Confidence = Aggressiveness

I've been coaching kids for many years and one of the things that always amazes me is the difference in confidence from one kid to the next.  On the same team you will have kids who no matter what they do wrong they can bounce back immediately and others who can get shattered by making one simple mistake.  Confidence is a very fragile thing and can be lost even in the best of players.  Take a look at sports on TV.  How many times have you seen an extremely confident player at the beginning of the year turn to be just a shell of himself by the end.  Along with confidence comes aggressiveness.  A player will not be aggressive if he is not confident.  This is why I think that some of these drills that you see on the internet as drills that help your team become aggressive are questionable.  I'm all for having kids get comfortable chasing loose balls on the floor but to have these kids beat up on each other in practice so they can "build aggressiveness" is somewhat suspect to me.  Instead of wasting time doing these aggression drills, I prefer my players working on individual and team fundamentals.  The more a player and a team practice the fundamentals and perfect them the greater their confidence and thus the more aggressive they will be on the floor.  Add to this formula a coach who inspires creativity and promotes kids to try new things in practice and then you have the making of a confident player/team.

To get a bit more specific, you as a coach need to find time to incorporate all of the following in your weekly practice schedule in order to try to instill a confidence level in your team:

• Individual Skills - include dribbling, passing/receiving, shooting, defense, rebound, footwork.  Try to touch on all of these a little bit every week.


• Team Skills - include shell drills, small sided drills which emphasize parts of offense/defense/transition.  Try to touch on these a little bit every week.


• Game situations - the more game situations that you can cover the more confident your team will be when they are confronted with the situation during a game.  Try to touch on these a little bit every week.

In addition to the above, your role as a coach is so important to the improvement of your players.  Your players need to respect you and trust that you are the smartest guy in the room when it comes to basketball.  As a coach you need to be an authority but you also need to be a person who encourages and pushes his players to greater levels.  You can do this by always following the below suggestions:

• Make practice a safe place for your players to improve.  The best way to do this is by pushing players to cheer and encourage each other on during practice and to make sure that no one person on the team ridicules or embarrasses a teammate.  If players know there is no chance that someone will make fun of them in practice there is a greater chance that they will try a move they deem difficult and then spend time improving it.


• Never come down on a player for making a mistake.  This sounds like common sense but sometimes in the heat of the battle you as a coach really do need to take the time to count to ten and even out emotionally.  Remember, you want your players to not fear making mistakes.  While learning, your players will all make mistakes.  We all do.  It's your job to provide an environment which fosters support as these kids continue their journey to becoming a basketball player.  Another thing to remember is that your kids are a reflection of you.  Show no patience and so will your team.


• Always set goals for the team which are a bit out of their reach and strive to have them reach them.  Once they reach these goals raise the bar a bit or have them try something else.


• Never have them do a drill for too long in a given practice simply because they can't reach the goal you set.  5 minutes per drill is usually ideal.  Kids aren't dumb they will be able to figure out that you are upset and they may learn to resent a drill which can help them get better.


• Once the kids do something good, let them know about it.  No matter how small the accomplishment, always look for reason to provide positive feedback to your players.


• Find extra time to work with your kids.


• Teach kids how to deal with failure.  Let them know that to fail does not mean that they should quit but rather just the opposite.  Try harder!  Remember the old saying:

You may miss some of the shots you take but you will miss all of the shots that you don't.

• Tell them how good they are.  By this I don't mean bullshit them.  What I mean is be honest with them in a positive manner.  If you think that your team is going to be average but want to encourage them to work hard enough to overachieve then you can say something like the following:

I think that we can win more games than we will lose this year.  If we really want to make this a memorable year it's going to be up to everyone in this room.  It will be up to me as a coach to prepare, teach, and push you and it will be up to you as players and teammates to work hard and help each other reach new highs in the game.

In addition to the above, the coach will need to figure out how to get each and every player from where they are at the beginning of the year to a point that they have not yet reached in their careers.  This again will be done with honesty and positivity.  You should sit down with all players at the beginning of the year and let them know what you view to be their strengths and weaknesses.  After this, you need to provide them some workouts that they can do at home (or gym) on their free time.  When you do evaluate them be honest but be positive.  Let them know where the weak parts of their game is but tell them how they can improve and let them know how confident you are in them improving as  players as the year goes on.  When you do see improvement let them know.  If you don't, talk to them and see where things are going wrong.  Are they following the program?  Is the program not demanding enough?  Is it too demanding?  At the end of the year it is always good to revisit these evaluations.  If there has been marked improvement then you have results which back up your claim that hard work pays off as well as having these kids believing in both themselves and you as a coach. If improvement still needs to be made, you can make additional suggestions or maybe find some time to help the player.

Confidence is important in everything that you do.  Build confidence in your team and you will see your team make solid improvements in their game.  This will translate into a team that is much more aggressive out on the basketball court.