Gaining an Edge—The Eyes Have It

PLAYER

   It’s standard advice to anyone throwing or shooting a ball to “focus on the target.” Same goes for making a pass. But in sports where you’re defended, you often need to hide your intention. You need to make your opponent think one thing, while you do another.

You're Being Watched!

Good defenders anticipate what action their offensive counterpart is about to take. They do this by understanding the situation, options available, and the most likely choice. But they also anticipate by observing their opponent’s behavior. One of the main behavioral clues is where the offensive player is looking.

So how do you counteract your defender's attempts to anticipate your next move?

Don't Stare at Your Target

Lesser players tend to stare at their target. When passing a ball, for example, they look at their teammate well before they make the pass. Their intention is obvious. As players from past generations would say, “They telegraph their pass.”

So how do you make an accurate pass or throw without directly looking at your teammate?

Set Up the Scene

You usually do look at your target—but only for a split second immediately before the pass or throw. By using your peripheral vision (or taking a quick glance to the opposite side), you know where your teammates are located. You set up the scene in your mind’s eye. If your teammates are moving, you then anticipate where they will be when you make the pass or throw. This is the process an experienced player uses when he or she makes a “no-look” pass. (But again, in most instances, you should look at your target just before you act.)

Gain Advantage with Your Eyes

As you become a better player, use your eyes to deceive your opponents.

► The best NFL quarter­backs like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are masters of “looking off” safeties on long passes.

“Look off” a defender prior to making a pass. Look first toward a teammate other than the one to whom you will make the pass. Similar to a physical fake (i.e. faking the actual pass), this deception is effective against defenders who depend on observation and anticipation.

Copyright © 2013 Jeffrey S. Rhoads. All Rights Reserved

If you enjoyed this article, you may like my book:
The Joy of Youth Sports: Creating the best youth sports experience for your child (Amazon $8.95)

(Kindle Edition $2.99)

Read more...

Are You a "Teach Everyone Everything" Coach?

COACH

   Team roles often provide young players with a clear path to immediate success. They represent a great starting point for the beginning player. When an inexperienced or otherwise immature player understands how to meaningfully contribute to his or her team, self-esteem grows and broad smiles begin to appear.

But youth coaches should carefully avoid limiting any young child’s potential. A child’s body, skill level, and aptitude for a given sport are constantly changing throughout his or her youth. The success an athlete enjoys later in life may be entirely different from the success enjoyed as a child.

So how does a coach best prepare each child for the opportunities that may appear later in the athlete’s development? The answer for most youth sport programs is a coaching philosophy I refer to as “Teach Everyone Everything” (TEE).

Understanding the TEE Approach

The primary principle of TEE is to provide every child on a team with equal opportunity to instruction. As described above, the TEE approach recognizes that each child is on a developmental journey. TEE provides the solid foundation of skills and knowledge that will enable a child to successfully transition to new athletic roles as he or she matures.

In practices, the TEE coach instructs all of his or her players how to perform each fundamental skill—even when the child’s size and ability may dictate playing a position or role that doesn’t require certain skills.

In games, the TEE coach attends to all of his or her players regardless of how playing time is distributed. Many teaching moments arise in games, both for the active players and those watching from the bench. When a player makes an excellent play or mistake, the TEE coach not only addresses the player, but also other kids on the team who may benefit from the coach’s instruction. The TEE coach searches for opportunities in games to place players in situations where they can develop and grow. He or she balances these opportunities, the benefits of assigning team roles, and the needs of others on the team, to provide the best path to success for each individual child.

TEE—Key Principles:

1. Every child receives equal instruction in practice on how to perform fundamental skills.
   
   
2. Each child receives equal attention in both practices and games (but not necessarily equal playing time).
   
   
3. Throughout the season, opportunities to expand each child's roles are explored in both practices and games.
   
   

TEE—an Example

In basketball, one or two players on a team usually play close to the basket (low post). These players must understand the principles of low post play and how to play with their back to the basket on offense. When looking to score from the inside, a player must gain position, present teammates with a target (raise a hand), use proper footwork (pivoting), “seal out” the defensive player, and finally convert the shot from short range. More advanced techniques include fakes, and progressions of moves.

A basketball coach focused on maximizing his youth team’s win-loss record might consider only teaching low post skills to his or her tallest players. Likewise, this coach might have an assistant teach more advanced dribbling techniques only to the children playing the guard position. With limited practice time and the need for players to assume certain roles, it’s understandable that a youth coach might believe this is the best, most efficient approach.

But consider the potential long-term effect of selectively teaching different techniques to different players. As mentioned in the beginning of this topic, each child will likely go through dramatic changes as they mature. A tall 10-year-old boy may eventually become a 5’10” guard on his or her high school team. Likewise, the young girl who has good ball handling skills (but is short) may grow to be one of her high school team’s tallest players. If you fail to provide early instruction on the techniques that a child will later need, you may impair the child’s opportunity for success.

There our other reasons for employing the TEE approach. Many game situations at higher levels of play involve “match-ups”. Although a player would not normally play a certain position, his or her opponent may present a match-up opportunity. In our basketball example, consider a match-up where a smaller opponent is defending a guard who normally plays away from the basket. Because of the size mismatch, the offensive player may be able to “take his player low”, isolate the defender, and easily score a basket when a teammate passes the ball to him. But what if this player has never learned the skills necessary to play the low post position reasonably well? The advantage is lost.

Skills primarily used in one position or team role are also sometimes helpful in other situations. For example, knowing how to play with your back to another player can help a basketball guard more easily receive a pass away from the basket when defended aggressively.

Provide Opportunities in Games When Possible

Practice provides you, the coach, with the opportunity to teach all of your players a sport’s fundamental skills. Games provide your players with the opportunity to put these new-found skills to use. Although TEE may fit more readily into your practice instruction, you can also use this approach in games—especially in youth programs that emphasize participation.

Try to find opportunities for your players to occasionally step beyond their primary role. In many sports, it’s easy to move a child from one position to another during a game. Although a child may lack the skills to play a position well, let him or her try. Pick moments that provide the child with a better chance to succeed (when the other team is playing its weaker players, for instance).

You can even find opportunities for your least skilled beginners to play a key position. For example, toward the end of a one-sided basketball game, you might rotate a different player into the point guard position each time down the floor. Make sure that everyone on your team is in on the fun, and they understand that you’re not concerned about the inevitable turnovers.

Also, emphasize to your players that each of them is responsible for putting the skills you teach to good use in his or her individual practices and neighborhood pickup games. The latter is often where a young athlete learns how to actually apply a skill in a way that works for him or her.

A Path to Success

TEE is an approach that leads to success over the course of a child’s developmental years—not just one single season. Here’s a diagram that illustrates the ideal cycle of development:

With some children (especially younger ones), a full cycle may occur within your season. In these cases, you will enjoy one of the more rewarding aspects of coaching youth sports—witnessing the rapid development of a child’s abilities and self-esteem under your tutelage. But more often, the benefits will accumulate through the entirety of a child’s youth sports experience.

Finally, TEE also provides the best path to lifetime success in sports. Learning all of the fundamental skills to competently play a sport, increases the chance children will continue to play a sport into their adult years. With a fuller understanding of the game, they will enjoy more success in pickup games and find greater acceptance within the community of individuals that play their sport.

Copyright © 2013 Jeffrey S. Rhoads. All Rights Reserved

If you enjoyed this article, you may like my book:
The Joy of Youth Sports: Creating the best youth sports experience for your child (Amazon $8.95)
(Kindle Edition $2.99)

Read more...

Is Your Child "Going Pro" in Sixth Grade?

PARENT

   Along with transferring your passion for a sport onto your child, another mistake is to begin planning for your young star’s inevitable college scholarship and trip to the professional ranks based on youth sports success.

As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, your child will experience a number of physical changes through his or her high school years. Even when the genes are good, there is no guarantee of future success. Other “intangible” factors associated with your child’s disposition and personality will likely emerge. Your child’s interests will also change over time.

The bottom line is that middle school heroes are as likely to become intramural stars as they are high school starters.

Is This Ultimately Your Child's Best Sport?

Even when a child shows exceptional talent in one sport at a young age, they may later excel in a different sport. I coached one 5th grade basketball player who showed excellent skills, an aggressive attitude, and seemed to have a natural aptitude for the game. I have little doubt that he would have enjoyed success playing competitive basketball at higher levels.

But by the time he reached high school, the boy had instead found his calling as a soccer player. He went on to enjoy an outstanding college career (winning All-American honors).

Not So Fast on That Athletic Scholarship

To expect that your young star is one step away from a college athletic scholarship is unrealistic. With the exception of elite athletes, scholarships are much more often based on financial need and academics than on athletic prowess.

Absolutely let your child enjoy their dreams of glory, fantastical as they may be. On occasion, those dreams do become reality. But keep yourself to the job of providing opportunities for their genius (if it’s there) to naturally emerge.

Multiple Sports

Instead of focusing on your child’s success in one sport, give your son or daughter the chance to play different sports. Especially at younger ages, give your child a taste of multiple sports. They will enjoy meeting new friends, experience crossover benefits from one sport to another, avoid overuse injuries and burnout, and more likely find the sport that best suits their athletic talent and nature as they mature.

In the case of that 5th grader I mentioned above, I ran into him a few years back. He made a point of introducing himself to me. Despite his success in soccer, he obviously still remembered that long ago YMCA basketball experience. I also suspect that a few of the skills he learned in basketball helped him succeed as he began to play competitive soccer. All of his sports experiences helped mold him into the excellent soccer player he became.

Always maintain a balanced, realistic perspective regarding your child’s success in youth sports. Don't buy the fools gold that is early success in one sport. Provide your child with the opportunity to play multiple sports and build the base of experiences that will benefit him or her later on.

Copyright © 2013 Jeffrey S. Rhoads. All Rights Reserved

If you enjoyed this article, you may like my book:
The Joy of Youth Sports: Creating the best youth sports experience for your child (Amazon $8.95)

(Kindle Edition $2.99)

Read more...

To Excel in Sports, Don’t Just React—Anticipate

PLAYER

   In most sports, the ability to react quickly in a controlled way is a valuable physical trait. Speed and quickness often trump other physical characteristics such as size and strength. As many coaches are fond of saying, “Speed kills.”

Getting somewhere or to something before your opponent—either through speed, quickness, or a combination of both—provides you with a competitive advantage. With quick reaction time, you can better defend your opponent, get to a ball or location before others, separate yourself from an opponent, and make instinctive physical movements that benefit your play.

But there is another way to get somewhere before others do—one that lies in your head, rather than your body.

Anticipate Events

Instead of relying strictly on your physical skills to respond, you can anticipate an event and begin moving earlier, in the best way, and ahead of an opponent’s action. You can process information more quickly and accurately. Where others miss important clues, you can visualize a ball’s current and future trajectory, read an opponent’s body position and “game”, and recognize time/space relationships of player and ball movements—all of which signal you that a specific event is about to happen. And with this information, you can begin reacting before the event occurs.

Here are some examples of the role anticipation plays in different sports when played at their highest level:

• Basketball players (when rebounding a ball) know exactly where a missed shot is going, even before the ball hits the rim.
  
  
• Baseball outfielders react immediately after the ball is hit—selecting the direction and rate of speed needed to get to where they expect the ball will eventually land.
  
  
• Tennis players returning a serve evaluate the server’s motion before the ball is hit to determine both the type of serve and targeted location. This information enables players to more quickly reposition themselves, providing more time to play the ball.
  
  
• Hockey players skate to where the puck is going to be—not where it is.
  
  
• Soccer goaltenders instantaneously process key information as players attack the goal—evaluating their movements, relationship to each other, and any other clues that suggest which player will take the shot and what area of the goal they will target. Hope Solo’s diving save against Japan in the 2012 Olympics gold medal match is one example. Protecting the near post, she anticipated the Japanese player’s shot to the far side.
  
  

A Learnable Skill

How does one obtain this skill? A few players seemingly have a knack for instinctively anticipating patterns of play. One of the best rebounders in the history of the NBA, Dennis Rodman, was much smaller than most of his opponents. Yet he led the NBA in rebounding for seven straight years, in no small part due to his ability to know where a missed shot would go before others did. For players like Rodman, their uncanny ability is possibly a gift, similar to another player’s natural athleticism. But anyone can improve their ability to recognize patterns of play and anticipate events. It’s a learnable skill.

Like your physical sports skills, this ability is best realized when it becomes a subconscious process. You need to reach the point where you “feel” the patterns of play. You “know” something is about to happen before it does. Your eye and mind pick up subtle clues, recognize patterns, process the possible alternatives, and generate an almost instantaneous response—without using the conscious part of your mind.

Warning: Although anticipation can improve your reaction time, beware failing to act because you anticipate an event that doesn't happen (e.g., an official’s call, the ball going out). Always play hard “to the whistle” and act when in doubt!

Repetition Generates Reflexive Response

As mentioned above, the good news is that your ability to reflexively interpret patterns of play (instead of experiencing a blur of disconnected detail) is learnable. The bad news is that there appear to be few shortcuts to obtaining this ability. You only develop this information processing ability through many hours of play and practice. Analysis and observation can help you recognize possible event triggers (“keys”), but experience is the driving factor in developing the needed real-time recognition and reflexive response.

So if you want to improve your virtual reaction time through anticipation, you need to experience more repetitions. Although you may benefit from specialized drills or simulations, the easiest way to increase repetitions is to simply spend more time playing and practicing your sport (or other sports with similar patterns of play).

Copyright © 2013 Jeffrey S. Rhoads. All Rights Reserved

If you enjoyed this article, you may like my book:
The Joy of Youth Sports: Creating the best youth sports experience for your child (Amazon $8.95)

(Kindle Edition $2.99)

Read more...

Youth Coaches—Scrimmage with Your Team in Practices

COACH

   You can use a number of different methods to teach your players the individual and team skills needed to successfully play their sport. These include group and individual skill demonstrations, short instructional sessions in which you describe a desired behavior, and various drills (both individual and team).

How else can you communicate knowledge to your players?

Get in The Action

If you are in reasonable physical condition and skilled, consider occasionally playing with your kids in practice scrimmages. By doing so, you can interactively teach game situations and skills.

In some practices, you may find your team short a player and unable to field two teams with an equal number of players on each team. This is an opportunity for you to step in and play. Besides balancing the teams, you can demonstrate team skills by example. You can also instruct individuals in real time as game situations occur.

What Are You Trying to Teach?

To begin, first decide on your teaching objectives. Do you want to demonstrate a teamwork principle to the team on which you are playing? Are you looking to help one specific player better understand game situations? Once your objectives are established, and play begins, constantly voice your thoughts on key points as they occur. Also use your hands, when appropriate, to physically push, pull or otherwise initiate an action in another player. By triggering a player’s physical response, you help a player better associate a game situation with a desired, timely behavior.

Demonstrate—Don't Just Lecture!

Use words and actions to demonstrate correct individual and team behavior (i.e., act as a role model). For example, when playing man-to-man defense in basketball, demonstrate how to “talk on defense” by warning your teammates about screens, shouting out instructions, and asking for “help” when needed. In this instance, your actions demonstrate to your teammates the correct way to communicate and play team defense. This “by example” approach is an effective one as it pulls your players into the desired mode of team play. Your in-game demonstration helps your players more easily make a connection in their mind between a given game situation and the appropriate action or reaction.

Instruct as Events Unfold

You also have an opportunity to interactively teach an individual player how to respond to game situations. In a basketball scrimmage, I might choose to defend a taller player who does not yet understand how to play the post position close to the basket. As the player dribbling the ball comes to his side of the court (the right side) and he is “posting me up,” I would say to him, “Get your left hand up—give him a target!” and then put my left hand under his arm and push it up above his head.

As I moved slightly to his right side, I would say, “Put your hip on me—push me—control me with your hip!”

If the ball was reversed to the other side of the court, I would shout, “Move to the other side of the key!” At the same time, I would grab his hips and push him in that direction.

When he got there, I would yell out, “Now post me up!”

This teaching approach is highly effective with beginners. Always look to teach whenever you scrimmage with your players.

Copyright © 2013 Jeffrey S. Rhoads. All Rights Reserved

If you enjoyed this article, you may like my book:
The Joy of Youth Sports: Creating the best youth sports experience for your child (Amazon $8.95)

(Kindle Edition $2.99)

Read more...

Does Your Child Understand How to Succeed in Sports?

PARENT

   Success in sports comes in different forms. The most obvious one is derived from your child's ability to play a sport well. He or she wins. The team wins. Everyone wants to play with your son or daughter.

Sounds good, doesn't it. But how does your child become one of these players?

The best players, of course, are usually gifted with “natural” athletic talent. They've got good genes. They typically have physical attributes (size, strength, speed) that set them apart from others. They may also have exceptional motor skills (hand-eye coordination).

Qualities Other Than Natural Talent

But here’s an essential truth you and your child need to understand: natural talent alone does not determine success in sports. Although it often accompanies success, it’s only one ingredient in the mix of qualities that define a winning, competitive athlete. Hard work (practice and preparation) is also necessary to shape one’s talent into effective play. Likewise, good coaching and instruction help transform raw talent into a more refined product. Other more intangible qualities also play an important role. The “will to win”, ability to learn, leadership qualities, and tactical intelligence all help define an athlete’s prospects for success.

Success is Often Relative to Context and Circumstance

You and your child should also appreciate that talent isn't absolute—it grows or shrinks relative to circumstance. In youth, it’s often relative to one’s physical development. Your child may physically mature earlier or later than others his or her age. “Stars” at the youth level may dominate because they are bigger, taller, or stronger. But like runners who charge to the front at the start of a long race, only to quickly fall back into the pack, their advantage is frequently short-lived. No longer tall or strong for their age as they and others mature, their talent (in this case a physical advantage) disappears.

The measure of one’s talent is also relative to the level of competition. Middle school stars who possess outstanding skills may find that this talent alone isn't the path to success when they graduate to high school. Many others may now have similar abilities—ones that were regarded as exceptional at lower levels.

Consider professional athletes. At lower levels, most were exceptionally gifted athletes. But at the elite professional level, many are now viewed as having limited athleticism. Their talent is less remarkable.

The Ability to Adapt

Yet despite their diminished relative ability, many of these professional players still enjoy great success. For example, from 2006 through 2008, a decidedly non-athletic Jason Kapono found success in the NBA because of his ability to make 3-point shots. Tom Brady did not become one of the best quarterbacks of all time because he is a physically great athlete. (His NFL combine results, including a 5.28 40 yard time, were some of the worst ever recorded for a quarterback.) Instead, he adapted his play at the professional level to counter the quicker, faster, and stronger NFL defenders. He learned how to more quickly process patterns of play and make the right decisions.

These players all find other ways to play their sport well; their path to success changes. They may excel in one area of play—possibly one that is crucial to the success of their team. They build upon their experience and countless practice repetitions; their minds have a fuller grasp of how to play the game, enabling them to more quickly take advantage of opportunities that present themselves during a contest. They may also have greater mental discipline to both prepare and persevere. They’re better conditioned. They work and play harder. Their will to win is strong.

Help Your Child Find His or Her Unique Path

If your child wants to play competitive sports, his or her path to success will likely resemble the one just described. Few athletes consistently win throughout their career by relying on their athletic talent alone. Instead, hard work and the other qualities described above come into play. And this is good news for your child and every young athlete. He or she can develop and control many of these other qualities. Make sure that you communicate this message to your child.

Copyright © 2013 Jeffrey S. Rhoads. All Rights Reserved

If you enjoyed this article, you may like my book:
The Joy of Youth Sports: Creating the best youth sports experience for your child (Amazon $8.95)

(Kindle Edition $2.99)

Read more...