Last Week Report/Blogs

Monday - This weeks objective was to show and teach the players Trumbull Highs offensive and defensive schemes and plays. This week was most like an actual team practice compared to the other weeks. Coach Manuel gave me a list of plays that he wanted me to teach to the kids so that they knew them and understood the reasoning for them. He gave me a DVD on the Flex Offense and told me to watch it. I watched it in the morning before camp to really understand the ins and outs of the Flex Offense. I knew how to run the play, but I was a little foggy on why each move is the executed as it is. So watching this DVD was like studying for me. I brought my knew learned knowledge to the kids that day and we broke down each cut, fake and pass of the flex offense. We went over different reads and different scenarios. When the kids knew the play, I had them play defense against it because when you see how hard it is to guard certain things, your understanding becomes much more clear.
Tuesday - Tuesday was a rainy day in which we went to the weight room again. I took this time with the kids to explain to them that we were amongst a very important week in the matter of next years team. I reminded them that I report back to Coach Manuel and that the players who try and understand these plays and schemes the most are definitely going to be highly considered for the team based on their motivation and desire. At the end of the lifting session I put the kids through a 10 minutes jump rope work out, so that they can do it on their own in the summer. This work out was to enhance the quickness of their feet.
Wednesday - This day was a long and strenuous day for everyone. I tought the kids Trumbull High's basic offensive set including almost all of the different plays that were possible out of it. The kids had to remember the names and the corresponding play. Of course they weren't going to be perfect after just one day of this, but they got most of it. The plays consisted of ball screens, down screens, V-cuts, zipper cuts, all of which we had went over in the previous weeks so I am glad that it paid of because the kids understood the cuts. The most difficult part for the kids was executing the plays on not only the right side, but the left side of the floor as well. The most difficult part for me was rotating the kids in and out, to positions where I thought they would best fit. I wanted a couple of the kids to learn a couple different positions. This is what made the day strenuous, but I know how tough it is.
Thursday - To start the day off, we reviewed the plays from Wednesday just to refresh the kids minds. I figured we would do it that everyday and this could only help. However, the focus of today was zone defense. Trumbull High plays 3 different zone defenses, all complete with different slides and responsibilities. The first zone was a 2-3, half court zone. This zone is mainly used by Trumbull High if some players get into foul trouble or if they need help rebounding. This is a good zone to play if you need to rebound because no matter what, when the shot goes up, you have atleast 3 players underneath the basket at all times playing their zones. The next zone was a 1-3-1 zone. This zone is used to force turnovers and trap the ball in corners and on the sidelines. The key to this zone is the one man up top. He should be tall and athletic in order for this zone to be most affective. His job is to push the ball to one side and try to deny a ball reversal. After pushing the ball to one side, this is where the trap comes and hopefull forces a turnover. The last zone they play is a 1-2-2. This zone helps to slow down the pace of the game and force the opponent to take a bad shot most of the time. This is because the 1-2-2 covers a lot of ground and unless the other team knows how to beat it, it is good if your looking for a low scoring game. Most teams play this when they know that the opponent has 1 really good player that leads the team. Playing this zone forces the team to pass the ball and most of the time, someone else will shoot the ball on each trip simply because of the way it is played.
Friday - Again, I started by reviewing the offense and decided to review the 1-3-1 zone a little bit. After this, the focus was full court press and out of bounds plays. The full court press that Trumbull High plays is not to force turnovers like most presses. Its design is to slow the tempo of the game down when the opponent wants to run the ball up the floor. The press that they play is a 3/4 court 2-2-1. The focus of this press is to deny the ball from the middle of the floor. If you let the ball get to the middle, the press is useless. You want to keep it along the sidelines and you do this by timing the slides and getting to the right spots on the floor. The kids seemed to understand this the most so I reported that back to Coach Manuel and suggested that they definitely practice that a lot more next year because they have the personel to execute this press.
Saturday - This was the last day of camp and was by far the most fun of all the days. The day consisted of many scrimmages and drills. The kids shot for teams and I made the rule. They played 8 minute quarters and each quarter, one of the kids was the coach and they had to use all of the defenses that were taught during the week. It had to be a different kid each time for each team. My plan was that by doing this, it would give the kids some leadership ability. They ended up playing 6 quarters before everyone on each team got a chance to coach. Then I chose one kid from each team to teach a 4 quarter game using the offense, defense and press that they learned. This was a great challenge and the kids really had fun with it. After the scrimmages were done, we had some individual challenges involving shooting, passing, dribbling, jumping, ect. After all of this, I thanked the kids for being part of this camp and told all of them that if they want individual work outs through the summer, feel more than free to call me.

Weekly Report

This week was a great challenge of my organization skills, and my ability to compensate with adversity. Early in the week, this kids told me that they had a game at night. Being a former player, I know how hard it is to play during the day and then play at night. Knowing this, I gave the kids the day off and rescheduled for later in the week. By doing this, I feel like the kids respected that decision and realized that I wanted them to succeed in their summer league. Having that kind of trust and understanding is very important and is the type of relationship I read about in my research for this project.

Breaking down the kids into guards and post players helped my organize my activities for the week. With these two weeks under my belt, I feel extremely comfortable going into this last week. I have more confidence than I started with and I feel like I am ready for anything that the kids ask me. It feels like I know how to relate to them and explain situations to them on a level that they understand. This, of course, comes with experiences with them and being with them almost everyday. This is showing me that experience is a vital part of running something like this.

One thing that surprised me this week was the post players in the weight room. I thought that they were going to show some type of improvement but they didn't. These kids are all big; 6'6" and 6'7". They could be really good if they just get in the weight room and continue to work on the moves that I showed them. I know that they have been practicing the moves because I do them with them everyday, it's just the time they put in on their own that has been a surprise to me. I would have thought that they would work harder in their spare time.

From this week, I feel like I have gained a lot more confidence in dealing with the kids and I feel like I have gained a stronger sense of what gets the kids working hard. For the big men, I know that running got through to them that they have to work hard because it showed in the scrimmage. The guards worked hard all week so I felt like rewarding them for that would be incentive enough to continue to work hard. Hopefully, this last week will be a great wrap up to what has been a great experience these last two weeks.

May 18th, 2008

Today was another controlled scrimmage utilizing all of what was learned this week. In this scrimmage, it was fun to watch the guards use moves that they practiced all week. Watching them put their moves into game situations was fun for me because I feel like I taught them something. It kind of felt like a part of me was out there doing the move with them. With the progress that the guards have made this week, I am confident that if they continue to practice the drills that I have showed them, that they will be varsity caliber players. Some of them already are, and they will become influential players on their team.

The big men seemed to have been sparked by the running yesterday. In the scrimmage, the performance of the big men definitely stuck out to me. They were playing the hardest and being the best leaders on the court. They were sprinting up and down and helping their teammates out. This was a sign for me that the running was a good way to get through to them about how I wanted them to work their hardest for these three weeks.

The players have without a doubt made leaps in their game and have shown a definite improvement in their leadership ability. Seeing this makes me proud and shows me that what I am doing is paying off.

May 17, 2008

Today I decided to take it easy on the guards. They had worked hard all week and have definitely proven that they were putting in a great effort. With them, we played shooting games, both individual and team. We had challenges and some good competitions between the players.

The big men, even though I loved the effort they put in at camp, showed me that they only put time in at camp, and not on their free time. It was evident that the guards have been lifting and the big men showed me otherwise. For this, I just had a day of conditioning. I explained to them that I was trying to help them by letting them know how important it is.

May 16th, 2008

Today was a good day to get in the weight room again and see if any player made improvements in the past week. It rained here so I let everyone know to meet in the Trumbull High weight room after school at 2:30. The guards showed up and surprisingly enough, most of the kids showed small improvements in the amount of weight they could lift and also the repetitions.

After an hour and a half with the guards, the big men came in and sadly to say, there were no improvements and even some kids went down. Seeing this was a little confusing because I was baffled by the fact that you could go down in weight in just one week. I wasn't sure whether they were just tired or they actually got that much weaker. With this, I have decided that tomorrow for the big men will be a day of just conditioning to try and get the point across of how important the weight room is to a player.

May 15th, 2008

Today was by far the most productive and fun day of this entire senior project so far. There were about 11 kids in each group that showed up. I had originally planned on just doing half court drills with them today, but because of the numbers, I chose to switch things up and do all full court drills. I figured that this would give them a great workout and it would be fun as well. The players took the drills seriously but had smiles on their faces the whole time. The kids are really starting to become close and are having a good time. This is important for team chemistry and just a good way to have an extra friend. Basketball is much easier when everyone is getting along and having a good time.

I put an offer on the table for the guards that if anyone wanted to stay for the big man session it would be a great help and they would benefit from it. Some kids could not stay because of homework and ride situations but 4 kids did stay and it definitely helped the big men and the guards. The guards helped the big men with running up and down the floor and the big men helped the guards with post entry passes and re-positioning on the perimiter. Hopefully the kids will feed off of this energy and continue to compete.

May 14th, 2008

Yesterday the players had a Summer League game at 7:00 p.m. so I gave them the day off because the times would conflict and I didn't them to be tired for their game. I let them know that this day will be made up on Saturday and we will scrimmage on Sunday.

Today, the kids bounced back from the day a little sluggish. This is normal the day after a game because the body can only take so much. Today's focus for the guards was passing. There are 3 different kinds of passes to throw in different situations. Any pass in the lane should be a bounce pass. To drill this into their mind, we ran drills that put them in situations where they would get into the lane and be forced to ball fake and then throw a bounce pass. However, if the defense came up all the way and stopped them outside of the lane, they would throw a chest pass because all passes outside the lane should be chest passes. With all passes, it is always better to fake a pass the other way first so that it comes harder to read where you are passing to. To help the kids remember that, I shared with them a phrase that would help them to remember it. This phrase is "fake it to make it". This helped me so much because it always stuck in my head. Hopefully, it will have the same affect on these players. The last pass is an over the head pass which is done when you want to skip the ball from wing to wing or get it down the court.

The big men worked on boxing out and rebounding today. Big men who box their men out and attack the glass to get the rebound is going to be valuable even if they have no other skill. Boxing out is not stressed enough in today's game because people just want to out jump their opponent for the rebound. But, rebounding is all about positioning and desire for the ball. The drills we did worked on the proper box out form and then jumping to the ball rather than have it come to you. I was impressed with how much progress they made by the end of the session. They really took to the concept and I expect to see them grab a lot more rebounds and play stronger down low.

May 12th, 2008

The start to this week was just as exciting as then first week. It felt like I was starting all over again because there were new kids there. There were new kids there because the spring sports at Trumbull High ended and the players that were playing spring sports are now able to attend the camp. Overall there were 6 new kids. 4 guards and 2 post players. Having these new players here was a new challenge for me because it was new players that I had to relate to and teach. I loved having new kids because even though it was new kids for me to relate to and teach, I wanted to see how well the kids related to each other and helped each other out.

The guard group impressed me the most today. One new kid this week showed tremendous capability of being a leader figure. He lead the group and pushed them to work hard. He was supportive when players missed shot and was always giving the kids high fives. This is excellent quality to have. He definitely showed confidence and leadership and I will make sure to tell Coach about him. The rest of the players definitely fed off of his energy and enthusiasm. This made my job a lot easier. When the players are playing their hardest, the camp rolls much more smooth and the kids have much more fun.

The newcomers for the post players did not show as much leadership but still showed the desire to get better and learn. Mastering the low post moves is something that takes time and much practice. This week got off to a good start for them as we went over the timing and basic sto some of the most simple moves. They showed great progress but have more work to do the rest of this week.

Weekly Wrap Up

I look back at this week and have a strong sense of confidence in myself and in the players that the next two weeks will also be productive. Of course, it is very important for me to stay focused and not be satisfied with just one good week. I must also express this to the kids as well. We can not let this one good week spoil the rest of the improvement that is possible. We should try and build upon this great start.

This week I learned a lot about my own strengths and weaknesses. For example, I was extremely impressed with my ability to connect to the players and make basketball an easy game to learn and love. This was my main concern going into this project. I thought that I would not be able to explain things to them in ways that they would understand. Odd enough, this turned out to be one of my strengths out there. I think the weakness that I would like to improve on is my overall patience with myself. What I mean by that, is that I don't let myself get flustered, if in fact the kids are having trouble with something. I wouldn't get mad at them at all, it was more a damper on my own confidence because I felt like I was not teaching them well enough. I talked to my coach about it and he said that it comes with experience and that he feels I will get better as these next few weeks continue on.

One thing I must say is that I absolutley love what I am doing. Seeing someone benefit from your teachings is a wonderful feeling. Knowing that I have affected someones life in some way instills a sense of pride within me. I definitely feel that I am benefiting from this project in ways that I probably couldn't have experienced otherwise. This is a great experience and I am thankful for it.

One thing that I wasn't expecting was how well the kids would respond to criticism. This wasn't negative criticism, but criticism none the less. There are so many kids who feel that the coach is wrong no matter what they do. I used to play with a kid like that. He could have been so much better if he had just listened to what the coach had to say. Throughout my years playing, the number of kids like this have increased rapidly. I was expecting to get atleast 2 or 3 kids that would just disregard everything I had to teach them, but I got none and I am somewhat happy for that. I think that if I had atleast one disobedient player, it would be a great challenge for me to see how I would handle the situation. I always have had opinions about what I would do to a player who didn't listen, but I never had to take any action. I feel like a small dose would have been interesting.

I think I can benefit from this weeks activities in a couple of ways. After this week, I have come to know every players strengths and weaknesses on the court. Next week, I plan on also attempting to learn their strengths and weaknesses off the court. School work, extra cirricular activities, ect. I think this will show them that I truly care about them, instead of me being there just to teach them a move or two in the world of basketball. I can also take from this weeks activites that every kid is here to learn and get better. Almost every drill was done at 100%. Hopefully, next week, every single drill will be done at 100% or more. I also feel that with this week of activities, I am comfortable with the kids limits and potential on the court.

May 10th, 2008

Today was a day in which we incorporated all that was taught the entire week in controlled scrimmages. I had my older brother and his friend referee the game to make it more realistic because when players call their own fouls there tends to be arguments. However, there were no arguments and seeing this brought upon me a sense of happiness because it showed me that they were playing to learn and focus on the material rather than argue. Being a player and not arguing with referees is a huge display of character and I am glad to say that every player has great character.

After the game I made sure that I told them how proud I was of them on how they handled themselves in the game and that I was impressed with how much information they remembered and added to their arsenal. The most impressive part about today had to have been my individual work out with one of the big men. The effort he put forth towards executing the individual moves of a big man was incredible. During this hour one hour session we practiced the the timing and foot work of low post moves. I also gave him tips on certain moves to do in certain situations. For example, if he were to be double teamed on the block, the best thing to do would be to pass it back out to the guard and re-establish his position on the block.

After this one hour session I looked at his face as he was shooting his final free throws and I could tell that he wanted to get better. The sweat that was beading down his face showed gave me the feeling that this week was a tremendous accomplishment for both me and the kids. I am excited and anxious for next weeks sessions.

The groups in next weeks session will be broken down differently. The first group will be the guards of all grades. The second session will be the big men of all grades. I hope that what I share with them will be of great use.

May 9th, 2008

Today we started the camp at at 2:30. I felt like today should be strictly conditioning because after yesterdays performance in the weight room, I feel like the players are not committed enough. Being in good condition is a vital part of being a basketball player. It was obvious that the kids had not spent enough time in the weight room in the off season so I figured I would test their ability in the conditioning aspect. Surprisingly enough, more kids had performed above what I thought. It turns out that these kids had done track in the spring.

I suggested to the head coach of Trumbull High, Buddy Bray, that it become mandatory that all of his players that do not play a fall sport do track or cross country. This is because the players that I saw excel in the conditioning portion, were in my judgement, the most prepared for varsity level basketball. Being in good condition is too important to let just pass by any one player. Hopefully, the strenuous running and drills will not affect the players skills in the controlled scrimmage tomorrow.

May 8th, 2008

Today I had to re-direct the focus of the camp as it rained. However I was able to work around this and re-located the camp to Trumbull High weight room to have a lifting session. We began the day at 3:00PM and I split the group into two so that both of the groups had 1 hour and 30minutes to work in the weight room. This enabled me to handle the kids better as it wasn't a large group.

I focused the session on strengthening of the legs. Your legs are the most important aspect of becoming a better basketball player. Strengthening your legs enables you to improve your shot, quickness and agility and so I enforced this on them to improve their game. After seeing the kids in the weight room I realized that they needed to be in there more often so I 'm planning on informing Coach Buddy Bray of my thoughts.

May 7th, 2008

Today at camp was a little bit of a struggle for me. All of the time slots were the same. It was a struggle today because the focus of the day was how to defend the pick and roll. What frustrated me was that almost all of the kids seemed like they had never seen this before. The pick and roll is the most commonly used play of all time in basketball. When I mentioned the term "hedge", some kids looked at me like they never heard that word before. This got to me.

It wasn't a struggle because the kids took a while to understand it, it was more because it came to me that most coaches are not doing the players any good. Coaches like that are the exact reason that I aspire to be a coach. If a child wants to learn to play basketball, I would be doing him a disservice by not teaching him correctly. At the same time that this made me frustrated, I was happy as well to know that I am making an impact on these kids.

I am proud to say that both underclassmen and the older group were guarding the pick and roll much better at the end of this session. I would like to have another session that involves guarding the pick and roll before I have the kids scrimmage on Saturday so I have to rearrange my practice schedule for the remainder of the week to practice this skill more.

May 6th, 2008

Today was the second day of camp and I feel it was even better than the first day. I started the day off by picking some of the kids up from school because some of them were stuck without a ride. I got to the school at 2:00 when it got out and picked up 3 kids that needed rides. We headed over to the park and got there at about 2:15-2:30. Again, I waited until about 2:45 to start camp to again give the kids a chance to get there. After everyone got there I rounded up the kids and sat them down at half court again and explained to them what the focus of today was. Todays focus was ball handling for the guards and post moves for the big men. For the guards, I had them in a line at half court and had them do different moves advancing towards the basket into a layup from the left and right side. You can not advance to the next move until you make the shot. After they finished all of the moves from the both sides, I gave them a water break because it was hot out and again they were working hard so I rewarded them. When they were finished with the one-on-one moves, we worked on form shooting to improve their shooting. This was kind of rough because shooting on outside baskets is hard but the form was the most important part. We started in close to the basket and gradually moved away.

The big men were working on a series of post moves that will give them and advantage against a taller and stronger opponent. These moves are well known in the basketball world for being effective because of the timing and the footwork. These moves are tough to learn and didn't come easy to them but they were determined to learn them. No matter how many times they failed, they kept trying. After attempting to perfect these moves over and over again, they still didn't have them down. This is normal and I explained that to them. I promised them that we would continue to work on them and by doing this they will see a major improvement in their game. One of the kids asked me work with him extra on the moves over the weekend. This showed me that we were making tremendous progress because it showed that he trusted me and that he was willing to work. So I scheduled a one hour session on Saturday from 12-1. 

At the end of the older groups session, I decided to have a skills competition running from 7-7:30 because I felt like they worked really hard and made great progress. This consisted of a dunk competition and a 3-point competition. This was a good time to really relate and talk to the kids. This was a lot of fun and I was glad to see that every kid was enjoying themselves. I must say that I, too, am continuing to have a great time as well. 

May 5th, 2008

Today was the first day of the camp and Randall Park. I started my day about 2:00 gathering all of the basketballs I needed for the kids and filled them with air. After filling the 10 balls with air it was about 2:15 and I headed down to the park to be there for about 2:20 just in case anyone was early. This kids started to show up at about 2:30. This first group was the group of underclassmen, consisting of Freshman and Sophomores. I waited until about 2:40-2:45 to start with the camp so that kids that were running late had a chance to get there. At about 2:45, I gathered the kids at half-court and explained to them my background and what this camp is all about. I explained to them the reason I am pursuing this golden opportunity is because I one day would like to be a coach. So after I explained that I let them know that they I am expecting them to work their hardest when they are here.

To begin the activities portion of the camp, we began stretching in a circle. I chose one kid to be the leader of the stretches today to try and instill a sense of leadership. I plan on picking a different kid every day so that every kid gets this experience. After stretching for about 10 minutes, we then warmed up by doing the traditional 2 line warm up drill to get the blood pumping and their legs loose. Once everyone agreed that they were loose and ready to go, they began the 3 stations. The 3 stations are 3 different drills designed to improve strength, speed, and quickness. The 8 kids were broken up into 3 groups. Each kid did each drill for 1 minute. Only on kid went at a time in each group and when the group with only 2 kids was done and waiting for the 3rd kid in the other two groups to finish, I had them shoot 5 free throws each because it is very important that when you are tired you shoot free throws. When the others groups finished I had them do the same thing. For every missed free throw, each kid had to do a full sprint. I feel that by enforcing a punishment will maintain the focus of the players and also put the drill into a more game like situation. 

When the free throws and sprints were finished with I let them have a 5 minute water break to reward them for working hard and also because it was hot out and it is important to stay hydrated. I am a strong believer that by rewarding kids for working hard, in return they will always work hard because it shows that you appreciate the effort that they are putting forth. If you have punishments and no rewards, the relationship weakens. So, after the water break it was time to go over help defense and the "behind the scenes" mechanics that make it so effective. Today was the day to exercise how to play fundamental "off the ball" help defense. To make this concept easy to learn, I used sayings that help remember timing and positioning. For example, when the ball is on the other side of the court and your man is on the wing, there is a term called "being on the nail." The meaning of this saying is to emphasize getting to the middle of the lane to stop dribble penetration. Being on the nail is referring to the nail in the middle of the foul line that extends down the middle of the entire court. Having something like this expression makes playing help defense much easier because it is like a reference point. We practiced the rotations and slides over and over again until all of the kids understood and were able to play in each position of the drill.

After the team defense portion we started doing one on one defense. I am a strong believer that defense is the key to winning so today was a very important day in the sense of instilling principles and basic slides. There were 4 drills to improve the individual abilities of the players and their defensive skills. The drills consisted of lane slides and one on one zig-zag drills. In between each drill I had the kids hydrate themselves because playing defense for an extended period of time gets exhausting and it is necessary to stay hydrated. After these defensive drills they shot free throws again.

The last thing we did to end the first session was a shooting competition and the loser ran a suicide. This all ended at around 5 in which I did the same exact thing with the second session. The later session didn't get out until closer to 8 o'clock because the shooting competition took longer because for some reason the kids couldn't make their shots.

This day was an overall productive day and I am feeling positive about the future of the camp.