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Tips: 3 Steps to Establishing Discipline
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Basketball Tips: 3 Steps to Establishing Discipline
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It’s
one of the paradoxes in life. True freedom comes through well
established rules. In order for your entire team to have a great
experience, you need to establish a sense of structure.
Follow these basketball tips to learn how.
1. Set
Rules
To some degree your list of rules will develop over years of experience
with coaching
basketball to young players. However, there are some basic rules
that are common sense rules.
Your players should be on time to practice and games. Play this one by
ear. Kids don’t have control over whether their parents are prompt, but
make sure they know you expect them to be on time. If they can’t make a
practice, have them call you.
Never allow your players to talk when any coach is talking. If a coach
is talking they are imparting some sort of direction and should have
the team’s undivided attention.
Don’t tolerate unsportsmanlike behavior. Kids might
as well learn as early as possible that the refs won’t always make the
right call, the other team will get away with things sometimes, and
their own teammates will let them down from time to time. Teach them
early that they can’t let this affect how they react.
Above all, never tolerate lying. Administer very severe consequences
for lying of any sort. Your players must understand that this cannot be
tolerated.
2. Communicate
Rules
Drawing up the rules is meaningless if you don’t communicate them to
your players. The most important aspect of communicating your rules is
clarity. Your rules should not only be communicated, they should be
absolutely clear to both your team members and their parents.
You definitely want to communicate your rules to your players’ parents,
but make is crystal clear to your team that they will be held
accountable for their actions and not their parents.
Send a sheet home with your players making the rules
clear. That way both the players and the parents have no excuse for the
team not following your rules.
3. Follow
Through with Your Rules
Follow-through is the most difficult part of establishing rules for
your team. As a coach you set a firm but fair rule like being late for
a game means you don’t play the first quarter. Then one day your star
player comes to the game late. What do you do? Do you bench him or do
you let him play?
The correct answer… you bench him.
Granted, you probably also make it clear to him how difficult it is to
bench him. After all, he’s your star player, but you have to stick to
your guns and follow through with the punishment.
The moment you let something slide, everything will
start to slide. You’ll either find yourself in a position where
everyone starts breaking your rules and expecting you to cut them some
slack, or you get a disgruntled group that keeps following your rules
but grumbles behind your back about how you don’t even stick to your
own rules.
Either way, you’ve got a problem.
As coach, you have to establish and maintain discipline. If you do so
right from the start, you’ll have fewer issues with your team and
you’ll get better results from them as you teach them the game.
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