Youth Program

 YOUTH PROGRAMS

“Little Dribblers”

Our community's youth basketball players perform a dribbling routine at halftime of the varsity games for the entertainment of the crowd. It is an elective, players sign up in addition to their youth leagues. They practice once per week and perform at as many home games as we can block off. This strategy is a GRAND SLAM because it gets young kids in your community involved in basketball, teaches them ball handling, exposes them (and also their parents) to the varsity basketball atmosphere/crowd, and gets their parents to games.

"Preseason Youth Clinic"

Buy a bunch of pizza and invite all of our youth and middle school coaches to the facility prior to the season. We will guide them through the schemes and drills you want their teams to run. We will answer questions, explain concepts, and close the gap between their expectations and what you need from them. If we have players available, we can take them to the court and demonstrate our plays and drills.

"Preseason Practice Exhibition"

I will travel to our different feeder schools with our team or invite them into our facility for an exhibition of how we practice. This starts the process of kids understanding how our program runs, and teaches the youth and middle school coaches how to run some of our drills so our program will have a head start once the younger players get to the high school level.

Create A “Director of Youth Basketball Operations''

The DOYBO is a liaison between the levels of our program to streamline our system and philosophy. They are not assigned to one team. They go into practices and meet with youth coaches to make sure your feeder teams are running drills correctly and have the proper concepts installed. They put out fires at elementary and middle school levels as well.

"Saturdays With Coach"

We will offer your youth players of all ages a practice session with our staff and our varsity players each Saturday morning throughout the season. We will raise money and build relationships while we teach the game to our youth players. Instead of raising money, we could charge the players a canned good per session to donate. We will focus on fundamentals instead of tactics. We will always theme the sessions, which kids seem to love - jersey day, school pride, USA day, etc. “Jersey Day” on Saturdays with Coach Morris. 

"Varsity Ball Boys"

We will get our best youth players indoctrinated in your program by allowing them to be ball boys or water boys for our varsity team. This allows them to experience the varsity atmosphere, gets their parents into your center of influence, and allows us to connect with your top youth players in a powerful way.

"Recognition Night"

At halftime of one of our varsity home games towards the end of the season, we will invite our middle school and elementary players along with their parents and recognize them in front of the entire crowd. This is a good way to make the kids feel good about being in our program and expose them to the varsity atmosphere. We will let the players in for free, but the parents pay for admission.

"Coaching Check-Ins"

I will call each of my middle school coaches on a bi-weekly basis. Helping them with schemes, letting them vent about their team issues, and staying updated on what’s going on at that level. The goal is to make our middle school coaches feel heard and valued. This will go a long way for the future of our program and allows me to sniff out drama before it gets to a bigger scale.

"Super-Charged Feeder Presence"

We will grab all of our youth basketball schedules and sit down with all of our high school coaches. We will have each coach choose five games they will attend during the youth season. We will attend the games in full coaching swag and network with the parents while watching the games. This will increase our visibility exponentially.

"Personal Touch"

I will make phone calls and write notes to let the kids in our feeder schools know that I'm following them and they are on my radar. This type of communication really stands out to young players and parents in this day and age. 

"Highlight Tapes"

I will send all players in our youth program a varsity highlight tape at the end of the season so they can get excited and dream about being on that highlight tape someday. This is becoming easier and easier to accomplish using HUDL to create the reel (don’t forget to add music, though!) and share a link to the contacts from the digital registrations of our youth program. I will shoot it to the parents and ask them to watch it with their children.

"District Tour"

I will see if our school district will permit me to take a day to travel to our elementary and middle schools to promote our program and pass out flyers for clinics and camps. The plan is to take some of your players, wear our spirit wear, and sell our youth players on our vision for the program.

"Connection Program"  

Connect varsity players with middle school players as mentors. I will coordinate a time for them to be together and do activities together throughout the season. It could just be shooting around or a formal activity. Instruct the varsity players on how to be a positive role models. Special long-term relationships could blossom from this simple initiative.

Send Them to “Point Guard College”

I have no affiliation with PGC, but I believe in their training. I have sent many players to PGC Camps. I plan on creating a scholarship fund to help offset the cost for players in our program who are interested in attending. I have been to PGC camps as an observing coach many times. I recommend getting our players in that environment, and the sooner, the better.