"Nobody else on this team can dribble!"

When I go to watch basketball games I always try to get a seat behind one of the teams benches. If I'm watching baseball, you can usually find me within earshot of the dugout. I love listening to other coaches and how they interact with their teams. This is a great opportunity to learn and grow as a coach. Sitting or standing in these areas really allows you to see just how good some coaches are at their craft. Sometimes you see or hear something that has a profound impact on your own career.

A few years back I was sitting behind a varsity girls basketball bench during a late February game. The game was back and forth throughout, but about midway through the third quarter the home team's best player picked up her fourth foul. Sensing the urgency of the situation, the coach called timeout to figure out how he was going to manage this situation. As the girls came off the court and sat on the bench, one assistant approached the head coach and said that they had to take her out of the game. After a short exchange, the head coach turned to his bench and said very loudly, "We can't take her out of the game, nobody else on this team can dribble!"

The other coach I was sitting with simultaneously gave me the exact same look I must have given him. We clearly heard that in the second row, so the parents a few rows behind us had to hear it as well, but more importantly every girl on that team heard that. This was one of the last games of a very successful season. This coached was viewed by many people as a very good coach. Yet, how could you be at this point in the season and not have anybody else who could handle the ball for a few minutes? The truth is that if you walked by one of his practices the answer would be very clear.

It was not uncommon to walk by one of this coach's practices and see five girls on the court going through a drill or set, while the other five or six girls sat against a wall and watched and watched and watched. This coach would go so far as to bring in boys to practice with/against his top five girls, while the other members of the team sat and did nothing. At the very least these girls could have been working on their fundamentals, so maybe one of them would learn how to dribble.

Yes this girl was a future college player, but as a coach you should never put yourself in a position to say those words. At that point in my coaching career I was very happy with the time I spent on fundamentals with every player, but after that I vowed I would never be in the position to say something like that. It cemented my philosophy that every aspect of every practice should involve every player. If you didn't have the same hopes and demands for your worst player as you do for your best player, then your team would ultimately crumble.

Coaching youth sports, the primary focus should be on player development. Winning is the by-product of developing sound players. Let's face it, 90% of the time in sports the team with more talent wins anyways. Yet, a good coach can help close that gap by developing the talent that he/she has. Whether it is baseball or basketball, kids must learn how to play multiple positions. Learning doesn't involve watching, like those varsity girls, it involves getting reps at multiple spots and positions. At the youth levels things can change very quickly; kids develop at different times. I've seen kids outgrow certain positions or while other kids grow into them. Certain kids who had the skill-set, but not the confidence, suddenly put things together and shoot past some of their peers athletically. This is why it is so essential to treat every kid like your most important player in practice. As a coach you never know when foul trouble or an injury or illness will occur. What you should always know as a coach is who can jump in and play that spot should something like that happen.

Beyond practice, you should find opportunities for backups to play their secondary positions in games. You always want to balance what is best for the team and the kids, with winning or not showing up the other team. Yet so many times I have seen junior high or youth teams play only their best players at the prime positions during blowouts. What a tragedy it would be to win a baseball game by 9 runs instead of 11 or 12 because you put some kids in the infield who don't get to play there! Do you really think the other team is going to overcome a 16 point deficit in the final 75 seconds of game? These are the same coaches and teams that cannot handle adversity when something happens to their best player or a starter at a prime position.

So the next time you gather with your team, take a look at them and ask yourself what would happen if player x got hurt or into early foul trouble. Who would fill that spot, and would effect would it have on the rest of the team? If the answer terrifies you, then I guess you know what to start working on at practice. I am far from the best coach, but I do know that regardless of the sport of age group, I'll never be in the position where I look at my team and say, "Nobody else on the team can dribble."