JUNIOR COACH KOBE

In my original tribute Facebook post to Kobe I touched on what he was doing in the coaching of junior players and really believe he would have changed how junior coaching is done with what he was doing and how he was doing it.

It wasn't really anything new but for someone as competitive as him to be able to have the view that he did in regards to coaching his daughters GiGi's team - a lot of parents and coaches in junior football an take plenty of what he was doing.

Here are some excerpts from various Youtube videos I've watched that I definitely encourage all coaches and parents to watch.

• ...It’s fun because I get a chance to sit, watch and ask questions and our job is to ask questions and let then figure things out during the course of the game. We could win a lot more if we micro-managed how they play the game and call plays and sets but we just sit back and let them process things and figure things, out as we’re playing the long game for them to be best player that they can be..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk00epALZps

• "...We try and teach the kids what excellence looks like..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5b3LFR4MmA 

• (on not being selected in the top 50 in his teen years) "...That’s when the of having a long term view became important because I wasn’t gonna catch these kids in a week, I wasn’t gonna catch them in a year, so it was gonna take it some thought. What do I want to work on first? Shooting. Let’s focus on this for 6mths doing nothing but shooting. After that now it’s creating your own shot and I started creating a menu of things and when I came back next summer I was a little better. The next summer I was better again and then the one after that I was killing everyone because I worked on the basics and fundamentals, while the other kids relied on their athleticism and their natural ability, and it caught up to them. Then I was able to grow into my frame and my athleticism shot up and add to that my fundamentals and it was lights out..."
• "...The results don’t matter, it’s the figuring out that matters..."
• "...It’s not the kids that don’t wanna do the work it’s us - the parents..."
• "...Kids are quitting sport because it’s not fun anymore and what’s that telling us? It’s telling us as grown ups we’re getting in the way – get out of the way!..."
• "...Creativity comes from structure where you have to be creative between parameters but without the structure you’re just aimlessly doing stuff..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNbAQB8BYtM

• "...When kids are training/playing, limit your verbal input as they are having a conversation with themselves in their own heads, the same conversation you’re trying to have with them. All you’re doing is creating noise and it actually interrupts how they’re trying to solve the problem on their own..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w4ZA2WmBY0

• (on using sport to teach life lessons) "...Take a kid who’s tall, lanky and uncomfortable with their height and walks around shoulders slouched and their head down because they’re not comfortable in their own skin. Take them to a basketball court and they don’t wanna play in the post either because it’s not cool, and everyone is on the perimeter where it is cool. Now to connect this story to human nature through sport, you teach them to play the post, you teach them the beauty of playing the post which also teaches them that there’s beauty in being who you are and playing to your strengths so now their comfortable, proud and more excepting of who they are..."