Why I Wrote This Book (The Basketball Coach's Bible)
My uncle Inky's (Inky Lautman)
photograph appears a half dozen times in the Basketball Hall
of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. In the beginnings of professional
basketball in the thirties, he was a high scorer for the Philadelphia
SPHAA's. Even though his talent was not transmitted genetically,
his interest in the game was. As a kid my only ambition was to
play basketball for Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, where
Wilt Chamberlain and Walt Hazzard, among other notables, once
played. In 9th grade I inscribed Overbrook High School in big
black letters on the back of several T-shirts. On others I wrote
Hazzard or Jones (for Wally Jones) with a number below. In 10th
grade, family problems led me to quit the cadet basketball team.
In 11th grade, a chronic foot problem, still a mystery, prevented
even a tryout. During my senior year, a sprained ankle just before
tryouts doomed my chances. At less than 50% mobility, I played
with great pain, only to be cut. I was dazed. My childhood dreams
came to an abrupt end. Years of practice, often 3-5 hours a day,
culminated without earning a big O or even a fair shake at a
tryout. The next day I decided to tell the coach, Paul Ward,
about my injured ankle. I asked if I could try out in a week
when the ankle was better; I regularly played with the guys on
the team, and I felt I was as good as any of them. He gave me
the chance. Thirty years later I still have my orange and black
warm-up jersey that came with big black letters already printed
on it-OVERbrOOK HS VARSITY BASKETBALL.
In college my thoughts of basketball
lessened. Theoretical engineering, my course of study, required
over 20 hours of class each week. I always needed a part time
job as well. I played on some independent teams and made the
all-star team at the Ogontz campus of Penn State. After college
I played on many independent teams, often head to head against
current college players or professionals-to-be.
Several years after I graduated
with a degree in Biophysics, a colleague at Columbia School,
a private school in Philadelphia, asked for help with the men's
basketball team. After a few practices and games, he saw that
I knew what I was doing and let me run the team. After a few
more games we won the championship. My next coaching experience
was at a public high school with the girls' junior varsity team.
The lack of skill and dedication of these girls astonished me.
Guys would break their necks to play, whereas a girl would quit
rather than trim her nails. Even though these attitudes only
mirrored societal gender expectations, I was not prepared to
deal with the problem; I had a team to coach. That was problem
enough. They practiced shots from midcourt even though they couldn't
hit the rim from the foul line. (Over the years, I found that
many other players of both genders practiced, if you can call
it that, similarly.) At the beginning of the season on what turned
out to be one of my best teams, the players could not consistently
hit the rim (let alone make the shot) from the foul line. To
run several lessons involving foul shots, I moved the players
to half the distance. In one of my first scrimmage games we had
8 players on the court because several failed to report out.
I yelled a lot to correct matters. The layup, the dribble, and
every other skill seemed advanced ones that most players completely
lacked. Even the cardinal rule of basketball that requires players
to dribble the ball, rather than just run down court with it,
was foreign to some.
I didn't have a clue. I wondered,
"Where do I start teaching? What and how do I teach?"
I thought that you couldn't teach layups and dribbling as well
as many other skills. Other coaches only reinforced this idea:
kids need to possess some natural talent. My game demeanor was
as clueless as my practices. I thought if I yelled loudly enough
that players would get the idea. The yelling during my first
season helped; it helped the other team. We lost 7 of 7 close
games. My other mistakes are too numerous and embarrassing to
mention.
Coaching skilled players is kid's
stuff compared to teaching unskilled novices. My learning started
abruptly that first day at practice. During the next 7 years
of coaching, I read everything I could get my hands on about
basketball. Most books started where I wanted to end up. They
assumed players knew the basics or they thought an explanation
of the basics, without any methods to accomplish them, was all
that was needed. As a gag, a revered men's coach gave me a 20-year-old
book about women's basketball. The women on the cover were wearing
old-fashioned uniforms with skirts and shoulder straps (tunics
I am told). This coach and the other gym teachers watching this
presentation didn't expect me to read it, but I did. Even though
not detailed nor explanatory, it did give me an idea where the
beginning was. I remember best the 6 or 7 types of passes described,
most of which we never bother to teach.
I attended many basketball (as
well as volleyball and one ice hockey) clinics. Often the top
basketball coaches that were invited offered more general information
than definite detailed advice. One women's volleyball coach,
who at the time seemed old, short, and unathletic, did impress
me at one clinic. She had known nothing about volleyball when
she started but quickly learned how to teach the basics. Year
after year she beat all the teams in the area. She thought her
teams won because her teaching methods were better. The other
coaches disliked her, especially the men. She offered free clinics
so the other teams could do as well. Few, if any, took her up
on it. Her attitude was so refreshing. Once I even attended an
ice hockey clinic hoping to pick up some related tips. The Czech
national team practiced three-person fast breaks off ice with
a basketball, believe it or not.
I watched the basketball practices
of many college, high school, and other teams as well as talked
to many coaches. Each night I often spent hours planning practice.
I began to realize that teaching the skills was a puzzle that
I could unscramble. To find more effective ways required study,
planning, and innovation. I realized that with limited practice
time, a coach can only teach the most basic skills. Coaches need
to identify and then teach the more dependent individual skills
first. Lessons need to focus on one thing at a time, not impart
many skills at once. This was both the key to teaching and the
biggest impediment to learning. Some things took years to figure
out. Others, like learning that yelling at players during games
did no good, took only one season. (Players echo your nervous
state, so be calm. I remember losing only one other close game,
when the score was tied in the last minute, during the next six
years.)
While I worked on my puzzles,
the program developed at our high school, West Philadelphia HS.
With the varsity coach, Bernie Ivens, we transformed a women's
program that had no respect, no uniforms, and no facility (at
first I used the school hallways for part of each practice) or
equipment. In five years the result was a public league and city
championship as well as a victory over the best of New York's
five boroughs in a tournament.
Over many years of coaching,
planning, and studying, I found ways to teach each and every
skill even to the most unskilled player. This scheme of learning
did not come from any book. I tried things in practice. I modified
them till they worked. Even players who could not simultaneously
chew bubble gum and walk learned the skills. I believe you too
can benefit from my work.
Who Can Use
This Information
The book for coaches is the perfect
tool for anybody who wants to coach and teach basketball:
· A little league or recreation
league coach
· A high school or junior
high school coach
· A college coach, a professional
coach
· A women's or a men's
coach
· A parent who wants to
teach his or her child
All words in this book are unisex;
all lessons are as well. Sixth graders spend more time learning
the fundamentals than professionals; however, both the kind and
the number of fundamentals are the same for everybody. There
are not 10 skills for beginners and 50 for the pros or visa-versa.
(Some pros might be happy to possess the foul shooting or dribbling
skills of a good 9th grader.)
In addition this is an ideal
text to use at clinics for teaching either players or coaches
as well as in courses at universities. Internationally, where
basketball know-how and expertise lag far behind the USA, this
book has even greater application because of its fundamental
nature.
How This Book
Will Help You
This book will help you in many
ways. It supplies field-tested, successful lessons ready for
use. It not only teaches the fundamentals to players, but also
to you. It shows you how to both plan practice and run practice
to give and get the most out of your players. It does more than
just save you much time; it gives you methods and ideas that
work.
A Word About
Teaching
Teaching involves more than just
eloquent explanations and eye-catching demonstrations to spellbound
our audience. It is an attitude that says a player's or student's
ability to learn is only limited by the teacher's ability to
teach even though we know players, as well as we ourselves, do
have limits. If we go into practice without this idea the chance
for learning and teaching is greatly decreased because we can
simply say the players are not good enough, talented enough,
or smart enough to learn. So, we don't need to spend that extra
time planning and thinking of new ways to teach.
Teaching encourages the opposite:
the desire to understand both the needs of your players and the
basics of basketball and then the commitment to spend the time
needed for success. The result of these teaching efforts gives
a player a method or a way to learn, something that yields significant
improvement with practice.
The Coach's
ManualWhat It Is and How to Use It
Part 1 gives you an overview
and discussion of the fundamentals, as I have defined them, of
basketball. Carefully scrutinize both the flow chart and outline.
The next part, Part 2, involves planning practice and teaching
at practice. One chapter discusses planning a practice and provides
a guide, called the Practice Planning Guide, to help plan daily
practices. The other discusses the principles of practice teaching,
which I incorporated into each lesson. Part 3, the largest part
of the book, presents the lessons. One chapter describes the
many features of each lesson. The other chapter, Chapter 9, presents
over 170 lessons and extensions in a learnable order arranged
by fundamental skill. Start with the first one in each skill
section there are 19 of these and then progress in
order as the players learn. Coordinate teaching the many skills
using the Practice Planning Guide and the information supplied
in each lesson.
The appendices, labeled A through
G, include much useful information. The first gives pregame and
game coaching tips and things to do at the beginning of the season.
Another gives The Table of Lessons, which lists every lesson
and extension by number along with seven other useful pieces
of information. The Table of Individual Skills lists the lessons
by skill in the order that you would teach one player. The after
practice Warm Down presents a stretching routine for players.
Another appendix explains how to keep game statistics and analyze
them. Included also are blank forms to be copied for use in each
game. Sample practices for three different age levels and three
different season times are given. Included also are blank forms
for daily and weekly planning of your practice. A form for keeping
inside shot statistics is also supplied. The Index allows you
to find information by topic. |