Youth Basketball Drills

Becoming your son or daughter’s basketball coach can be tough if you have little or no coaching experience. Here are a few things that I’ve learned in my few years of coaching:

• Teach the fundamentals first and foremost. There are always shortcuts that you can teach to win now, but it will do the kids no good if they have to learn them when they get to high school (it may also lower their chances to make the team…). Ball handling, passing, shooting, rebounding, basic inbound and offensive plays. Teach them how to play zone defense even if your league doesn’t allow you to use it. You may not have a winning team, but teaching the kids the right way is your first responsibility.

• Scrimmaging another team once and awhile is helping to learn the speed of the game; but scrimmaging every practice is a cop out and won’t teach the fundamentals they need. If you are going to have you team scrimmage, have it be a “controlled” scrimmage. If you see someone doing something wrong, blow the whistle and explain the proper technique. Don’t just tell someone they’re doing it wrong – tell them what they were doing right and then explain how to fix what they were doing improperly.

• Make sure you pick the right kid to play the right position. Do not just look at size to determine your Center or Point Guard. Get to know each kid on your team and their capabilities in the first few weeks of practice and then decide who will best suited mentally to play a certain position. For example, the biggest kid on your team may also be your least aggressive – which you don’t want for someone fighting for rebounds in the paint.

• If you try to be the “cool” coach, the kids won’t respect you. Playing the “hard-nose” all the time will only drive the kids away. Sure, I joke around with my team, ask about school, friends, video games they’re playing, etc.; but I also make sure they aren’t horsing around too much and doing drills the right way. If you are coaching alone, you’ll have to try to find the middle ground. If you’re lucky enough to have an assistant coach or two, find out which way they naturally are and then try to make up the difference with your attitude.

• Practice drills don’t have to be boring. Make drills a competition by doing a “last player standing” format or by equally dividing them into teams. Last one does push-ups or jumping jacks or a short sprint. One of the first drills we do at practice is a simply “monkey-in-the-middle” game to both teach passing and defending the pass at the same time. Just be creative. Yes, some parts of practice, like installing plays, will bore the kids; but if you install plays one or two at a time early in the season, the team will thank you.

• Some kids just aren’t competitive. This is one of the more frustrating things you will encounter as a coach and there isn’t much you can do about it. But, by making the drills competitive, you can show them that you expect them to be competitive whenever they are on the court.

• Once again, get to know every kid on your team. Once you find out something you have in common (a movie, professional sports team, video-game, etc.), use references to that subject to motivate them. Trust me, it works here and in the business world…

• Plan out each practice to the minute. Structure is good for both you and the kids. Make sure that you have back-up drills to do if you feel that the team isn’t responding well to a drill you had planned or if they picked up on a concept or skill quickly.

• Always try to use drills that teach two or three skills at once – the kids usually won’t realize that they are learning more than one skill until you point it out to them.

• If you have to point out something a player is doing wrong, make sure you also tell them what they are doing right.

I hope this quick list can help you get started as a youth basketball coach and remember to teach while you’re have fun!

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