January 21, 2018 By Kasey McDowell
Below is an editorial, not specific to Mulvane Sports.
A few things have happened to me in the last couple of months that got me to thinking a lot about youth sports, in particular youth basketball. I had a good conversation with a coach from a pretty successful high school program about youth basketball. I watched a couple of rec games from a VHS tape from 1992 where the kids were probably around the 11-12 year old range. I attended a rec game last weekend with the same age group of kids. And lastly, I saw a tweet on Twitter that said “Players: There are 0 college coaches who care whether you won your U12's tournament. Play the right way and develop skills.”
What do all these have in common? They all raised a simple question, are we focusing on too many structured games with kids where a win is the ultimate goal versus focusing on teaching kids the skills and mechanics of the game that they will use when as get older? The coach I spoke with believes so. He told me he feels that young kids are too often put into structured games where they are constantly being told from coaches and parents to “go here, go there, shoot it, rebound, etc…” and the games are usually somewhat chaotic. The teams often center around 1 or 2 players where the game comes more naturally to them to do the dribbling and scoring, and the rest of the kids just get their mandatory minutes in.
The game that I saw on the 1992 tape and the game I saw last weekend looked basically exactly the same, somewhat controlled chaos. Were the kids having fun (which is very important)? For the most part I believe so, but are there some things we can change so the kids can have fun, and also focus more on developing skills, mechanics, and teamwork? That is the million dollar question.
What if:
Instead of a standard team of 8-10 players that play another team of 8-10 players every weekend with a practice or two in between, what if we formed teams of 6 players or so, and each practice was focused on the skills and mechanics of the game with drills that they can take home with them and practice with their parents. With smaller teams, each kid could get more 1-on-1 attention. Each weekend there could be a series of skills competitions and half court 3-on-3 scrimmages where the kids could still get some competition in, but the focus would be on the skills they worked on in practice versus what is shown on a scoreboard. Possibly the last couple of weekends there could be a game of 5-vs-5. The parents and grandparents could bring their cameras and camcorders and still document the progress of their kids throughout the season.
Is this format applicable to all kids, probably not. Traveling teams of 5-vs-5 might still be the better format for some young players. Also, some kids may really like basketball and want to play, but the family cannot afford travel ball. But what if in the above scenario, you had a group of 15 or 20 kids from each age group that were in this type of format from the time they were 6 or 7 until they were in 7th grade and they start school sports? Would this format result in a team that has more players that have a better understanding of the skills and mechanics of the game? The only way to tell would be to try it. Now of course this type of format would need some refining and planning, the above scenario was just a general idea. Do we have the courage to break the mold and give something else a try?
Now some may think this article is controlled chaos, but I'm mainly just trying to raise some questions about alternatives to better develop young players and get them excited about learning the sport of basketball.
