Family Practice
September 21, 2011
During my first winter on the job with the MHSAA I took my 4th-grade son to his first basketball practice, and I watched uncomfortably when his coach directed him to set a pick. My son didn’t have a clue what that meant, and was embarrassed; and I felt like a complete and utter failure as a sports dad.
During the drive home, my son asked me what the coach meant when he said “set a pick and then roll to the basket.”
So when we arrived home, I recruited his mom to guard my son as he dribbled the basketball in the living room, pretending the basket was over the fireplace hearth. I came up behind her and blocked her path as my son dribbled by, opening his path to the “basket.”
We repeated the drill, but this time his mom was wiser and scooted by me to guard my son; and when she did so, I rolled toward the “basket” and called for the ball. My son offered a perfect pass as I moved unguarded toward the goal.
We repeated the plays with me dribbling and my son setting the pick on his mom, and then rolling toward the goal.
Pick and roll, family style.
And my son couldn’t wait for the next practice.
Investing in Kids
May 31, 2016
Tom Farrey, the journalist and author who now serves as executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, included this comment in his opening remarks at the “Project Play” Summit on May 17 in Washington, D.C.: “Invest in kids who aren’t your own.”
Upon hearing that, I thought this is precisely what coaches do ... the good ones anyway. They pour their lives into the lives of athletes. And in school sports, they do it not so much to improve students’ chances to be successful in an athletic contest as to be successful in life after competitive sports.
This is why the Michigan High School Athletic Association pours so many resources into coaches education. The MHSAA’s Coaches Advancement Program is delivered face to face anytime and anywhere schools, leagues or coaches associations can gather 20 or so learners.
For 2016-17, the MHSAA is offering every member junior high/middle school and senior high school $300 in free CAP training – six $20 vouchers and three $60 vouchers. Visit the CAP administrative page in July. (Users must be logged in as administrators to access the vouchers.)
Organized sports without trained coaches can do more lifetime harm than good. Coaches education, infused with the core values of educational athletics, is a necessity, not a luxury. And sports without purposefully trained coaches can be a liability.