Whatever happened to teaching the basics
Published 11:53 pm Thursday, January 23, 2020
It means a lot as a writer to have people constantly coming up and telling me how much they enjoy the articles that I share especially in this Sports Chatter column.
It’s a time when I can either be functioning as a family member, fan, or as the Sports Editor of the paper things that I have noticed about sports in my daily coverage of many athletic events.
This week, I have decided to dedicate my column to something that has really become a bothersome issue that I cannot figure out and maybe, just maybe, one of you my readers can help me understand.
In covering a heavy ledger of basketball no matter if it’s from the middle school to high school level, the one thing that I have noticed a lot is the kids today simply cannot do the little things that were always highly impressed on me by my coaches starting a little over 45 years ago.
A couple of those things have really come back to bite several teams in games that I have witnessed this season.
Now, one can probably name those things without me saying a word but quite simply it is the inability to hit layups and free throws.
Doesn’t sound like much does it but when you take into consideration that in a game that is lost to an opponent by say four to six points, it doesn’t take much to figure out where that game is won or lost.
In a recent game, a local team lost to an opponent they should have never lost the game to and it came down basically to a total of seven missed layups in one quarter alone – the fourth quarter.
Now, I know no one is perfect in any aspect of life, but when someone reaches the high school level and as much of travel ball that is played, the short game of basketball is something that should almost be at a high percentage.
I have asked myself several times why this is the case.
One thought that passed through my mind is that when kids first start the sport that maybe we are doing them an injustice as a coach if we are only coaching a team because we want our kids to be the central focal point of that team and it doesn’t matter about the others that can be an issue.
A coach may not realize at the time that when a child first takes the court for the first time, that children are like sponges and if we are not filling these kids with the right information they will not retain anything the deeper they advance in their playing career.
I remember not playing youth club basketball but playing on our elementary team at Yuma Elementary and the one thing that I never will forget is shooting layups and foul shots over and over and hearing our coach tell us that it may not seem like much but that a simple thing as a single free throw or layup could be a difference in a win or a loss.
That’s why we worked on them every day in practice. I even remember in high school our assistant coach, Sandy Blackwell, cutting off the lights a couple of practices with nothing more than the emergency lighting red letters shining in the gym.
He would have us shoot layups and foul shots with little light to make us focus more on the goal and it worked.
Secondly, I really think that our kids today watch too much collegiate and NBA games as well as their gaming systems in trying to emulate what these guys do – including their mannerisms when they take the floor at a young age.
I will be honest – I could care less about a Euro step and am more impressed by a player that can take the ball to the rim and convert an easy layup or step to the free-throw line and sank a pair of free throws.
That darn three-point line ought to go as well because it does nothing more than tantalize a player to try to make a lower percentage shot than attack the basket for a higher percentage opportunity and possibly getting fouled for a much easier shot.
I think that this also is a reason that most coaches cannot get buy-in from their team to settle into offensive sets because players would rather try to impress their buddies or even the one that encouraged them at an early age to be the team hero in their first coach – their dad.
I guess watching players like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson make scintillating buckets right at the rim during my younger years were just more impressive than seeing someone make one of eight from the three-point line.
It probably also helped that my father disliked sports because I learned everything I did from men who taught me sports the right way and that being part of a team meant that together each accomplishes more than being a one-man show.
Once players learn that doing the small things right will help their team win more games, the sooner we will see teams that improve in the win-loss columns.
I ask coaches all the time how this can be corrected and basically get the same results – a wrinkled scow and a head shake indicating they have no idea how to fix it.
That probably is most likely due to the fact that once a player gets accustomed to doing things the wrong way, it’s like pulling teeth to make them understand the importance of doing things the right way.
So the next time you see me covering your games guys – impress me.
Make every layup and free throw you are given in the game. It will make this sportswriter’s day!
