Fall Kick Off Party

Fall Update

Training for basketball with the Destroyers is a year long commitment. The point of the Destroyers program is to build an elite team of basketball players by the time our current 6th graders reach high school. One elite well trained nationally competing team in four more years is my goal. That is it. To that end FADS is doing skills and drills YEAR round.

Our players need to make the same commitment anything less is not fair to the team. We will focus on organized individual skill development for each girl, not on playing a ton of games.

FADS will charge just enough to cover insurance, equipment, gym rentals as needed and such. League and tournament fees will always be split evenly between whomever is playing.

The fall is pre-season, which will encompass approximately 10 weeks of training now until the start of formal Travel practices. Our pre-season training this year starts next week on August 20 and will continue twice a week (most Tuesdays and Thursdays) until the middle of November.

I understand that most of our players do multiple sports. That is a good thing. Please make at least one session of basketball per week. You are my core group.

Your daughters will be with me until they quit the Destroyers or graduate high school. I can only consider girls who are willing to work on basketball year round.

The objectives for the pre season program are:
• Prepare the team for full court player to player defense with help and trapping
• Improve everyone's understanding of the Read and React Offense.
• Improve everyone's shooting percentage.
• Improve sport specific conditioning.
• Improve sport specific speed, agility and strength.
• Improve core body strength.
• Improve team chemistry.

Defense will be stressed, taught, drilled and practiced while I am expanding and sharpening our understanding of the offense.

We will teach and or refresh everyone's understand of the Hoover Pro Shot System. Shooting game shots from game spots at game speed will be part of every workout. I am working on getting a Hoover shooting coach back on Thursday 9/5 to do more advance stuff with the girls. Before then all our girls will be introduced to The System and should be ready for the next level from Hoover.

We will add jumping rope and homework to our conditioning using the Tabata principle. A Tabata workout consists of 20 seconds of maximum intensity exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated without pause 8 times for a total of four minutes.

Every one can find 4 minutes a day to condition. The Tabata workouts, designed by Dr. Izumi Tabata and a team of researchers from the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, are specific to basketball. Basketball is an interval based sport with quick bursts of sprints and stops.

When I am doing equal playing time, the game is broken down into approximately 8 4-minute segments. The conditioning goal is for the players to be able to go all out for their entire 4 minute shift.

A third of every workout will include sport specific speed, agility, core strength and total body strength using the girls body weight to build functional basketball power. Our girls have to get stronger. We spent much time getting pushed around this summer. The girls will have daily strength homework along with the conditioning home work.

To build team chemistry we will do things together away from the basketball court. I am looking for ideas for fun outings, fund raising and community service. I would like to do more things such as the Summer Bash where the girls ran wild on the Tot Lot, played pick up soccer and got to know each other. The 3 on 3 tournament was also a useful team builder for the kids as well as the parents.

It does not look like the Boston Warriors will let us into their boys league. We will do a tournament or two in late October or early November. I will also set up scrimmages with boys and other teams.

Robin

Summer Winds Down

It was a great ride. All the girls gave the championship game their best shot. We played to win. One watching coach from one of the boys teams told me that if I'd stuck to my top 6 or 7 players like everyone else does, we would have won. I don't know about that. Everyone as always plays.

Last time that we played the Sting Angels, July 30, they beat us by 43 points and they lead us by 25 at half time.  Tonight we took them tied 13 - 13 into half time. The end score was 21 for the Destroyers to 40 for the Angels. 

The amazing is that we had the worst record in the division, winning just our last two games in the regular season. That we went on to win our first play off game decisively on will, guts and defense was unexpected.  Being competitive against the over aged and over sized Angels was a bonus. 

Summer League was hard. I am glad we did it. One of the toughest situations I face as a coach is preparing children to play in a game where they are considered the underdog and many fans – and maybe the athletes themselves – believe they will lose. That was my reality every game this summer. 

At our level there are winners and learners. You are never a loser no matter what the score. The scoreboard doesn’t define our girls as athletes or me as a coach. 

I think our players are now able to see the bigger picture, know that losing made us better, and recognize the value of strong opponents to push us to be even better. We don’t allow ourselves to be defined by a single performance. 

Learning, improving, going hard and having fun were my top priorities this summer. I believe I have met my goals. I am pleased that we learned a little offense (spacing, movement and attacking the basket) and defense along the way. 

My daily goal was / is to recognize and reward effort. Effort means giving 100% effort, 100% of the time, regardless of what the score was. I believe that we, as a team, got there, too.

Mistakes are the result of learning and effort. We made a lot of mistakes. I asked the girls to "Bush it off" and keep going when they make them. Mistakes are teaching tools. I have not removed a child from a game because she made a mistake. We learn more from mistakes than we do from successes. I have removed players for lacking effort. 

I love to teach the game and try to teach the girls every position. They will a develop in to better athletes and develop a better understanding and appreciation of the various roles on court. Over time, I hope to grow players who can play multiple positions well. I realize that at first it all seems like just a lot of chaos. 

The main thing that I hope all you parents will take away from the summer is that being able to fully maximize the potential of a player has very little to do with the child's initial level of raw talent. Every one got better. The players who came to practice and took advantage of the special offerings on Friday nights improved the most. 

The key is getting the player to work on her skills. The Talent Code Author Daniel Coyle sums it up perfectly, “Talent is determined far less by our genes and far more by our actions.”

Every practiced we worked on individual skills. Everyone got a little better at everything which made us a little better as a team every week. If you are serious about your daughter being a high school player, develop her basketball skills year round along with soccer, lacrosse, etc. 

We improved this summer because game in and game out as a team we outworked the competition. Hustling, hitting the floor after loose balls and sprinting in transition became our culture. 

We improved because we cared about each other as players and as people. We shared the ball. We taught each other the offense and defense. We encouraged each other. We created new friendships and strengthened old friendships which will endure off the basketball court. 

Coach Doc Rivers once said, “If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together.” We improved together. Teamwork can be one of the most difficult things to teach in the game of basketball, especially for a team that mixes players who have limited to no experience with experienced players. We also had a mix of ages and still everyone came together. 

The principles of being an athlete – dedication, teamwork, goal-setting, and sportsmanship (to name a few) – are ideals that I hope our kids demonstrate 24-hours a day, not just on the basketball court. 

Rather than focusing on winning the championship (an outcome goal we can’t control), I worked with our girls to focus on effort goals that can ultimately lead to better outcomes. We looked at things like 

1. cutting all the way to the basket after every pass

2. meeting every pass with your eyes, hands and feet

3. peeking at the rim after every catch before making any move with the ball

to name just 3 of the many. 

And we improved practice by practice, game by game. 

Maybe being the underdog was actually a great position for us to be in. It provided an important rallying point for our Destroyers. When no one believes you can, but you and your teammates believe you can, you share an emotional bond that brings you closer together, helps to inspire you and adds a focus.  

You seek to prove “them” wrong – together.  And so win or lose, the underdog team actually takes away a potent life lesson:  when we trust and believe in ourselves, in our teammates, and in our preparation, great things can – and sometimes do – happen.

Sure, Tayja cried tonight. She HATES to lose what she considers the "big" games. When she came home from eating ice cream with her team mates she said the she has to become a better shot to keep from letting her team mates down again. She is as right as much as she is wrong. All of our girls have to get better so as to not let each other down. And I have to become a better coach. We all must add to our skill sets.

Thank you for playing this summer. 

Robin

Summer Bash