coach knows their own methodology, belief system, principles, and system and do not back down from it. A great coach never apologizes for doing what he knows is right, good, and correct. Never.
• A great coach never apologizes for doing what he knows is right, good, and correct. Never.

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Planning a successful Basketball Practice

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As a basketball coach it is important to be organized as this will optimize the time spent in practice. Competition is fierce and preparation can be the difference between winning or losing. Raw talent is great but even the most talented professional athlete needs to have good practice habits in order to maintain performance and improve on any weaknesses. The members of FIBA and NBA plan weekly and sometimes daily personal and team practices which not only hone their skills but assists them in building cardiovascular health, muscle strength and tone.

The most important thing to remember in planning a successful practice is to make a list of the things that you want to cover with your players. Go over this list weekly and keep it up to date. Verbal and written communication between yourself, your coaching staff as well as your players is important.

Everyone learns differently. Enlisting different styles of communication during practices will help you to communicate effectively. This will ensure that everyone on the team understands your instructions. This will also develop your team and open the door to greater effectiveness on court.

The basic styles of learning are:

• Visual –This person needs to learn through images, charts, and to be taught through spatial understanding.
• Aural – This person needs to learn through sound and music.
• Verbal –This person need to learn using words, both in speech and writing.
• Physical- This person needs to learn using their body, hands and sense of touch.
• Logical-This person needs to learn through logic, reasoning and systems.
• Social- This person needs to learn in groups or with other people.
• Solitary- This person needs to learn through working alone and use self-study.

Plan to incorporate all methods of learning in your practices. If you have players who are solitary learners then make sure to give them space to learn on their own. By building their confidence through acknowledging their own learning style you gain the student’s trust. Allowing each student to master skills using their own learning style will encourage their confidence to grow. This will create an atmosphere of confidence and assist in the next step of incorporating teamwork.

If the player’s skills develop then they can trust themselves to be successful and so can their teammates. It is important that your players know what their own learning styles are and encourage them to use this knowledge to help them in practice. Explain to the player what it means to them if they are an aural learner. Let them know that if graphs or pictures are confusing to them that they need to listen more careful to your verbal instruction.

Have music at practice for them so that your aural learners have the part of the brain that makes them learn activated. Classical music has been shown in studies to assist in making lesson plans more intelligible for many students. Music causes both sides of the brain to engage when new things are being learned. Make sure that you provide constructive criticism in a positive manner to your players and staff. At every practice let your players know what they are doing correctly. Positive reinforcement always reaps better results. If you find yourself repeating the same lessons to a player you should reevaluate their learning style as some people learn using a combination of the methods listed above.

A player may learn one skill in the logical learning style but another skill in the social style. An athlete may learn defensive skills using visuals but when it comes to free throws the athlete may need to learn in the solitary style. Below is a sample of planning a successful practice. To learn about each individual’s learning style you can obtain a book on-line at places such as Borders.com or Amazom.com. Each player can take the questionnaire that you obtained from the book; their answers will help you to evaluate their learning styles. Keep individual files for each player on your team with their learning style evaluations, their skills, goals, and comments on their progress.

Here is a sample of the layout of a practice. Incorporated in the sample you will find organizational steps a coach can take to create successful practice and enhance their player’s performances on court and even in the classroom. You will need to obtain a bound journal, file folders, software where you can make graphs/charts, and visuals for certain learning styles. You may also want to have a portable cd player for music.

1. Make a list of goals for your team and for each individual player. Write them down.
2. Keep a journal where you can take notes during games and practices. Something where you can jot down quick notes in one place. You can then go back and incorporate this information into your players’ profiles.
3. Incorporate a variety of learning styles into your lesson plans and curriculum.
4. Make a file for each player. This is where you will organize the information about your players and keep such items as practice notes, their learning styles, goals and accomplishments.
5. Make a timeline of each drill and exercise that you want the team to accomplish.
6. Set a time for a team meeting to go over the goals.
7. Plan for warm up exercises. Make visuals of the warm- ups and pass it out. This is so that your players can practice on their own time too. The warmer a player’s muscles are for practice and games the better their body’s flexibility. This will make for excellent habits and less injuries. The warm up exercises can be used during the athlete’s strength and conditioning sessions as well. Set a goal for a twenty minute warm up.
8. Organize several drills to work on skill sets. Have the team work together. If one player is weak in one area have them drill with a more dominant player. Make sure that you explain the purpose and have the dominant player assist with progression. Time varies on drills because all skills are learned at different paces. Spend more time on problem areas. Most drills should last at least 10 minutes unless you have very young athletes.
9. Plan scrimmage time to use your acquired skills. Practice of skills is necessary for competition.
10. Be sure to be positive. Even when delivering constructive criticism. Always follow up with a positive on what the player is doing correctly.
11. Always plan for a cool down. Take at least 10 minutes to cool down with stretches and breathing exercises.
12. Ensure that your players stay hydrated during and after practice.
13. Have a 2 minute round up after practice to go over what you think of the practice session and the goals you have accomplished. Briefly suggest something to have in the minds of your players for the next practice or game. Use your journal to takes notes, write down questions, and comments from the team and yourself during your roundup. That way you can refer back to one place when you update your player’s files and your goal lists.
14. Go over your list and add and update the needs of each player. Use your player’s files and learning profiles to plan the next practice.

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How to Organize Your Season before it starts

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A solid plan is imperative towards ensuring a tremendous season. A coach and his support staff should have the ability to lay out a solid, clear and concise season plan for the team to follow. By having a plan, the coach and his team will have a guideline to hold on to. If the plan was laid out perfectly and the coach followed it as best as possible, chances are the team will have an outstanding season. However, not having a plan will mean that the coach leaves everything to chance. Although things might work fine in the early stages, chaos will definitely reign soon after.

Based on this understanding of the importance of planning, many coaches go to the extra length of organizing their season well before it starts. This article will look at the crucial elements that must be covered when organizing your season. By following this brief guideline, you will be able to organize your season so that your team will undergo a holistic development. Even if you do not end up as champions – because there can only be one champion, you will see that by following a well laid plan, your players will improve both as an individual and as a basketball player.

Essentially, the two critical things that you have to bear in mind is that you need to have a clear goal or objective for the season and what you need to do to achieve them. The first thing that you should do after having this is to talk to your support staff and your players about these objectives. Once the team shares the same vision, mission and objective, you would be able to mould the team easier as they have developed into one cohesive entity.

Also, before the season starts, you should sit down with your coaching staff to discuss a training plan. Basically, you should list down a series of targets or levels that you want your players to achieve. Ideally, be sure that these targets are time based. This makes progress easier to monitor—having a list of targets that should be achieved for every training session is very helpful to develop your players.

You should also arrange practice sessions before your season even starts. There are various things that you should consider when organizing this. Among them are practice days, practice length, post mortem and also evaluation.
It is important that you arrange your practice session on a day suitable for everyone. A team practice would be ineffective even if only one member doesn’t attend it. This is because the absent player will be left behind compared to the other players. In addition to this, constant absences will reduce the level of camaraderie between your players.

The length of practice is also very important to consider. If the session was too long or too short, the effectiveness of training would be taken away altogether. Besides that, you should also consider to have scheduled post-mortems and reviews for the team and individual players. This will keep everyone alert and aware of their mistakes and what can be improved.

Overall, planning is an important component in shaping your teams’ success. Thus, together with your support staff, you should put in great time and effort into this process. Remember, failing to plan actually means that you are planning to fail!

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Offensive Team Strategies

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The main objective that each team has to achieve in the game of basketball is to score as many points as possible. At the same time, the team would also want to reduce the amount of points that the opponent manages to steal from them. With this in mind, development of both team offense and defense is very crucial for any team that desires to rule the court.

Being well versed with many offensive strategies is the best preparation that a coach can equip his players with. During game day, the ability of his players to play various offensive strategies will confuse the opponent. This will subsequently increase the teams’ likelihood of winning.

The goal of a team offense is to create open shots for members of the team. Offensive team strategies require top level of teamwork to be a success. The coach must convince his players to play as one during the game. In a team offensive, the ball is usually passed around until someone finally manages to shake off a defender and take a clear shot.

However, unless you’re up against an inferior team, these clear shots do not come easily. In fact, intricate moves and strategies should be planned and executed to achieve this. Some of the popular offensive team strategy categories are press offense, man to man offense, zone offense and also transition offense. We will briefly look at the some popular strategies under each of these categories.

Press offense is used to counter pressure defense. There are basically two categories of press offense attacks. The first one is a freelance attack where players move around towards open spots. The second category of press offense is control pressed attacks. The coach should decide which attack methodology should be practiced by the team based on the capabilities of its players.

Among the most famous man to man offensive strategies are the Wheel Offense, the High Post Offense, and the Wyoming Weave Offense. For this category, we will look specifically at the Wheel Offense. The benefit of the Wheel Offense is the versatility that it offers when facing a multitude of defense configurations from the opponent.

When the opponent plays zone defense, it has to be met with zone offense. The main objective of zone offense is to distort the configuration of the defense zone. Once this is achieved, attacking players will have better chances at clear shots. Experts reckon that this type of offense is usually more suited for high school teams than college and professional teams. The benefit of this offense approach is that players do not have to make long passes and long shots. However, in college teams, players are already strong enough to shoot and pass farther out. This explains such an opinion.

Transition offense is also known as fast break offense. Fast break is great as it places constant pressure on defenders and will eventually wear them down. Also, this type of offensive is really popular with the fans due to its high speed nature. In terms of motivation, this type of offense gives every team member an equal chance to score. In addition to this, playing fast break offense will reduce the number of opponent players waiting to take a rebound. This is because they know that they will have to get back to defend fast.

There are many offensive team strategies that coaches can look at for their team. When considering strategies, coaches must consider the ability and physical condition of their player. A well planned offense strategy will help in many ways to get your team to win.

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Basic and Essential Equipment for Basketball Players

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The essential equipment required depends completely on the league in which you are playing, and if it is a competitive league, versus a simple recreation league. The requirements change depending on the purpose, and seriousness of the league as rules, and players will vary.

Both leagues require a regulation size basketball. For a women’s league the ball is slightly smaller in size. Men’s basketball’s are approximately 1 inch larger in diameter.

Along with the ball you will need two hoops that are the right height, and proper distance apart. The court will be set according with appropriate markings on it and the nets will have a very specific place in which they will be.

This is the absolutely basic equipment necessary, now onto the personal equipment.

Each team will have a seat of jerseys and colors. Professional Leagues will have jerseys that are designed by professionals, and are stunning, where house and local leagues will traditionally have jerseys that are frequently similar as they take the logos from professional leagues and just replace the home city name. You will also wear basketball shorts that usually come down around the knees and match the jersey or at least coordinate with it.

One of the most important parts to a uniform for a basketball player is the shoes. Basketball players pride themselves on having the very best shoes out there. They can provide for sharp turns and good grip when launching to get the ball with the right treads. Buying cheaper gym shoes that won’t last very well can and will affect your quality of play eventually. The biggest investment that a basketball player will have to make will be the shoes. You will end up spending at the very least a couple hundred dollars to get a good pair of shoes that will stand up to the quality of player that basketball players want.

Some players also choose to have jockstraps as a means of protecting themselves during a game. Occasionally when two players go up in the air and try to go for a ball, legs and knees or even feet flail around and can hit other players in very delicate spots, and having even a small amount of protection can lessen the impact and potential damage that these accidents can cause. While some players do not partake of this particular form of protection, a lot more are coming around and getting every form of protection that they can to ensure that an injury that might happen doesn’t happen due to a lack of proper protective equipment.

Some last pieces of optional equipment are eye, ear, and nose protectors. Most common of which is the eye protection as more and more people are requiring glasses of some form of visual aid, or simply want to protect their eyes from having foreign objects come into contact with them. The protection just assists the player in ensuring his or her safety with that additional layer that it provides that would otherwise be left wide open.

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