Do Basketball Drills have to be Fun?
Youth coaches often struggle with the philosophy of practice drills: should they be fun or should they be hard? Many coaches do not want to have fun drills because people view fun as easy and coaches do not want to be characterized as easy.
I think it is possible to run fun, active practices which are also challenging. Apparently, new Toronto Raptors’ Head Coach Jay Triano agrees, as he took a page from Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development and has his players play tag:
Triano dreamed up a new version of tag, making his players chase the designated ‘it’ guy while dribbling a ball.
“It was a drill I’d never seen in 13 years in the league,” O’Neal said. “It was cool because he put some defense in there, that shows great foot speed. Small stuff like that makes (practice) a lot more fun and a lot more competitive. [via True Hoop]
Last year, my friend asked for some drills to use with eight-year-olds. I suggested tag. He said his kids were too old to play tag. Apparently not.
Great stuff, Brian. A technique that I use and have used in the past is the “Skill-Game” pattern. Spend a FEW minutes teaching a skill and follow it up with a game or drill with a competitive aspect that teaches the skill you just taught.
For example, you may teach the kids the proper footwork on a lay up drill. After a few minutes, you split the kids up into groups and see what team can make the most lay ups in 60 seconds. Or maybe, you do 3 rounds of 30 seconds.
And as you stated, this can be done with any age group.
joehaefner said this on December 11, 2008 at 9:04 AM |