coach4life

As a coach, I am not as bothered by the criticism in the stands as I am the constant "coaching" from the fans. Over the 10 years I have been coaching, I have learned to have a thick thin about things, and criticism is one of them. All coaches know that everyone in the stands thinks they can do a better job than you. The constant criticism comes with the job. If things are going well and you are winning games, everybody loves you. But, if for some reason your team doesn't show up to play one night, you are a horrible coach. That doesn't make it right, that's just how it is. My problem stems from everyone in the stands trying to coach. For example, I will call a time out to set up a play for a specific player to take a certain shot and you will hear everyone in the stands yelling for the other player to shoot the ball. Or, my favorite was when I was in a game situation where I wanted my team to foul and everyone in the stands was yelling at my players not to foul! The fans in the stands sometimes do not have access to the information that I do on the bench (fouls, shooting percentage, etc.) nor do they know what particular strategy I am trying to implement. What it boils down to is trust. The fans and the parents need to put a certain amount of trust into the coach and understand that they are making the best decision they can in a limited amount of time for the benefit of the team. Are we sometimes wrong? Absolutely! I constantly second-guess myself and I will be the first to admit when I have made a mistake. But fans have to understand that nobody is perfect and we do our best under the given circumstances.

I always have a parent meeting at the beginning of the season and tell my parents that they are not to approach me to discuss playing time, etc. on game days. If they want to discuss something with me, they need to contact me at school during my planning period and we can set up a time to meet. I also let them know up front that I will not discuss playing time. Period. If they want to know what there son needs to do to improve, that is one thing. You can usually ask the player why they are not playing, and most of them will know exactly why. I know this post is about parents, but I went to watch a high school boys game the other night and happened to sit next to an AAU coach. This coach does not have a son on the team. He was just there to watch one of his AAU players play. IMO, he was far worse about criticizing the coach than any of the parents there. To here him talk, he knew EVERYTHING there was to know about basketball and wanted to teach it to everyone around him. Every decision the coach made was criticized by this person. He was actually coaching this player from the stands. As a coach, if one of my players even looks into the stands, they will come out of the game. Fans are one of the mental traps that I teach my players to avoid to stay focused on the game. Has anyone else ever noticed AAU coaches trying to coach from the stands at a high school game?

I was asked to coach for an AAU team in the past and it was a horrible experience. The person in charge would charge the parents money and then pocket a portion of it. They never focused on fundamentals and everything was cutthroat. I also see many times that the AAU coach is a parent of one of the players and it seems that all they want to do is promote their own kid and really don't care about the other kids on the team. I have also seen where really good players who don't have the money, aren't able to play. To me, it just seems all about the "business" and not enough about the kids. Parents really need to look into to the program before commiting to this. I know for every bad AAU program out there, you can also find one that may help your child. I am currently the athletic director at our middle school. I think AAU is good for spring and summer, but when it interferes with school basketball, I have a problem with it. Nowadays, at least in middle school, you will see the AAU teams playing year round. These kids are playing 7 days a week and sometimes two or three times a day on Fridays and Saturdays. I think it is too much. Thier bodies do not have time to rest and in the end I think it will hurt them. I hear all the time that kids are resilient. Well, tell that to the AAU players on my 8th grade team that are starting to slow down due to fatigue when the rest of the team is in great shape coming into post season play.

So who is the 6'5 kid at RA Jones? If you are talking about Bennett, he transferred to Conner. The tallest kid on RA's team right now is 6'2, but he doesn't see much playing time. RA does have a pretty strong team this year, even without Bennett.

No, I don't believe I was trying to put them down. I just think if a player is good enough to play on their varsity team, why are they playing in an 8th grade tournament? I know many middle school conferences, including the BKAC, do not allow players to play for both the middle school and the high school. If they have any game time played at the high school level, all games they played in at the middle school level will be forfeited. They have to decide at the beginning of the year which team they will play on. I guess I don't understand why this is not regulated more.

So, are you saying that middle school basketball teams should not participate in a tournament that gets them more experience playing teams from around the state and more exposure for their players? Also, R.A Jones played in a postseason tournament that featured many of the teams from the Diocese of Covington. In fact, they were the only public school invited and they were runner-up in the tournament. They beat at least 5 schools to advance to the finals, including St. Henry, St. Joes, and St. Pius. From what I understand, Blessed Sacrament, who won this tournament, was one of the better 8th grade teams in the private sector and they did participate in the middle school state tournament.

The other Kenton County schools were not very strong in the 8th grade last year. The top four teams in the Boone Kenton Athletic Conference were Gray, Ockerman, R.A Jones, and Turkeyfoot. There seemed to be a big difference in talent from the top teams and the teams at the bottom of the conference.

I saw many of the games at the middle school state tournament at SOAS in Florence, including games played by Virgie and Dorton. I know at least 3 of the 5 players you mentioned played for their 8th grade middle school team in that tournament. So are you saying that 3 of these players played both varsity and for their 8th grade tournament? If so, that really should be looked at for future middle school state tournaments. I thought once a player played at the varsity level they were not eligible to play on any other team. Is that correct?

I agree. The biggest problem I had with coaching girls was the drama. I had a player who would not pass to another player because she was mad at her for something that happened off of the court. Just dealing with all of this was draining. You don't have this with the boys. They focus more on basketball when they are on the court. Also, I've had girls cry when I get on them about something on the court, whereas with boys they listen and try to fix their mistakes. I think that may be because sometimes the girls take the criticism personally. Also, has anyone noticed a difference with the parents of girls vs. the parents of boys? From what I have experienced, the boys parents want you to work them hard and are constantly wanting them to stick around for extra practice. With a few of my girls' teams, I've actually had parents call the school and tell the AD that I am working them too hard.

Yes, those other schools will have strong teams, however if you look at the feeder schools that will be going into those high schools, Boone may have the edge if all of the players stay together. Ockerman and R.A both feed into Boone and both of those schools had very strong 8th grade teams. Both beat Gray and Turkeyfoot, which feed into Ryle and Dixie respectively. I know RA beat Highlands at the middle school state tourney at SOAS in Florence. R.A finished in the elite 8 of that state tourney and Ockerman was in the final four. Both were knocked out of the tourney by teams that eventually played in the finals. Ockerman also made it to the final four in the KBA middle school tourney. I know it is impossible to predict how a team will do four years from now, but if they stay together and healthy, they will be a force to reckon with in the 9th region and state tournament in a few years. However, I think a lot depends on the basketball program at Boone and how the coaching staff develops these players. If they are not able to develop the talent that they have coming in, then I made a very premature statement about Boone competing for the state title.

I coached girls basketball for several years and just recently started to coach boys basketball. In my opinion, it is much easier to coach boys than girls.

I've seen the Gabbard kid play quite a few times in the last year and he is probably the best point guard in the state for the freshman class. There was another kid from his school that will also be going to Boone who is going to give them a very strong five - I think his name is Cotton. He's a 6'0 player who is very quick and has a nice touch around the basket, plus an all around good athlete. This freshman class at Boone will make a run at the state title in a few years.