Youth Basketball Development Blog

Motivational concepts for youth basketball players:

8/25/2018

Find a positive role model or group that your child can identify with to improve long-term commitment in basketball.
A spartan like skill development area to play and practice in can be a good thing occasionally (i.e. an unfinished basement area, drive way, small gym, or playground area).
Praise effort and improvement versus innate talent or outcomes.
Create a clear action plan/commitment contract that your child has a say in and reward them for their effort (i.e complete one to two drill sheets over a set period of time and you get this, ______).

Example of a youth basketball association philosophy:

8/15/2018

We believe that it is extremely important to have a youth program philosophy in order to have sound principles that help guide your decision making processes. This can be done or shaped by your program’s head coach or a collaboration between the head coach and your youth association. As the Bennett coaching family from Wisconsin would say in regards to program philosophy, “Firm in principle but flexible in approach.” Additionally, we recommend no more than three to five core values that shape this philosophy. Below is a sample of a youth association philosophy whose four core values or principles were to develop a work ethic, skill development, compete as a team, and have fun.

To parents:

We wanted to thank you for supporting our basketball program and entrusting your child in our youth program. The purpose of this letter is to illustrate our program’s values and philosophy. We hope with your help and support this will make your child’s experience and our program a more positive and successful one.

Research has shown students perceive success in two very different ways called “task” and “ego” involved. These two ways influence the way they behave, think, and feel in an achievement setting such as basketball. In our program we do not think of success in terms of winning. Indeed winning is a strong motivating and important factor, however long-term athletic development and performance in successful students is more likely to occur when students evaluate themselves on things they can control rather then winning or losing a contest. These students are task involved.

Task involved students feel successful when they gain skill and knowledge, try hard, perform to the best of their abilities, experience personal improvement, and are focused on what they are doing at the moment. They primarily think about how to accomplish or get better at a task. If they achieve this level of focus and purpose, they feel confident and successful. Task involved students want to win and may be fiercely competitive. On the other end ego involved students tend to be preoccupied with adequacy of abilities compared to others (ratings) and outcome of contests. Success is winning. If this can be achieved with less preparation or effort compared to an opponent, so much the better. These behaviors of ego involved students tend to lead to high anxiety, poor training habits, and loss of interest in sport. By emphasizing outcomes and winning less mature or physically developed students during late childhood may struggle to compete against their bigger, quicker peers and may choose to drop out of sport prematurely because success is defined by winning.

In our program and with your help we will emphasize having fun, the importance of a strong work ethic, skill development/improvement, and competing as a team (task involved). Students and programs that view success with these values tend to have higher self-esteem and improved athletic performance. Drop out rates are much less as well. We hope you can support our philosophy and look forward to sharing a great basketball season with you.

Yours in Hoops,

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4 steps for your youth basketball association membership:

8/12/2018

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When consulting with our youth coaches and parents we recommend the below steps for optimal use of our on demand skill development program:

Through your association email contact list email all youth coaches and parents the email username and password for your association that was set up by your purchaser. For easiest log in access it is best to go to the members page where members of your association will be prompted to enter their association email and password. Log in information can also be handed out by your youth coaches the first week of practice directly to your parents.
After gaining access to the members page we highly recommend that your youth coaches and parents read our motivation and training guidelines to accelerate long-term skill development for their players or child. Information included in the guidelines involves best practice patterns for developing long-term engagement for basketball participation, the language to use when teaching, and the environment we want to create.
In the first one to two weeks of your organized practice season for ages 9 and above have your youth coach on each team perform our simple standardized testing (includes 4-5 skill measures) for the appropriate age and phase of development of their team. The standardized milestone testing can easily be downloaded from the members page and we recommend that this be shared with the player and family. Following this, testing can be done at the mid-way point of your organized season and within the last two weeks of your season’s completion. For ages 8 and under we recommend that your youth coaches or program director encourage your families to test their own child through the phase I standardized testing form along with emphasizing the skill development goals we wish to accomplish by the completion of this phase. The phase I downloadable standardized milestone testing sheet and associated video can be found on the members page.
In step four we encourage you to have your youth coaches hand out our weekly downloadable workout sheets to their players, appropriate to their phase of development. The five minute videos for each workout sheet are also on the members page and can be played on any mobile device. These workouts would be done outside their organized practice time but can also be incorporated and reinforced in their organized team practice time during the skill development portion of their practice. After weekly or multi-week successful completion of the drill sheets you can have a small reward for their hard work ready. In our motivation and training guidelines we have specific recommendations for the duration and timing of skill development training and active rest periods specific to the age and phase of development of the player along with the importance of playing multiple sports and avoiding sport specialization at this young age.

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Motivational concepts for youth basketball players:

Example of a youth basketball association philosophy:

4 steps for your youth basketball association membership:

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