Month: March 2015

March 25, 2015

WYC 038 Emily Cohen from TeamSnap talks sportsmanship and lessons learned from great coaches

 

What does it take to be part of a winning youth team? Listen in as Emily Cohen shares stories and discusses her journey to becoming a successful youth sports team manager.

Emily has been a team manager for youth sports teams for over 10 years.  She also is a blogger for TeamSnap, and also hosts a podcast for TeamSnap.  As a youth sports podcast host and blogger, Emily is passionate about sportsmanship, injury prevention, and sideline etiquette. Emily is married and has 2 kids, ages 18 and 15.

Website: www.teamsnap.com/community/podcast

Twitter: @emilygcohen

Listen Now:

Listen in ITunes: Itunes link

Listen in Stitcher: Stitcher link

 

Coaching/Leadership Quote

  • ‘Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming’ – John Wooden

Coaching Your Own Kids

  • Always have an assistant to provide balance for being your own kid’s coach
  • The Team Manager can be a conduit to hear concerns/complaints from parents – embrace this!

Team Managing Cringe & ‘Ah-Ha’ Moments

  • If the coach you work with is a bad communicator – don’t be afraid to step up and take over the communication role
  • Delegate!  Have specific roles assigned to a bunch of the parents – and assign them right at the beginning of the season (even if it’s something that you don’t need until the end of the season – i.e. coaches’ gifts, team videos)

Teaching Children & Keeping it Fun

  • Talk to the kids physically at their level – take a knee so you’re not talking down to them which can be very intimidating (this can be especially important when coaching girls)
  • Minimize lines – have multiple stations to keep the kids constantly moving
  • Free-play – 30 minutes of no adult involvement

Mental Peak Performance

  • As a parent – Have your child own the experience and stay out of the way, and don’t attend tryouts
  • As a coach – put each kid in the best position for them to succeed – which is different for each kid
  • Coaches – you have to format your communication to your athletes – so that they don’t freeze from the pressures you are putting on them

Coaching Resources

  • TeamSnap – Software program and app that allows you to enter team rosters, schedules, and tons of team info. You can send scheduling updates easily and it’s a lifesaver for team managers.

Discipline

  • Corporate punishment for individual mistakes – You really need to think through your team chemistry and be careful if you are going to ever use this.
  • Community service can be another positive way to discipline kids.

Teambuilding/Rewards

  • HUGE IDEA #1 – Juggling competition – Each week you try to beat your previous record of how many times you can juggle the soccer ball.  Good reward because it encourages you to practice on your own outside of practice.  And you can set individual and team goals for each week and for the season.
  • When setting up teamwork goals – make sure you include the parents, not just the kids

Inspiring Story

  • Be on the lookout for a kid having off the field home problems – being late for practice, etc. – then seek to understand and see how you can help this kid out

Winning

  • Winning is a happy result – but there are so many more lessons to be learned from losing

The One that Got Away

  • Emily’s son’s final high school start as a baseball pitcher – they were up 5-1, and then one play rattled him and the team
  • HUGE IDEA #2 – Coaches – practice situations going wrong and momentum swinging against them – you have to practice it and be prepared for it
  • Teach your kids to be idiot-proof

Coaching/Leadership Motivation

  • Quote – ‘Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming’ – Coach John Wooden

Parting Advice

  • Forget about the win/loss record – and instead focus on making the experience fun

The TeamSnap Youth Sports Podcast

 

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March 12, 2015

WYC 037 Ray Lokar from Basketball4ALL.net and Positive Coaching Alliance talks teaching athletes to focus on WIN-Whats Important Now

 

What does it take to be a winning youth coach? Listen in as Coach Ray Lokar shares stories and discusses his journey to becoming a successful youth sports coach.

Ray Lokar is the Director of Basketball4ALL (basketball4ALL.net), which provides a variety of lessons, camps, clinics, competitions, and events for the benefit of the Southern California basketball community. Coach Lokar was the Head Basketball Coach of the 2002 CIF Champions while at Bishop Amat High School led St Anthony High School to the semi-finals, Western Christian High School to the quarterfinals, made 4 NCAA tournament appearances in his 9 years as an assistant coach at Pomona-Pitzer College and is a Past-President of the Southern California Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association.

Always an advocate for the multi-sport athlete, “Coach Lok” coaches baseball at Covina High School and has two DVD series titled  “The Fundamentals Factory” and “Effective Practice Planning” for both basketball and baseball that are available at ChampionshipProductions.com. Ray’s book “101 BasketballTips”, published by Lifetips as part of their Lifetips Book Series,  is available at Amazon.com and his eBook titled “Creating Confident and Coachable Players” can be found on his website, basketball4ALL.net, where you can also book his sport-specific “Gold Standard Coaching” clinics. Lokar also serves as the Southern California Lead Trainer for the nationally renowned Positive Coaching Alliance (positivecoach.org) that provides tremendous resources for everyone in youth and high school sports. He has spoken for hundreds of organizations in over a dozen States on ethics in sports,  peak performance, getting the most out of your players, and being a good Sports Parent.

For over 30 years Coach “Lok” has taught basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, football, swimming and track in the San Gabriel Valley at the youth, high school, and college levels and has worked countless camps and clinics during that time for ages 8-18. He coached his children Shawn, Heather, and Brittany throughout their participation in youth and high school sports and they each went on to compete at the college level. Ray enjoyed it so much he is doing it all again  with his young son, Tyler, who he hopes learns all the same life lessons as his older brothers and sisters.

Website: basketball4ALL.net

Twitter: @CoachLok

Listen Now:

Listen in ITunes: Itunes link

Listen in Stitcher: Stitcher link

 

Coaching/Leadership Quote

  • ‘When you take the time to teach your boys, there’s an implied confidence, that you believe they can achieve, and that’s praise in itself” – Coach John Wooden

Coaching Your Own Kids

  • Remember often kids like things their team’s name being the RoboSox as much as the wins/losses
  • Before volunteering to coach – make sure to ask your kid if they want you to be their coach
  • Err on the side of being a little tougher on your own kid- but communicate continually with your child, explaining to him why you are doing what you’re doing

My Cringe & ‘Ah-Ha’ Moments

  • Early on – Coach Lok would start his coaching points being critical – after listening to a Coach Wooden observation, he started focusing on spending more time praising little successes and less time being critical
  • Coach each game possession by possession

Teaching Children & Keeping it Fun

  • Kids respond to recognition and rewards (think about kids in a classroom who will do anything for a sticker)

HUGE IDEA #1

  • Your results will come from what you measure, recognize, and reward

Mental Peak Performance

HUGE IDEA #2

  • WIN – Whats Important Now – In high pressure situations – have the kids focus on ONE thing that is important(i.e. hold your follow through) – don’t tell them more than one thing or their head will be swimming with too many concerns

Coaching Resources

Discipline/Rewards

  • Advice from Larry Brown: ‘I don’t have a lot of rules, but I have a lot of suggestions’ – If you make any hardfast rules – you have to enforce them – so be careful making too many rules, especially because each individual situation is usually very different.
  • When things tend to go bad – the tendency is to crack down on the bad stuff – but often if you start praising more the kids doing it right – the rest will come along.  You can even come up with a rewards program for rewarding good behaviors.

Inspiring Story

  • You often won’t know the impact you’re having until years later: when John Wooden was asked if the season was a success: ‘We’ll find out in 20 years’
  • Coach Lok tries to draft at least 1 kid each year who is a little challenged and he could impact
  • Biggest challenge to mom/dad coaches – Make them love the game so they keep playing. ‘Don’t ever be any kid’s last coach’

Winning

  • Be careful about talking about end-of-the-year goals of winning a championship – you want to focus on winning each game, one play at a time
  • Jim Thompson, founder of Positive Coaching Alliance – ‘The heat that competition provides is crucial to the recipe of success’
  • Nelson Mandela – ‘Sports speaks to our youth in a language they understand’

The One that Got Away

  • Coach Lok went against his gut – in a game-winning situation – he didn’t let his son (who was his best player) take the shot – he was too worried about the perception from the parents.  When you’re the coach – you need to separate out emotions and do what’s best.

Coaching/Leadership Motivation

  • Books – anything by Coach Wooden
  • Coach Wooden stories:
    • Coach Lok asked Wooden about Wooden’s lack of verbal praise for his players: ‘When you take the time to teach your boys, there’s an implied confidence, that you believe they can achieve, and that’s praise in itself’
    • Coach Wooden talked about a player he kicked off the team for smoking – the kid quit school and didn’t go to college.  Coach Wooden said from that point on, he always thought about the consequences of his consequences.

Positive Coaching Alliance/ Basketball4ALL.net

  • Coach Lok is involved with the Positive Coaching Alliance – Their Double Goal Coaching material is a great starting place for a coach at any level
  • Coach also provides great resources for basketball coaches at Basketball4ALL.net

 

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March 4, 2015

WYC 036 Keith Van Horn, 10 year NBA veteran, talks youth basketball and the importance of free-play

 What does it take to be a winning youth coach? Listen in as Keith Van Horn shares stories and discusses his journey to becoming a successful youth sports coach.

Keith was the ESPN NCAA Player of the Year in 1997, and went on be drafted with the 2nd pick in the NBA draft.  He spent 10 years in the NBA, averaged over 16 points per game, and went to NBA finals with the New Jersey Nets and the Dallas Mavericks.  He currently serves as the Founder and Executive Director for Colorado Premier Basketball Club which is the largest youth basketball club in the state of Colorado, and works with over 1,000 youth in the communities it serves.  He also serves on the National Advisory Board for the Positive Coaching Alliance.  Keith is married and has 4 kids, ages 11 to 19.

Website: keithvanhorn.com

Blog: layupsandrebounds.com

Twitter: @coach_keith44

Facebook: /keithvanhornofficial

Listen Now:

Listen in ITunes: Itunes link

Listen in Stitcher: Stitcher link

 

Coaching my own kids

  • Keep the proper perspective – have fun, learn the sport, learn life lessons

My ‘Ah-Ha’ Moment

  • Youth basketball coaching is very unorganized (vs. other sports like youth soccer, which requires accreditation) – Coaches need to take a little time to get organized so they can teach well

Teaching Children & Keeping it Fun

HUGE IDEA #1 – 1st look at it from the kid’s performance – why are the kids playing? – To have fun, spend time with friends, run and jump a little bit?  This might be different based on their gender also.  When looking at the 4F’s for goals – Fun, Friendships, Fundamentals, Fight – You need to individualize these for each player – some kids just want to hang out with their friends, others want to improve a skill, others just want to win – so create motivation/goals for each individual based on where they are at.

Teaching skills

HUGE IDEA #2

  • Spider – Ball handling game – 4 or 5 defenders, 3 or 4 offensive players – Players have to dribble to the other end of the court while the spiders are trying to knock their ball out of the court, if you get your ball knocked out you join the spiders.
  • Teaching shooting – Do form shooting in 2 player groups – Shooting the ball back and forth to each other (without a basket) to work on form

Mental Peak Performance

  • If you are coaching an organization with tryouts – have good options for everyone – give the parents/kids good
  • As a player – the key is to play present and stay focused on what you are doing – you have to block out the fans/other coaches, etc.
  • The biggest thing a parent can do is instill the right priorities- a basketball tryout is not the most important thing for your child or your family

Inspiring Story

  • Keith is working with youth to teach more than basketball but real life lessons – dealing with losses, working in a team environment, the discipline of practice.

Layupsandrebounds.com

  • Blog created to encourage parents and kids on lessons learned off and on the court
  • Keith encourages more free-play time with no coaches – just learn the game and have fun

Parting Advice

 

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