YouTube Won't Make You a Coach
When learning drills or plays from a brief YouTube video there is so much that is missing. In a world where we seemingly have everything at our fingertips, it can be all too easy to rely on the internet to solve all of our problems. “Just Google it” or “I saw that on YouTube” are regularly uttered in our day-to-day lives. Unfortunately, the internet and its overwhelming abundance of resources/information cannot substitute real life experiences and interactions. Most of us can identify with this - many basketball players are kinesthetic learners and absorb information best from hands-on activities with specific instructions and feedback. As former players, many coaches are the same way. By simply watching a video with minimal instruction built around the focus of the drill, how effective can coaches really be introducing the drill, providing feedback or making adjustments? Furthermore, what do our players gain from merely imitating a drill described to them second hand? Where are we going with this? While they may provide you with ideas or inspiration, watching YouTube coaching videos won’t make you a coach. There is nothing wrong with accessing many of the great online resources out there for basketball coaches, but there is so much lost when watching YouTube videos to inform yourself as a coach. Here are some things to consider when you go searching online for that next coaching gem: More than just learning the drill. That drill you've finally found online after hours of searching, may look great when demonstrated by a university team and you may even learn it well enough to get your young team to run it at your next practice ... but what are you looking for when they run it? What fundamentals need to be emphasized for it to be run correctly? How can you “load” or “unload” the drill to make it more effective or appropriate for your team? What should be taught BEFORE you actually run the drill? Are the players developing their decision making ability in this drill or is it simply to get repetitions and build base fundamental skills? There is so much more to simply “running” a drill you've seen on the internet. There is conflicting information on just about everything you find online. Many new coaches may not be able to decipher between how to teach certain skills or drills when their online search comes up with conflicting information. Sometimes the conflicting information is just minor and does not really impact what is being taught, however, there are other instances when it really does matter. As a coach you must understand the implications of teaching certain fundamentals especially to younger athletes. Players will form habits and as a coach you want to make sure they are forming the best possible habits to give them them the greatest opportunity for success down the road. The scope and role of a coach is much larger than drills, skills and plays. How do you engage the 'disinterested' player on your team? How do you manage parent expectations? How do you foster a team-first culture? How do you create accountability within your team? How do you help your players grow into becoming better people off the court through the lessons learned on the court? These are just a few of the many questions that are not easily answered in a well-edited YouTube video clip. We would argue that these types of questions are the most important ones when it comes to developing your own coaching philosophy. If you jump right to YouTube to inform your practice planning before you’ve established your “coaching voice” and philosophy as a coach then you are missing out on the greater role of the coach. Now that we've identified some potential problems with relying too heavily on YouTube as your source for all things basketball, we will offer some alternative solutions or tips when engaging with online resources. Here is what we would suggest for coaches looking to grow in their knowledge and understanding of the game: Identify your need. You must identify the need or goal BEFORE perusing the millions of video clips available. What is the specific area of need or skill development you would like to address? This approach will help you weed out many of the drills or instructional videos that don’t directly apply to meeting the goal you’ve set out for that specific area of instruction. Do not simply go looking for drills to fill an opening in your practice. Being more intentional with your search will help prevent you from getting caught in the abyss of suggested or “up next” videos on the right hand side of the screen, or worse selecting a drill because it looks “cool” yet does not address the specific area you originally set out for. Not all YouTube channels are created equal. Similar to doing academic research, one must attempt to distinguish between credible and not-so credible resources. This does not mean the person conducting the video must have won 5 NBA Championships or played 15 years of professional basketball to be credible (oftentimes it's actually quite the opposite). Look beyond the fancy editing and shiny gym to see if they are explaining why a drill is performed and what fundamentals or skills should be emphasized throughout the progression of the drill. YouTube channels that specialize in youth development are a good place to start. Properly executing a drill with 12/13 year olds on your house league team may prove to be quite the challenge if you are extracting your resources from an NCAA Division 1 coach that is assuming many of the basic skills and fundamentals have already been acquired because s/he is dealing with elite level players. A good instructional video (especially for youth basketball) will provide the goals for a given drill/play, put it in a game context, and also explain what the coach should be looking for when it is run. Do your homework, and maybe seek out a mentor. Lastly, our advice would be to seek out a coaching mentor, attend an in-person coaching clinic or at least start to write down some of your coaching questions (technical, philosophical or otherwise). The best answers as a coach come from well-thought out questions that will direct your coaching practice. Having a more experienced coach come out and work with you in a practice setting is an invaluable experience that will help you understand how a practice should flow, when specific drills should be woven into a given practice structure, when a drill should be stopped for correction and when it should be allowed to continue despite mistakes, how to properly “load” or “unload” a drill to meet the needs of your specific team, etc. So next time you feel the urge to run to YouTube to build your coaching repertoire perhaps think about some of the questions we’ve raised in this post. YouTube and other online coaching resources can be of great value if used in moderation and with a discerning approach. Blindly executing drills you learned on the internet will not provide your players with the necessary understanding for the greater purpose of the drill and will result in you running back to the well of endless YouTube drills in order to keep things fresh and fill those gaps in your practices. Understanding and being able to teach the fundamentals in everything you do as a team will help you maximize the return on your investment in terms of learning new things on the internet. Lastly, the technical side of coaching is often over-emphasized and romanticized especially by coaches that love talking about x’s and o’s (please see this short clip for more insight on this). In the end, Theodore Roosevelt said it best, “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Establish your overarching coaching philosophy then get down to the technical side of the game. If you have questions about anything we’ve covered in this post or would like more guidance as to how to best inform your coaching practice, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thanks for reading!
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Preparation: A Coaches' Take
The adage that teams are made during the season and players are made during the off-season holds true. For this blog post we interviewed Right Way Senior Advisor, Coach Ian Mackinnon, to get his take on cultivating success, preparation before and during a season and ultimately how to best lead as a coach. He provides some unique insight on how he frames his season and how to prepare your team for success starting in the off-season. Since we are currently in the off-season this is timely advice for coaches of all ages and we’re confident you will benefit from Coach Mackinnon’s experience and wisdom. Ian is the coach of the Ashbury College Senior Boys Varsity Basketball Team, an assistant coach with Ottawa Gee Gees Varsity Women’s Basketball Team and has coached in various capacities in the Ottawa area over the last 30 years. More background on Coach Mackinnon can be found here. Please comment or contact us if you would like anything from this blog clarified or elobrated upon. Thank you Coach Mackinnon for taking the time to answer these important questions for our coaches. How does it feel to have achieved your goal of winning an OFSAA (Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations) gold medal? There was obviously a sense of accomplishment, immediately followed by a void, sprinkled with the unknown and “a what next” sensation. Chasing a championship involves a combination of, good fortune, maximum preparation, perseverance and a team with talent and chemistry. This championship could be attributed to more than just the players that participated this year. It was really 4 years in the making, climbing the proverbial mountain; OFSSAA ‘A’ bronze in 2015, ‘AA’ silver in 2016 and ‘AA’ gold in 2017. Many of the players that helped the team achieve in previous years were no longer around but their legacy went a long way towards the competitive culture. The fact that the team had arguably 3 of the top positional players in the province made it tough to accept anything less than gold this year as well. I felt that the players were aware of this but did not let it add any additional pressure. Winning felt great, but it was short lived and was quickly replaced with new goal setting and preparation for the program. Preparation obviously played a major part in the success of your team this past season. As a coach, what do you do in the off-season and in the weeks leading up to the season to prepare? The adage that teams are made during the season and players are made during the off-season holds true. The culture at a school like Ashbury College is for student / athletes to be well-rounded in all areas. To get players to buy into a year-round approach to basketball is difficult. I was fortunate to find a group that for the most part wanted to play year-round. It started with our high-level players who were competing internationally and at the highest levels in Canada. Skills sessions throughout the summer and fall for the rest were beneficial along with playing in a local community summer league helped as well. Does your preparation change based on the expectations you have for the season? For me preparation does not change based on expectations. The expectations may be different but over-achieving is always a focus. I feel that it is important to focus on the process and not get too caught up in the results. The goal should always be to play your best but find ways to compete when you are not at your best. It is hard not to measure success based on wins and losses but growing as a team and over-achieving can be fulfilling even when the losses out-number the wins. My goals are always to make sure the opposition does not have an advantage based on preparation, if they are better than my team based on talent then so be it. How do you chunk or frame your season in terms of practice planning and focus? In other words, what things do you focus on in August/September/October versus January/February/March? Large emphasis on skill development and fundamentals in the fall. Team play and specific team prep becomes an emphasis in season. With high school team’s there are additional variables including Christmas break, exams, 4 day weekends prior to play-offs, ebbs and flows of academics. Pre-season is about getting players in basketball shape as many of the players spend the fall playing football or soccer. I feel that we are often behind with regards to skill development and team concepts relative to schools that have players playing year-round. In order to counter that, the bar is set high for our players to learn in a condensed fashion. I am fortunate to have intelligent players who are expected to pick up on concepts with limited repetitions. If you could give 3 pieces of advice to a coach heading into the season what would they be? 1. Establish relationships, players need to know that you care. 2. Get your players to believe; in themselves, in each other, in what you are teaching and the goals that you have set. 3. If you think you are doing enough, do more. Lastly, when you are picking your team what are some things you are looking for to fill out your roster? Within the Ashbury College context there is not a huge amount of decision-making that goes into this process. I don’t think I have actually had to cut a player in the 17 years I have been here. If I have more than 12 players trying-out once the expectations are spelled out and the time commitment is established, personnel get sorted out. I am then left with the type of players I need. Calibre wise, this can vary from year to year but I know I have players that I can work with and push. In other high school context’s this would vary. How the student is within the school community plays a part in the process. Your role players need to be able to thrive off of something other than playing time. Balance between graduates and underclassmen is important. Ideally you have competition at all positions and players that can push each other. Rosters are often limited and finding 10 – 12 high-calibre players in a high school setting is difficult. The role of a 'role' player
...though their playing time may be limited, their contributions go far beyond these parameters. In a previous Right Way blog post the topic of body language as it relates to playing time and trust was discussed. This relationship has further reaching implications when it comes to team chemistry and overall success. I can remember early in my high school basketball career my coach at the time emphasizing to our team that we would only be as strong as our weakest link. Throughout my playing and coaching career, I have gained a greater understanding of how critical each member of a team is to its success, regardless of specific abilities. I would like to examine the role of role players and make an important distinction between role players and depth players. The term role player refers to an individual player’s ability to fill a specific need on a team. Role players range from starters to those that play a supporting role off the bench. A player that shoots the three effectively might earn a role as a starter in order to stretch defenses even if other areas of their game may be lacking. Additional roles can include players that are great on the ball defenders, rebounders, ball screeners, etc. Often their specialized skills are used for situational play and when match ups dictate it. Playing time may be limited but their skill set is invaluable. I think it is important to give special consideration to what coaches often refer to as depth players and how they are critical to the cohesion of a team, the glue guys. These are the players that have the potential to make practices more competitive and push those ahead of them on the depth chart each and every day. Within any team dynamic there is undoubtedly a pecking order that exists both from the coaches’ and players’ perspectives. In the majority of team try-outs there are typically a handful of players whose ability or athleticism vaults them to the top of a team’s list. After this, coaches need to fill their roster with players that have potential and or character that aligns with the coach’s philosophy. It is difficult to measure a player’s willingness to sacrifice individual gain for the betterment of a team. However, over the course of a try-out, character traits often become apparent and factor heavily into a player’s selection. As a team progresses over the course of a season, or a number of seasons, players’ roles become more defined and the depth chart is established. It is critical for a coach to communicate these roles to the players on the team. Getting individuals to understand and accept their roles is essential but challenging. Red Auerbach once said that “it's not what you tell your players that counts, it's what they hear." I have found that individual meetings early in the process and with relative frequency can lead to players embracing their roles. Players clarifying roles for each other is another key to team unity. Finally, it is important for coaches to acknowledge players’ contributions publicly and behind closed doors with the team. As mentioned above the depth players not only recognize their role on the court but understand how the support of their teammates from the bench can have a huge effect on team chemistry. These players recognize that even though their playing time may be limited, their contributions go far beyond these parameters. Acting as a scout team, making team drills more competitive, stepping on the floor for a player in foul trouble or filling a void for an injured player are all part of this player’s domain. Connor McSweeney a four year varsity high school basketball player and consummate team contributor reflects on his experience, “Over the years, I have been a part of teams where I would be lucky to see the floor for two minutes. No matter the situation, playing basketball has allowed me to develop attributes such as communication, leadership, and teamwork which really are not only essential on the court, but are also transferrable to the classroom and a work environment. One of the other major lessons basketball has taught me is that teamwork is not limited to the five players on the court; it also extends to the last man on the bench. Every game, those on the court rely on the bench for cheering and support while the game is being played.” As players compete at successively higher levels, their ability to contribute to a team often depends on their understanding of what a depth player needs to bring to a team. The high school star that plays at the next level and is no longer the “go-to” option on a team, sees his playing time diminish and needs to carve out a new niche for himself. Can he now become the player that makes those around him better and puts his team needs ahead of his own? It can be argued that ultimately a team's success depends on a coach’s ability to get his players to understand and accept their roles. Selflessness and a common purpose are what make teams great but are elusive for many. Upon reflecting on South Carolina’s Cinderella run at this year’s NCAA men’s tournament, Frank Martin intimated, “There’s only one ball, and only one player can shoot at a time. So naturally, this is a sport where egos can overtake teamwork if you’re not careful. But in that moment in particular, I could see there was none of that on this team. There was only love.” The importance of player “buy-in” and acceptance of one’s role is the key to team unity and ultimately reaching your full potential. The role of a role player is not always easy to define or communicate. As a coach looking to create a winning culture, it is essential to recognize and utilize depth players for team success. |