America Needs More "Teaching" From It's Coaches

Was reading an old article the other day from ESPN College Basketball analysis Jay Bilas who was discussing that he is worried about the game in America.

Pete Newell, the legendary coach & teacher has often said that basketball is "over-coached and under-taught". He is absolutely right, and it is finally catching up with us, as is the rest of the world.

Bilas gives his reasons why American coaches, at all levels, have gotten away from teaching, and have gravitated more to coaching.

Immediate Gratification of Coaches: Coaches, especially at the grassroots level and high school levels, seem more interested than ever in winning rather than developing well-skilled and fundamentally sound players. They are impatient, and too focused on winning games instead of developing players.

High school coaches get less floor time than ever to teach, and less and less access to their players. Players now play an excessive amount of games over the summer in AAU competition, which means that they play many games and have far fewer practices.

While young kids are busy traveling the country to play AAU games, they are spending hour upon hour running up & down the floor in a helter-skelter atomsphere where 95% of the time, they do not have a ball in their hands. What this does is cement bad habits - and habits, good or bad are what players revert to under stress.

If these players were in focused practice environments instead of so many games, they would spend the majority of the time with the ball in their hands, working on their skills and their footwork.

Increased Specialization: Basketball in this country has become over-specialized, and players have become "systematized".

Kids are identified by size and body type into positions way too early in their development and are "coached" differently.

In Europe, players are encouraged to work on the same skills, whether small guard or big forward. European programs approach teaching differently. Players are not limited in how much they can practice, and therefore spend from 60-90 minutes in the morning on footwork, shooting and ball skills. The same players in the afternoon then practice another 60-90 minutes on more team-oriented concepts. There is no seperation of big guys and guards, every player works on the same skills. As a result, European players are generally more well-rounded and more fundamentally sound. And they are more coveted by coaches at all levels.

Bilas then goes on to talk about the necessary skills players need to have such as:

• Ballhandling

• Shooting

• Passing

• Footwork

To read the entire article go to:

http://espn.go.com/ncb/columns/bilas_jay/1488688.html