Tips for New Domestic Coaches
You’ve been handed the keys to coaching a domestic team within the McKinnon Basketball Association. Now what?
Being a parent, former or current player and transitioning to a coach can be a challenging situation, but also a very rewarding one. This will usually involve coaching one training and one game per round for the next 14-16 rounds. Below is a step by step guide to organising yourself for both trainings and games.
Our goal as coaches of grassroots participants should be:
Help foster a love for the sport of basketball (being active).
Provide opportunity for development to occur.
If you can always achieve the above, then we are providing value for the children. Some tips to achieve this are:
Treat all children fairly (including your own)
Keep things simple
Be a positive influence (control emotions)
Refrain from talking about other children in front of your child
Have fun and enjoy the ride of coaching!
Training Tips
1) Preparing a session plan
Before the first session, it is highly important to have a plan for the session. The key things you’ll need to know when making your plan are:
The area (full court or half court);
How long your session is;
How many children will be attending the session;
What equipment you may have (basketballs, cones, whistle, etc).
This plan can be handwritten, typed, or even in your notes on a tablet or phone. This will help get the most out of the session and provide a good opportunity.
2) Delivering the session
Tips to deliver a quality session:
Get the drills started quickly, don’t get stuck giving TEDTalks.
Use of whistle to stop drills
Maximise the space
Keep a ball in each child’s hand for as long as possible
While they are grabbing a drink, prepare the next drill.
3) Ending the session
At the end of the session, we recommend the use of questioning to reinforce what players learned at the training:
- What did we/you learn today?
- What did we/you do well?
- What was difficult?
- Did you have fun?
This feedback can be useful as it will help you understand the children you are coaching more, particularly in exploring what they enjoy about the sport.
Game Day
Games are a great opportunity for development, and this should always remain the focus over the scoreboard outcome. A study by the Institute of Study for Youth Sport found that children play sport for the following reasons in order:
Fun
Skill Development
Excitement and Personal Challenge
Achievement and Status
Fitness
Energy or Tension Release
Friendship
We strongly encourage having a development focus where growth and development of your players is most important.
1) Pre-Game
Before the game, you should meet with the children and talk about 1-2 points of emphasis for the team for that game. Example might be, “let’s get out and run as early as possible” or “on all dead ball situations, find your player as quick as possible”. As children gain experience, allow them to identify the 1-2 points point of emphasis.
Set out the starters. This should be on rotation each week; starters should be different ever game.
The court warm up should involve as much movement as possible. A good warm up activity would be 1 vs 1 Shoulder Races or Bump. If you only have 1 ball, consider doing a 2 vs 1 Drill, Shooting Series or a game.
2) Substitutions
Use a subbing sheet, and rotate players evenly. These can be found at www.mckinnonbasketball.org/coaches
3) Time Outs/Half Time
Address the entire group.
Limit yourself to 3 teaching points. The three points could have a structure like:
1 x offence, 1 x defence, 1 x other (e.g. rebounds, communication)
Focus on what to do next, don’t dwell on the past.
Link instructions to your pre-game goals, rather than the scoreboard.
3) Post-Game
Similar to the Post Training, at the end of the game, use questioning to reinforce learning, for example:
- What did we/you learn today?
- What did we/you do well?
- What could we/you have done better?
This feedback can be useful as it will help you understand the children more, particularly in exploring what they enjoy about the sport.