Coach D

I am now coaching Scott's first basketball team. 10 boys all aged 9-10 (Scott is only 8 and technically too young, but we wanted uniforms and refs, rather than the Learn-To-Play thing). We have had 4 practices and 4 games so far. We were short players in the first practice so I played on one team and a dad played on the other for scrimmage. I mostly just made plays, but at one point I couldn't resist a weak pass near half court and I stole it and then did a double-pump reverse dunk on the other end. The kids loved it.

Our games have just been short 22-minute running time seeding games to see if we are in the right division (we are in division 6 out of 8 for our age group).


The first game we were actually winning and then lost at the buzzer when we turned it over at half and one of my guys fouled their guy on the shot, which is an automatic 1 point in these games. I should have called a time out. Coach's fault. The final scores were as follows:

L 11 – 12
W 7 – 4
W 27 – 19
W 43 – 4

As you can see, the kids have caught on to my "run and gun" offensive scheme. To this point, my offensive coaching has been "as soon as you get a defensive rebound or a steal, turn and go the other way as fast as you can." I didn't come with that -- that's what they taught me in the coach's clinic I went to. The boys are catching on. In the last game, a league official came over to our bench and told me that if we got ahead by 40, they would have to call the game. For the last 3 minutes I told the boys not to shoot anymore. Only passes. They mostly followed my orders, but they still scored 4 more points.

Coaching basketball is pretty much the most fun ever. I can see how people get into this.