7 Culture-Building Activities for Your Team

Are you a basketball coach or a parent looking to enhance team cohesion and foster a spirit of camaraderie among your players? Look no further! In this blog, we've curated a list of seven team-building activities designed to improve connection and relationships across your group.

Activity #1: One Word

1. Each player has a pen and A4 paper

2. They must write “one word that best describes them as a person”.

3. Players share and answer 'Why did you select this one word?'

Activity #2: Player Questionnaire

Give each player a pen and paper, and have them write answers to the following questions:

1. ‘What are your goals/dreams for basketball in the future?’

2. ‘3 things I like to do outside basketball are’

3. ‘My greatest strengths as a player are:’

4. 'One thing I'd like support with is..'

5. 'One thing I wish my coach knew about me is...'

6. 'I like it when my coach...'

 Answers stay with the coach, which you use to better understand your players and build connection with them.

Activity #3: Two Truths, One Lie

• Each player takes turns telling their teammates three facts about themselves – two must be true and one must be made up.

• Teammates try to guess the lie, and receive one point for a correct guess.

Activity #4: Setting Goals and Standards

Requires: Butchers paper/whiteboard, markers and a team 'scribe'

Your team must come up with agreed answers to the following questions in order:

1. What would mean a successful season? (Includes on-court achievements and personal/team growth)

2. If someone watched us playing or training, how would we like people to describe us? (Adjectives - describing words)

3. Thinking about our answers above, what things should we be doing in training to get there? (Verb-based - Actions)

At the end of this activity, you will hopefully have:

1. Goals: The tangible and intangible things to chase.

2. Values: Traits that players value as being important.

3. Standards: Clear behaviours that reflect the values and goals selected.

If completing in smaller groups, teams must re-convene at the end and present their ‘team standards’ to each other.

Optional: Players write on butchers paper and sign the paper to indicate their buy-in

Activity #5: Secret Cheerleader

• Write the name of each player on a slip of paper, and place all of the paper slips into a hat or tub.

• Each player draws the name of a teammate out of a hat, and becomes their ‘secret cheerleader’

• The athlete is then responsible for secretly supporting the teammate over the session or week (think constant encouragement, high-fives, perhaps filling their drink bottle)

• At the end of the session/week, have players guess who their secret cheerleader was.

Activity #6: Positive Pen Pal

• Players sit in a circle with a pen and A4 sheet of paper with their name written at the top.

• Players pass the sheet to their left and write something positive about the person whose sheet they have been handed.

• Continue passing to the left until each player receives their own sheet, complete with positive things from the entire team.

Activity #7: Stop / Start / Keep Doing (U16+)

• Give each player a pen and post-it notes or an A4 sheet of paper.

• Players have 3 minutes to brainstorm a list of things they want the team to

1. Stop doing (behaviours that are hurting our progress towards agreed goals)

2. Start doing (behaviours we are not doing that would support our progress towards agreed goals)

3. Keep doing (behaviours we are doing well & need to continue as a strength)

• Share as a group, identify and align on the most popular 1-2 in each list and make those 3-6 behaviour changes the focus of the coming training week.