PEACELOVEBASKETBALL: How To Motivate Your Team
Motivating your team starts before the season even begins. It starts by figuring out how you can create a team-focused, positive environment where the players will thrive. Setting expectations and goals for practice and games is part of that process, but remember just that, it is a process. Though I will touch on some game-day ideas to help motivate your team, truly motivating your team happens throughout the year.
Create A Positive Environment
Creating a positive environment starts with the way that you talk to your players. Be positive and encourage players while you coach them. When a player makes a mistake remind yourself that they are trying to do it right. Don’t get angry, figure out how you can do your job better and keep teaching them until they improve. Another good reminder to help you be positive and patient is, that even the best players make mistakes.
Spread positive energy wherever you can. Clean up the locker room if you have one and post inspirational quotes. Give your players journals and have them right down personal and team goals. Share inspiring stories or quotes before or after practice. Bring in motivational speakers. Use your imagination and find ways to encourage your team and create a positive environment.
Encourage Team Mentality
Teach your team the importance of treating one another with respect. Help the players understand what it means to be a team player. When a team cares about one another, they will work to motivate one another. By teaching the importance of teamwork you are helping to motivate your team.
Set Goals
Having something to strive for helps give a team motivation. And getting the players involved in the goal setting is even better. You can have a big reach goal; something grand, larger than life. But also have smaller more reachable goals that help […]
PEACELOVEBASKETBALL: 4 Things You Must Do To Play Great Helpside Defense
Helpside defense is the key to great team defense. Teams need to work together to be effective and dominate the court, and in order to do so, each player must pay attention to the person who they’re guarding, as well as the rest of the court. If you’re not guarding the person with the basketball, you’re expected to help your teammates.
Generally, the farther away you are from the ball, the more you should be available to help. If you’re just one pass away, you will often be asked step up and deny the passing lane (I’ll cover deny defense in another blog), but depending on which level you’re playing and your coach’s specific rules, sometimes, even one pass away, you may play helpside defense. If you’re not guarding the ball (or asked by your coach to faceguard a player), these tips will help you become a better defender and ultimately help your team.
4 things that you must do to become a better helpside defender.
1. SEE BALL / SEE PLAYER
If you’ve played any basketball you should have heard this term. It may have been in the form of point ball/point player, point your pistols, see ball/see man or something of the sort, but what it means is that when you’re playing defense away from the ball you must guard your player and also know where the basketball is on the court at all times. There may be occasions when your coach has you faceguard a player, stick on them like glue, but the rest of the time when you’re on defense, you must be aware of the rest of the court. And you should always be in good defensive position, knees bent, back straight and arms out wide with your back toward the hoop. One hand should be […]
Yes, You Can Play: The Evolution of Women’s Basketball
“Mom, I want to play basketball,” I said as I watched the boys move up and down the court, dribbling around each other in an effort to get to the hoop. It was 1973 and I was seven.
My mom peered at me through the bottom of her glasses and explained, “They don’t have basketball for girls your age, Sonya.” I narrowed my eyes and huffed. She gave me an exaggerated wink and said, “That doesn’t mean you can’t play.”
Not long after, my dad installed a basketball hoop in our driveway so that my brother and I could toss a basketball around with the kids in the neighborhood, and that was the beginning of my love affair with the game.
Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972
Little did I know that just one year earlier, in 1972, Congress had enacted Title IX and gave me, and young women before me, more opportunities to play. Since Title IX, which bans sex discrimination and sexual harassment in federally subsidized educational programs, including athletics, opportunities in sports for girls have skyrocketed. In fact in 1972, when I was six, just one in twenty-seven girls participated in high school sports; today, about two in five participate and the number of women playing in college continues to increase.
1976 Ann Meyer Received The First Woman’s College Basketball Scholarship
Though women had been playing basketball for eight-four years, it wasn’t until 1976 that Ann Meyer received the first woman’s college basketball scholarship, leading the way for many other women like me. And because of Title IX there are now more athletic scholarships and opportunities for women to participate in sports and to learn from the game than ever before.
LIFE: Perspectives from Mt. Whitney
Life is all about perspective, isn’t it? And the experiences we share can be similar or different, depending on our perspective of life, and on what is happening within us. This summer I climbed Mt. Whitney with my daughter, her fiance’ and their friends. I wrote about the climb in, One Step at a Time, and Charli’s wrote about it at Charli’s Chronicles. Both stories are, all at once alike, and wildly different. Enjoy!
One Step at a Time
I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, but I didn’t care. I had felt numb inside since my dad’s death, and I figured a good hike might clear my mind. I had been given the opportunity to summit Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. A grand mountain. One built of formidable white granite spires that lift skyward to a place where headaches reign and each breath is slow and heavy. A mountain that has no glaciers or crevasses, but does have jagged peaks, and trails with dazzling carved out cliffs where a single misstep could be fatal. More than a hike, really, an experience of a lifetime.
The Whitney Portal trailhead is at 8,000 feet, the height when elevation sickness typically occurs. I would be hiking with my 28-year-old daughter and her friends. I was worried about slowing them down. The months before Mt. Whitney, I had increased my walking, and tried to sneak in a quick hike at Rattlesnake Ledge or Tiger Mountain here and there. But life had been busy, nine months early I had watched my dad die, and I was in the process of helping my mom get my childhood house ready to sell. I was now in what many call the Sandwich Years, the transition time of […]
Meet Sonya
Meet Sonya
Sonya Elliott’s memoir, Back on the Court: A Young Woman’s Triumphant Return to Life, Love & Basketball, is her story of finding hope in the wake of tragedy after she and her fiancé were hit by a train. She blogs about writing, basketball, and life and is currently working on a Young Adult Novel and a Non-Fiction Coaching book. Stories of her career as a fashion model are woven through her memoir, as both the Soloflex and Easy Spirit Shoes commercials were filmed during that time period, and this unique and intriguing business continues to be a part of her life.
Sonya played basketball at Eastern Washington University and was a starter for the Big Sky Champion team that went to the 1987 NCAA tournament. She coached for almost 25 years and was voted Seattle Times Coach of the Year, Seattle Officials Women’s Basketball Association Coach of the Year, and twice voted Metro League Coach of the Year. She loves the game of basketball and is thankful, not only for her husband and kids but for her ability to continue to get back on the court.
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PEN TO PAPER: Sonya’s Writing Tips
While I was writing this week, I came across a list of writing tips on my computer that I’d given out in a Write On! Workshop that my friend Jenny and I taught years ago. We had put the workshop together to inspire other writers. We shared what we knew about the process, ways to stay accountable to writing goals, and enjoyed an evening where writers gathered to learn and create. Magical.
The fact that I found the list, was a sign for me. A reminder of what I need to do to get my stories on the page. I haven’t written much lately, but after taking in my own advice, I’m eager to get to work. I even added to the list. PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE! Then I printed it and hung it by my desk. So, I figured that I would repost it (with the addition), […]
PEACELOVEBASKETBALL: Lesson Young Athletes Learn From Sports
I played basketball because I love the game. Little did I know that the lessons that I learned on the court would one day save my life. When I was twenty-four, I was nearly killed when the car I was riding in was hit by a train. Knowing how to work through challenges and set goals helped me to make it through the most difficult time in my life; to set goals, to commit to physical therapy, to handle the stress, to believe in myself and to go on living.
What you learn on the court, rink, diamond or whatever playing field you take when you participate in your sport, will be with you the rest of your life and shape the person who you become.
Belief In Yourself
You can define this as resilience or developing a never give up attitude. Your time playing sports will teach you to believe in […]
PEACELOVEBASKETBALL: Is Using Humor And Sarcasm Appropriate While Coaching?
A great way to have fun and bring a team together is by using humor. However, some coaches may think that they are using humor when in fact they are using sarcasm. Sarcasm can be hurtful to players and destructive to the team, so it is important to be aware of the difference.
Humor vs Sarcasm
Humor, the quality of being amusing or comical, can keep athletes laughing and help them enjoy a sport that at times might be difficult and intense. It can give players a break and make things lighter. When a coach uses positive humor, it is a great thing. Sarcasm on the other hand is the use of irony to mock or convey contempt and is often used to cut or give pain. Sarcasm is hard on players and teams. And unfortunately many coaches don’t understand the difference.
How many times have you heard a coach make fun of […]
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