Tryouts

Some lessons learned from tryouts:

1 - As the Stones once sang: "You don't always get what you want!" The team you envisioned is not always the team you get to have. As a player the position you wanted or thought you were going to have suddenly gets upgraded or down graded based on the turnout and what everyone else has done. How do you manage this? Dialogue. Kids, especially teenagers are not going to go to the adult in charge with their feelings first. They will go to their peers, teammates, and family first. Get all sorts of feedback that is not yours and then come at you with info and attitudes that weren't there intially. Be up front let kids know the score and have real conversations about the situation that you and they are both in.

2 - Doritos kids aren't ready for a marathon or a sprint. If you happen to have a tryout at a level where the it is the first time kids have moving up to a new playing field and set of expectations, bench the conditioning. You will be able to tell 20 minutes in who has wind and who doesn't. You also will not be able to tell who has any potential game if all your yougn kids can't move in stance, catch, shoot or play because they weren't physically prepared and you burned them out before evaluating skills. If you want to see who has heart, or build toughness or whatever other reason you could have for turning a tryout into a track practice, go ahead. Save it until day 2 or 3 though, you want to make sure you know who has what and what you want, before you start seeing kids drop and wondering they want you.

3 - Load the concepts. Especially in a read and react 24-8 game kids need to be able to co-ordinate their bodies, minds and the ball. Don't save introducing your offensive concepts or defensive concepts until the team is picked. You need to know who will keep up mentally before you see who keeps up physically. You can make them be in better shape much faster then you can effect the speed of their learning. Find out what your basketball IQ level is, you can run them later. Seriously, a player you cut is not going to run down the road and tell Coach x what your running. Besides if they do and that effects your chances of beating coach x I would spend more time making your kids better and less on your stuff.

4 - Why are they on your team? I constantly tell my kids that if they are on the team it is because I can see them being useful for us in meaningful situations. If that kid is not going to be then why are you keeping them. Its great that their nice, they work hard, they'd be a good teammate. What else could they be doing with all those attributes to make your school, community or another program better? Instead you let the kid come out, rot on the bench and he doesn't contribute positively to anything. I like having a hard working practice with lots of kids too, but I want it to reflect game. If they are on the team they should be playing, if they are not playing why are they on the team?