The Screaming Viking

The 2011 Bottineau Braves Pee-Wee basketball season got underway yesterday.  I am working with the same lady that I worked with last year for the last 1/2 of the girls Pee-Wee’s.  Since we are both starting at the same time we are each taking a grade and working independently.  I think this will work out best for both the kids and the coaches.  The kids will benefit from more focused attention on what they need at their age group, while the coaches will benefit from being able to work our own plan for each group without feeling like we are stepping on each other’s toes.

I took the 6th grade.  There are 12 boys playing on the team.  It’s quite a few for one team so I’m going to have to do some pencil pushing after hours to figure out how to split up time in a way that is fair to the players and the team as a whole.  I want to give each player as much time to play as I can, but at the same time at this age I need to be looking at the guys that show an aptitude for working together and focus a little on that.  Just like any team there are some guys that are a little advanced and there are some that are a little behind.  It shouldn’t be a problem to mix them together a bit to make the team competitive and still give individuals opportunities to succeed.

Much like all boys of this age…they were full of energy.  So much so that the ones that were talking and screwing around were taking away from the practice.  At one point I decided to shut down a 3 on 2 drill and have them run a couple of crushers…after that they seemed more relaxed and just ran the drill.  I expect we’ll have to do this a couple of times before they understand what I’m looking for.  You can talk to them forever and sometimes they just don’t get it.  Running is a pretty universally accepted way to get through to them.

I tried to drill in to their heads that negative actions will result in negative play time.  Not working hard, bad attitudes, in fighting  with team mates…all these things are going to cause them to miss rotations and potentially a game if it gets too out of hand.  I expect there will be some backlash from parents if it comes to that point.  In an effort to curtail any parental problems I sent home a letter (composed by my wife off of the bullet points I wanted included) with the kids detailing what I expect day in and out.  Hopefully that helps.  I’ve had good parental support in most of the coaching jobs I’ve had and I’m hoping that continues.  If you get the parents to buy in to what you are doing it helps the kids buy in.  If the kids hear the parents at home complaining about the coach…we’ll it’s over.

For the first day we focused on basic drills and conditioning.  We started off with some warm up laps followed by a basic defensive shuffle drill.  This gives me an opportunity to see who has worked these skills already, who can follow directions and who showed up to actually work.  Everyone needed some fine tuning, but by the end of the drill they were all understanding what was expected from them.  Some of them improved to where I want them and some still need some work.  That’s just fine.  The first day or two is all about learning the drill and some technique…in the days after that is when they work on what the drill is actually trying to teach them.

Then we moved on to a shooting drill that I’m trying for the first time.  The drill involves 3 kids, one kid is the shooter 1 is the passer and another is the rebounder.  The shooter makes a cut to a spot on the floor for a jump shot, he catches the ball and shoots right away.  There are no dribbles or any movement other than a catch and shoot.  After his shot he breaks to the basket where he is passed a ball for an in stride layup..again with no dribbling.  I like this drill because it works on something that can be kind of hard to get into a kids head…shoot the ball as soon as you are open.  There is no reason to dribble or make other movement that might let a defender catch up to you…catch and shoot.  This also helps the passer learn to lead the target a little.  I’m hoping that translates into better passes off cuts during a game.  I had 12 kids and 3 hoops…so this worked out quite well.  The rotation was quick and kept everyone moving.  I wasn’t sure how this was going to work out when we started…they didn’t seem to really get it.  But after we got in to it things flowed well.  We ended up doing this drill longer than I expected…and that was fine.  I thought they were getting a lot out of it.  We’ll do it some more today as well.

After this we ran again, then did some dribbling and shuffling.  At this age with boys I’m not sure I should have to work on zig zag dribbling without a defender.  I’m sure some of them could benefit from that…but I think there is much more benefit to the over all picture by working in a defender at the same time.  Some of them have really good technique, other’s not so much…that’s the point of practice.  One of them was crossing his feet when he shuffled…he wasn’t doing this in the shuffle drill but as soon as he had to work to keep up with someone he was crossing his feet.  Obviously this is a bad thing and something we focused on correcting.  It will take some more work but we’ll get it fixed.

More running, then some 3 on 2.  This is where several of them decided it was screw around time.  I said something to the group once…nothing changed so it was back on the line.  After a couple crushers we went back to 3 on 2 and they were much more focused.  We finished that drill and did some more running, backwards this time.  Then some 3 man weave.  They ran this drill better than I expected.  Some of them were telling their team mates “tighter, get tighter” which is what we want to see.  Pass and cut to the ball…pass and cut.  Couple more sprints, then some championship basket.

This wasn’t much of a championship basket game as much as it was just a competition between 2 teams.  We were going to go to 5, best 2 of 3.  It was in this drill that their rust really showed.  The majority of the team has really good shooting form, that was a pleasant surprise, but the shots just wouldn’t drop.  They would rim out, might be off by a foot or so…no matter what they did the shots wouldn’t go in.  I probably took us 15 min to get 2 games in.  This will change as we work on shooting more, the positive side is many of them have good mechanics…that’s going to go a long way to making them successful scorers.  At this age, especially with girls but sometimes with boys, you end up battling that form they had to use when they were not strong enough to do things properly.  I’m not sure where that comes from but I’m guessing they get it because they are encouraged to shoot at hoops that are too high for them at a young age.  You’ll get kids that are bringing the ball way down to their hips and flinging it as hard as they can.  It might have worked when they were 6, but at 11 or 12 it just isn’t going to pay off anymore.  Sometimes it can be so hard to break them of that…I’m hoping the majority of the guys with poor form will catch on quick.  If they don’t I’ll have to break up the practice and have one group working on form while another is working more on actually scoring with the form they already have.

Overall, things went well and it was really fun to be working with the kids again.  It’s something that’s I’ve been missing for several years now.

Article source: http://www.hillbillycoach.com/?p=22

I’ve been going through the process of deploying laptops to the instructors.  I’m glad I waited until the wireless was setup… Had I not I’d have had to deal with them not only using the crappy consumer level equipment, but also trying to get the machines back from them to configure the wireless.

Deploying these machines involves more than just plopping then on their desks and being done with it.  I use mac’s migration assistant to move their info and applications, docs…etc over.  After that I install mac’s remote desktop software (ard), give the machine a name, configure the wireless…done.  At the same time I’m doing this, I’m configuring the other machines with unique names, setting up my admin user and installing ard…it gets to be a little involved.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a good series, but I’ve got to say I have no idea what the story is about.  That sounds like a weird thing to say…but as you read through the books (i just finished book 3) you start to see that it isn’t a story about specific characters…it’s a story about the power struggle in this realm.  That is quite a change from other fantasy books I’ve read recently.  Most spend pages, chapters, books even sucking you in to the main characters…you know that somehow in the end these main characters will be involved and must likely prevail.  In this series you start off thinking that way…then a main character is killed off.  That seems to build the story for other main characters, then they die…then others die…in the end you have to understand that so far it’s been a story of the evolution of power in the realm.

This style has been hard to adapt to.  I found myself at one point losing interest in the story because a character was killed out of the blue.  I expected a few characters to befall something bad, but I didn’t expect them to be written out if the story.  It took another chapter to get back in to it.  The story is evolving so that no one is truly good and few are pure evil…but that makes it really hard to root for anyone.  There is one guy that I think is pretty close to being a good guy…but who knows.  From what I’ve read online his back story is suppose to develop more in feast for crows.

Something else I’m digging on is the light fantasy aspect.  There seems to be “magic”of a sort, but it is introduced gradually and doesn’t overwhelm the story.  It doesn’t feel like the mortals are essentially powerless against the “magic”.

Overall this guy tells a really good story.  So many scifi/fantasy writers get caught up in the craptastic details that it leaves no room for you to set the scene in your head.  Martain described things in detail but there is still plenty for the reader to visualize for themselves.

I was able to talk to the AD about positions for the upcoming year.  Unless something unforeseen happens, I’m going to be doing 5-8 boys and girls basketball.  Usually there are 2 coaches each season but apparently it has been a little bit of a problem to find people.  It is possible I might end up doing a season or multiple seasons by myself.  This would not be an ideal situation, but if that’s the way things work out I’ll have to make it work.  At the 78th grade levels it would be workable, but at the 56th grade levels I really don’t think it’s feasible.  There is so much difference between the 5th and 6th grades physically and developmentally that they won’t really get anything out of practicing together.  I believe those age groups need to be separated.  Beyond that, with some of the scheduling that happens at the 5th and 6th grade levels, one person won’t be available for all the games.  The 5th and 6th might be playing at the same time in different gyms in the same school.  There seems to be a trent to play a bunch of games on a Saturday at a school that has two gyms.  I’m guessing this is an effort to conserve costs involved in traveling between towns.  Generally that doesn’t happen with the 7th and 8th, unless both are in the same tourney.

Being involved in all these age groups is going to mean I’m coaching pretty much the whole year.  I’ll get what will amount to a week or so break between 5th 6th grade boys and 7th 8th grade girls…then a couple weeks off then boys 7th 8th maybe a week and then girls 5th and 6th.  I believe that putting in this much time and effort at these age groups will pay off in the long run.  I believe in my methodology, so ingraining that training at these early ages will build the types of players that I think can build the school’s program up to be a perennial contender at the regional and state levels.  Being involved for 4 years will allow me to build them up gradually, starting with a solid foundation then adding complexity and ideas each year until they are at a skill level where they can be productive at the high school level.  I won’t have to rely on faith that the previous coach trained them in things I think they should know…I’ll be the one doing it.

I enjoy coaching and I think being this involved is the best way to gain experience quickly and show the school as well as the community that my techniques work.  Once I have built up that foundation of trust, it is going to be easier to get the students to by in to the system.  Getting the parents on board at these early ages is so key…the support of the community in these small towns will make or break a new coach.  In an effort to make things go smoothly, I’m going to do something that I have never done before….I’m going to come in to practice with a “cheat sheet”.  In the few gigs I’ve had in the past I have relied on the way my coaches did things.  You do this drill for however long, then this drill…then this drill…they seemed to just know what to do.  What I didn’t think about, until I was older, was they have been doing that job for quite some time.  They have a game plan, have been working it for so many years that they don’t need to think about it.  I need to develop my own game plan, write it down, then work it.  Shoot around for x min, drill 1, 2, and 3 for x min, cardio for x min…and so on.  It’s going to be important to develop a plan, then execute that plan to get the most out of the few practices we get.  I’m going to come in with a basic template for the first week.  During that time I’m going to evaluate the players and then determine on what we need to focus.  It sounds very simple, but I think a lot of coaches for these age groups view it as a for the fun of it type of season.  The sport certainly needs to be fun…but there are also basic skills that the players need to learn.  I don’t think it’s going to be difficult to teach those skills in a fun way.  Aside from that…being competitive and winning is fun…as soon as they see they will win I think things will come more easily.

Me doing this much coaching is going to take a toll on the wife and kid as well I’m sure.  I’ll be gone long hours and some Saturdays.  I’m confident we can make it work, but I expect there to be some bumps in the road.  I’m not looking to do this schedule forever…I want to advance and I think putting in this amount of time now will help with that.  The extra money that comes with these positions will be nice as well.  I’m hoping to have enough to put a solid down payment on a Harley in the spring.  Maybe a custom pain job?

Little purple and white…it’s a thought…

Article source: http://www.hillbillycoach.com/?p=18