Return to the Playground by Tom Lynch

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Return to the Playground

By Tom Lynch, Shooting Instructor and Coach, Matrex/Arnett 8th Grade Girls Basketball

Stoughton, Wi., U.S.A., & Basketball World operator on the internet. e-mail: tlynch@itis.com

I have been a basketball coach for about 20 years. I have watched my 16-year old son’s team go from being a very good junior high team to being average sophomores. The players didn’t seem to be getting better at the same rate as the competition. Also, with all the summer leagues and camps available, why isn’t the level of play higher?

This is the age of parental involvement. Parents are now organizing and coaching their kids at the earliest ages possible. When we were young our parents were not involved. We needed to organize ourselves and play when we could. Our generation has continued to be organizers for our kids. This happened because life has been good for us. Unlike our parents generation, we have more money and more free time. We are going to give our kids the things we only dreamed about. We have given them real uniforms, leagues, tournaments, big crowds and plenty of gym time. What a great time it is to be a kid.

Our kids have all the "advantages" that we never had. Because we are starting them so early and giving them our dream, we hope they will grow to be successful. This makes them happy and that makes us happy. That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? At the youth level success comes to teams that have coaches that know how to coach. At the high school level coaches are much more even and it comes down to ability of the players.

"Advantages"

When I was a kid it was rare that one of my friends would attend a basketball camp. Although they were less expensive than they are now, money was the primary factor. Now it is rare that serious players don’t attend one or more camps during a summer. A summer basketball camp can be a great time for the players. Still, It is rare that the player is significantly changed by the experience. High numbers of players, low numbers of coaches, and little repetition, make camps hard learning environments.

Another development over the last 15 years is the youth leagues for kids and summer leagues for high school players. These are extremely popular for three reasons:

Kids love it.
Parents love it.
Most coaches feel it is needed to stay even with everyone else.

Organized youth sports are huge in this country. When the coaches and parents keep it in perspective it succeeds on nearly every level. There are drawbacks, however:

Some kids are excluded, leaving them feeling behind.
Coaches and parents can make it a negative experience.
Kids that do not develop early may give up on a sport too soon.

Summer leagues for high school athletes are less family involved and probably are valued more by the high school coaches. Players in basketball squeeze one or two hour blocks each week between jobs, other sports, and vacations, to travel out of town for a game. These games can provide some good competition but at a price. A player only gets between 30-45 minutes of game time out of the 2 ½ ; hours of traveling, waiting and watching.

What Should the Goal Be?

Everyone has their own reason for the value of youth sports and summer leagues. They can include:

Having fun for the moment
Parent/child interaction
Social activity for kids and parents
Learning skills for lifelong recreational enjoyment
Development for high school teams
Creating the college athlete

There are others, but the above shows a wide variety of goals for both the parent and child. If reasons 1-4 are the goal, then youth basketball and summer leagues are succeeding. A lot of kids and parents are having a lot of fun and learning along the way. This is great.

Some say the success you enjoy in high school basketball defines your career. As an older player you realize that this isn’t true. The community takes pride in its sports teams and that is natural. Everyone speculates on which kids and teams will do well. It is the one period (unless you go on to college basketball) when complete strangers will care about how well you play the game. Being a good high school basketball team is a great short-term goal. Most that have succeeded will always remember the time fondly.

The questions become:

Are our kids better basketball players now with all the youth basketball, the summer camps, and leagues compared to those that didn’t have these "advantages"?
How can we help our kids play better and enjoy more success in the future?

The Playground is the Key

By questioning and observing it is clear that success in basketball comes from playing the game for fun on the playground. This sounds simple and it is. Here is why:

Successful basketball requires more creativity than most other sports. Creativity is a hard thing to teach. There is not a coach around that can teach a player to pass like Larry Bird or Magic Johnson. The unsupervised playground lets players try and fail over and over until they learn what works and what doesn’t.
The best basketball players at the highest levels, have histories of huge amounts of time spent on the playground. Their biographies don’t credit the programs and tournaments they played in. Many, to their "advantage", never had the opportunity.
Playground basketball puts young players up against older, better players, every night. This isn’t being duplicated in summer leagues.
Players learn to think because coaches are not there directing their every move.
An evening of playground basketball may provide 2 1/2 hours of play compared to the 30-45 minutes at a summer league night.
There is one goal in playground basketball: win. There are no score books to get in the way of intelligent basketball decisions. They just do what it takes to win. It makes sense to stop asking your child how many points they scored.

Future considerations

Balance is the key. On the one hand we have youth teams and summer leagues. On the other is the playground. It is not an either-or question. There is a place for both. The questions now become:

How do we as coaches change the way we coach?
How do we get the playground back into the picture?

If we believe there are advantages to playground, then we need to look at what we are going to do with our players that will help them get better. Here are some ideas:

Simulate playground in practice. Play with and against your players. They may learn better watching you than by listening.
Practice against better players if possible.
Be aware of over coaching.
Promote creativity. Encourage players to take risks.
Stimulate thinking by having the players make game decisions such as inbounds plays, defenses, and offensive plays.
Teach team defense. Playground basketball does not consider defense the same as offense.
Teach the skills that help players become better. Passing, catching, shooting, rebounding, pivoting, screening, posting up, etc.

All of us have a role in getting our kids back to the playground. As parents and coaches, we need to sell them on the benefits and fun of playing the way that we grew up. We have spent a lot of time and money creating a system that is both good and limiting. There will always be youth sports for everyone to enjoy. The real success stories will come from playgrounds and gyms, when the parents and the coaches are not there.

Anyone heading a basketball program may want to consider the following:

Sell players on the playground as a way of reaching personal and team goals.
Cut back or eliminate summer leagues and tournaments. Create more constructive ways to spend the time.
Open gyms to encourage scheduled playground. Encourage outdoor basketball to get exposure to many players.
Bring in better competition (ex-players, adults).
It comes down to trusting that less may be more.

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