Time For a Change

Well, I still have some stuff from my winter travel team to write about, but that will have to wait.

With my players, I'm the coach that will always find something for them to improve even if we blow the other team out of the water. Similar to Coach "Pop" of the San Antonio Spurs and Coach Mulkey of my Lady Bears, I believe there's always room for improving because it's the day you get complacent that you get blind sided. In reality though, when talking to other coaches and friends I tend to be a bit more positive. I like to look at the opportunities that a particular situation has presented us with. That mentality is why I'm very happy that I don't have my own team this Spring.

The turnout for my 12U team was fairly depressing, given how many kids play basketball in the area during the winter. Rather than trying to struggle for an entire season with a short roster full of kids who were either not quite ready for the level of competition the season would have put on front of them or had already committed to another spring sport, I decided against putting a team together.  Considering the kids first, this was the right move. The season would have killed their fun and we'd probably lose kids halfway through, etc.  For me, it gave me the opportunity to be a "floater" coach helping with any of the older teams when needed. Perfect! With 5th and 6th grade kids, the focus is primarily skill development and they typically can only scratch the surface when it comes to executing plays and defensive schemes. Now that I'll be working with older, more seasoned players, I'll get a chance to expand my playbook, drills, and see some other strategic approaches to game situations. While this will have a good impact on my future 5th and 6th grade teams, it gives me exposure to higher level basketball as I continue working toward making that breakthrough into the high school basketball scene.

I couldn't imagine myself being this happy to not have a team, but I am excited knowing that this is the best thing that could happen for my coaching career.