This is Patrick Colliton from 6528 Heather Brook Ct., McLean, in Fairfax VA and I am back with some more pointers on how to reach out to your younger players. Over the past seventeen years I have coached youth soccer, basketball and lacrosse and my advice can be applied to virtually all sports. Today I want to talk about keeping everything you say positive.
I am that type of coach that has a loud booming voice and is not afraid to use it. When I first started coaching I know for a fact that kids on both teams were a little frightened of me because of my voice. I have learned over the years that if you can keep it fun and friendly (even joking), you can turn this determent into an asset.
One of my secrets is to turn a mistake into a positive. In Pee-wee soccer more often than not there are swings at the ball that draw nothing but air (a clean miss). My favorite response to that was always “great fake, great fake” which would bring chuckles from the parents and smiles to the kids faces.
Another secret is to complement the OPPOSING team’s players. Simple comments like “Be careful of # 13, he is a magician.” (Basketball and/or soccer) or “Watch out for # 4 - she has a BIG FOOT” or “We need to box out John – He is a Beast on the boards.” These comments can do wonders for all players involved and without question, the kids all love it. I can’t tell you how many complements I have also received from opposing team’s parents on our good sportsmanship.
As a former college football player, I also found that with the younger players, my size was very intimidating. I learned at an early coaching clinic that a big help in communicating with the little guys (and girls) is to get down on one knee when talking with them. This brings you to their eye level and gets them more comfortable and it actually helps them pay more attention to what you are saying.
All of these tips really apply to the younger, beginning kids and they are meant to keep it light and fun. This will keep the kids coming back which should always be our goal. My next blog will talk about how you can reach out to the kids as they get older and more competitive. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Pat Colliton's Fundementals of Coaching Defense
This is Patrick Colliton from 6528 Heather Brook Ct., McLean, in Fairfax VA and I am back with more coaching tips that I have picked up over the past seventeen years of coaching in Fairfax, VA. Today I want to talk about defense and the best way to coach defense to younger, developing kids and while I have the most experience in coaching basketball, the fundamentals of defense can be applied to soccer, lacrosse and actually, most sports.
What most kids and a lot of coaches don’t realize is that defense is played with your feet. The basic principle of defense is to stay between your man and the goal and in order to be successful, you need to position yourself properly.
There are several important factors involved with having the proper position;
1) You need to stay on your toes (hence the expression “Don’t get caught flatfooted.”)
2) You need to keep your butt down and always have good balance.
3) Your movement should always be step and slide, step and slide. You need to avoid crossing over your feet as there is no balance during crossovers.
4) Probably the most important factor to address is to make sure your kids overplay to the strong side.
By forcing a young player to his/her weak side or off-hand, you basically take away his/her strength. By positioning your defensive player one half or even one full step toward the right hand (in most cases) allows even the most modest athlete to have success defensively. I always tell my kids that you need talent to score but you need heart and smarts to play defense. Therefore, everyone can play defense.
As long as you can teach or explain these fundamentals of defense, you really don’t need to spend a lot of practice time on defensive drills.
My next blog will talk about how you can make defensive drills both fun and productive at the same time. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.
What most kids and a lot of coaches don’t realize is that defense is played with your feet. The basic principle of defense is to stay between your man and the goal and in order to be successful, you need to position yourself properly.
There are several important factors involved with having the proper position;
1) You need to stay on your toes (hence the expression “Don’t get caught flatfooted.”)
2) You need to keep your butt down and always have good balance.
3) Your movement should always be step and slide, step and slide. You need to avoid crossing over your feet as there is no balance during crossovers.
4) Probably the most important factor to address is to make sure your kids overplay to the strong side.
By forcing a young player to his/her weak side or off-hand, you basically take away his/her strength. By positioning your defensive player one half or even one full step toward the right hand (in most cases) allows even the most modest athlete to have success defensively. I always tell my kids that you need talent to score but you need heart and smarts to play defense. Therefore, everyone can play defense.
As long as you can teach or explain these fundamentals of defense, you really don’t need to spend a lot of practice time on defensive drills.
My next blog will talk about how you can make defensive drills both fun and productive at the same time. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Pat Colliton's shooting drills from Fairfax
This is Pat Colliton from 6528 Heather Brook Ct., McLean, in Fairfax VA and I am back with more helpful hints on coaching youth basketball. Hopefully, my seventeen years of coaching youth basketball in Fairfax, VA makes this a worthwhile reading.
Repetition is certainly one of the main ingredients in one’s quest for improvement in almost any activity. While there is no denying that some people have a natural born gift for certain things, almost without exception, hard work is the key to one’s success for improvement.
The trick for coaches of young kids is how to get them to focus on the fundamentals or basics of a sport before they get bored or lose interest. One point to always remember is that you must keep your drill lines very short (3 or 4 kids max). This allows for two things; all of the kids get a lot of reps and also, no one has time to get bored and start trouble. Another key ingredient is to make up “team competitions” so that they can feel good about winning.
As you know by now, the low blocks in basketball are my favorite positions on the court. Everyone who plays the game needs to be comfortable “down on the blocks”. Shooting and making the shot from the low blocks is essential for overall success on the court. One drill that the kids love is breaking the team into two lines of 4 and then have a contest shooting from the blocks. Coaches need to keep all games moving, either playing for 30-45 seconds or the first team to make 10 shots. Two balls, two teams – GO. Game ends - so switch sides and go again.
There are a couple of important things to stress to the kids. First, they need to always use the backboard as this helps tremendously with their success. Second, they should always get ready to shoot the ball before they catch the pass, in other words, have their feet balanced and their hands in a shooting position (by their chest). The third thing to stress is to always follow your shot. It is one of the fundamentals of the game and it speeds the contest up and keeps everything moving. Finally they need to deliver a good pass to their teammate who has moved into the low block.
Shooting drills are the easy part of practice as everyone loves to shoot. Kids all love to shoot and even at a young age most will have good success from the low blocks. As the improvement comes it is easy to move the drill around to different spots on the floor, always keeping it close (inside the foul line).
My next blog will talk about how you can make defensive drills both fun and productive at the same time. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.
Repetition is certainly one of the main ingredients in one’s quest for improvement in almost any activity. While there is no denying that some people have a natural born gift for certain things, almost without exception, hard work is the key to one’s success for improvement.
The trick for coaches of young kids is how to get them to focus on the fundamentals or basics of a sport before they get bored or lose interest. One point to always remember is that you must keep your drill lines very short (3 or 4 kids max). This allows for two things; all of the kids get a lot of reps and also, no one has time to get bored and start trouble. Another key ingredient is to make up “team competitions” so that they can feel good about winning.
As you know by now, the low blocks in basketball are my favorite positions on the court. Everyone who plays the game needs to be comfortable “down on the blocks”. Shooting and making the shot from the low blocks is essential for overall success on the court. One drill that the kids love is breaking the team into two lines of 4 and then have a contest shooting from the blocks. Coaches need to keep all games moving, either playing for 30-45 seconds or the first team to make 10 shots. Two balls, two teams – GO. Game ends - so switch sides and go again.
There are a couple of important things to stress to the kids. First, they need to always use the backboard as this helps tremendously with their success. Second, they should always get ready to shoot the ball before they catch the pass, in other words, have their feet balanced and their hands in a shooting position (by their chest). The third thing to stress is to always follow your shot. It is one of the fundamentals of the game and it speeds the contest up and keeps everything moving. Finally they need to deliver a good pass to their teammate who has moved into the low block.
Shooting drills are the easy part of practice as everyone loves to shoot. Kids all love to shoot and even at a young age most will have good success from the low blocks. As the improvement comes it is easy to move the drill around to different spots on the floor, always keeping it close (inside the foul line).
My next blog will talk about how you can make defensive drills both fun and productive at the same time. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Pat Colliton's Coaching Tricks from Fairfax Virginia
This is Pat Colliton from 6528 Heather Brook Ct., McLean, in Fairfax VA and I am back with more inside information on coaching youth basketball. My seventeen years of coaching youth basketball in Fairfax, VA makes me a little bit of an authority on the subject.
The first thing coaches need to know when coaching youth sports is that regardless of how much experience you have or don’t have, you almost always know more than your kids, especially in those developmental years (grades 1-4). Hopefully your program has you playing small sided games (3 v 3)with a shorter basket and smaller ball. These are all vital if you want the kids to be successful.
One of the first things you will notice with the young players is that they all want to shoot jump shots. The further out, the better they like it. Basically it becomes a chuck and a prayer with virtually no chance for success. This is just not productive use of your precious practice time.
In order to give these younger kids a chance to succeed, I make a rule at the very first practice. That rule is “You need to make a lay-up before you can even attempt a jump shot.” (practice or games) Once you make a lay-up you are allowed to shoot a jumper, but if you miss that jumper, you need to make another lay-up before your next attempted jump shot.
This rule is actually pretty easy to implement and as long as you don’t get too strict with it, the kids will buy into it. I usually tweak the rule as the season progresses, allowing “bonus jumpers” for offensive rebounds and steals.
My next blog will talk about how you can make shooting drills both fun and productive at the same time. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.
The first thing coaches need to know when coaching youth sports is that regardless of how much experience you have or don’t have, you almost always know more than your kids, especially in those developmental years (grades 1-4). Hopefully your program has you playing small sided games (3 v 3)with a shorter basket and smaller ball. These are all vital if you want the kids to be successful.
One of the first things you will notice with the young players is that they all want to shoot jump shots. The further out, the better they like it. Basically it becomes a chuck and a prayer with virtually no chance for success. This is just not productive use of your precious practice time.
In order to give these younger kids a chance to succeed, I make a rule at the very first practice. That rule is “You need to make a lay-up before you can even attempt a jump shot.” (practice or games) Once you make a lay-up you are allowed to shoot a jumper, but if you miss that jumper, you need to make another lay-up before your next attempted jump shot.
This rule is actually pretty easy to implement and as long as you don’t get too strict with it, the kids will buy into it. I usually tweak the rule as the season progresses, allowing “bonus jumpers” for offensive rebounds and steals.
My next blog will talk about how you can make shooting drills both fun and productive at the same time. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Coaching tips from Pat Colliton in Fairfax VA
This is Pat Colliton from 6528 Heather Brook Ct., McLean, VA and I am back to offer a little more coaching advice. The drill I want to talk about today is the lay-up drill. Teams from the first grade all the way up to the professional teams use this drill for the first ten minutes of practice. Most teams use this as a “warm-up” drill and as such, don’t get much out of it.
I look at this drill a little differently and instead use it to stress four fundamentals of the game. This is especially beneficial for the young kids you coach.
If you push the drill all the way back to half court, you force the kids to work on their dribbling and ball handling (Fundamental # 1). You will need to remind or teach them to use their fingertips to feel the ball. They should not have the ball in the palm of their hand as this just leads to the eventual carry. They also need to keep the ball below their waist when they are dribbling. The lower the better.
The second part of the drill may seem basic but at a young age, it is crucial. They need to make the lay-up (Fundamental # 2). My favorite expression in basketball is “The backboard is your friend.” Shooting off the glass is a lost art. You need to teach them that they must be under control and use the backboard on ALL lay-ups. Honestly, at least in elementary school, the team that makes its lay-ups usually wins.
The third part of the drill is critical. You need to teach the kids right from the beginning about low block rebounding (Fundamental # 3). The player needs to get to weak side low block, get a wide base and get ready to get the ball BEFORE IT HITS THE GROUND. This shows that they are ready to rebound.
The final stage of the drill is the chest pass (Fundamental # 4) that goes back to front of the line. You need to teach them to step into the pass so that it gets where it needs to go. Another thing to remember is that it should always be chest to chest.
A couple of final thoughts; always be positive and compliment them when they do anything correctly. Repeat the principles globally when someone gets it wrong. In other words, compliment the individuals and correct and instruct the team.
So now, in the first 10-15 minutes of practice, you have covered and worked on four basic fundamentals of basketball. The rest is gravy.
My next blog will talk about a few games that all kids love. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.
I look at this drill a little differently and instead use it to stress four fundamentals of the game. This is especially beneficial for the young kids you coach.
If you push the drill all the way back to half court, you force the kids to work on their dribbling and ball handling (Fundamental # 1). You will need to remind or teach them to use their fingertips to feel the ball. They should not have the ball in the palm of their hand as this just leads to the eventual carry. They also need to keep the ball below their waist when they are dribbling. The lower the better.
The second part of the drill may seem basic but at a young age, it is crucial. They need to make the lay-up (Fundamental # 2). My favorite expression in basketball is “The backboard is your friend.” Shooting off the glass is a lost art. You need to teach them that they must be under control and use the backboard on ALL lay-ups. Honestly, at least in elementary school, the team that makes its lay-ups usually wins.
The third part of the drill is critical. You need to teach the kids right from the beginning about low block rebounding (Fundamental # 3). The player needs to get to weak side low block, get a wide base and get ready to get the ball BEFORE IT HITS THE GROUND. This shows that they are ready to rebound.
The final stage of the drill is the chest pass (Fundamental # 4) that goes back to front of the line. You need to teach them to step into the pass so that it gets where it needs to go. Another thing to remember is that it should always be chest to chest.
A couple of final thoughts; always be positive and compliment them when they do anything correctly. Repeat the principles globally when someone gets it wrong. In other words, compliment the individuals and correct and instruct the team.
So now, in the first 10-15 minutes of practice, you have covered and worked on four basic fundamentals of basketball. The rest is gravy.
My next blog will talk about a few games that all kids love. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Pat Colliton's Coach's Corner Fairfax, Virginia
This is Pat Colliton from Fairfax Virginia, where I have coached for the past seventeen years and I thought that I would post a few of my thoughts on the subject of coaching. I have coached at the AAU level, Travel Team level, House League level, and Developmental level, and with very few exceptions, my advice is the same at all levels. Make it fun and stress the fundamentals.
With three kids between the ages of 12 and 22, I can tell you this much about their generation. They come from the school of “Everything I learned about basketball, I learned on Sportscenter.”
As I mentioned earlier, stick with the two “F”s, Fun and Fundamentals and I promise you that you will have great success. This is true at any age from 6 all the way up to 18. If you can make it fun, the kids will keep coming back and then the game itself becomes the teacher. The simplest way to make it both fun and full of fundamentals is to make up games that stress the simple basics of the game. Almost every kid that is playing sports is competitive by nature (or their parents are) and they all love to “win” no matter what the game. By making up the games and the rules, coaches can keep everything even. I can’t tell you how many games that I have invented that have miraculously ended in a tie.
My next Blog I will talk about a little bit about some fun games and how a simple drill like lay-up lines can work on four fundamentals of the game.
This is Patrick Colliton signing off from 6528 Heather Brook Ct., McLean, VA 22101.
With three kids between the ages of 12 and 22, I can tell you this much about their generation. They come from the school of “Everything I learned about basketball, I learned on Sportscenter.”
As I mentioned earlier, stick with the two “F”s, Fun and Fundamentals and I promise you that you will have great success. This is true at any age from 6 all the way up to 18. If you can make it fun, the kids will keep coming back and then the game itself becomes the teacher. The simplest way to make it both fun and full of fundamentals is to make up games that stress the simple basics of the game. Almost every kid that is playing sports is competitive by nature (or their parents are) and they all love to “win” no matter what the game. By making up the games and the rules, coaches can keep everything even. I can’t tell you how many games that I have invented that have miraculously ended in a tie.
My next Blog I will talk about a little bit about some fun games and how a simple drill like lay-up lines can work on four fundamentals of the game.
This is Patrick Colliton signing off from 6528 Heather Brook Ct., McLean, VA 22101.
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