Opportunities Around The World

I want to know please about the way to learn coaching basketball (academies, universities, or any other way)? In my country, Israel, there are 2 places maybe you can tell me about more over the world or about other ways?

Dan Wiznizer, Israel

Dan,

I think how coaches learn the trade varies considerably depending upon where you live. In the United States, Canada, etc most schools have organized and funded basketball teams which are a good training ground for young coaches. Many of the coaches are teachers so that they can live from this salary and yet have considerable control over the coaching and teaching environment of school teams. In this system, "mentorship" is the the most common way of learning how to coach basketball. I am a believer in this system where older more experienced coaches take younger coaches as "apprentices" for a number of years. They give them small amounts of responsibility and as their skills to peform these tasks improve they are given greater responsibility for coaching and decision making. Almost every major college or professional coach I know in the States have had one or more "trained" mentors during their growth as a coach.

In International or club basketball the circumstances are much different. Few clubs have the money to have more than one or two fully paid coaches in their club and almost none have "assistant coaching positions". This essentially creates a vaccum for "mentoring" and most coaches must learn on their own, through a countries basketball federation licensing program, or through special coaching acadamies. To be honest my experience in Europe demonstrated to me that it is tremendously difficult to come up through the grass routes in this manner for younger coaches. The best coaches Internationally are coming from former professional players who's education has come over a ten or fifteen year hand's on playing experience at the top levels of the game. This is more like what we are seeing now at the NBA level, where more and more of the NBA coaches are ex-players.

If I could influence how coaches are trained I would be all for the "mentoring system" because you are forced as a young coach to pay your dues, can learn decision making and responsiblity one step at a time without having your head roll when your team isn't immediately successful. We are also seeing more and more young people here in the states taking Basketball Coaching classes, which I think can help some in terms of learning overall basketball concepts and organizational skills, however I believe sports is a unique training ground and hands on experience with "real life" team situations is the best teacher.

I believe the best teacher is to get to know some of the best coaches, interact with them when possible, and study and learn from what they do well. Licensing programs I believe are important especially for youth coaches, but I have seen too many coaches with "A" licenses who lack significant skills to be called a "professional coach". Getting a drivers license doesn't necessarily make you a good or safe driver.

I am not familiar personally with a specific coaching academy in Europe that you might attend although I have heard of their existance. I would look to attend license clinics in your area, possibly study at a university in the are of sports sciences (especially in the are of Motor Behavior...the science of teaching sports skills), find successful coaches willing to share with you in your area who can "pseudo" mentor you from time to time if not on a daily basis, attend high level camps such as your coutries federation all-star camps, and constantly be collecting notes, and ideas. Finally, you must simply get "hands on", meaning you must be coaching a team each year at the level or near the level you aspire to as a coach. If you aspire to the "professional level" spending 10 years coaching youth boys may teach you a lot, but you will know little about the Pro game. You can move up, but you must challenge yourself to learn the game to the level that you set your coaching goals. Then you must be realistic about your ability and the experience you personally have to attain this level.

Many youth coaches write me saying they aspire to be professional coaches but many have hardly even played high school basketball, let alone college. I'm not saying it it is impossible, just improbable.

Thanks for Asking the Coach