Customer Reviews

The Basketball Coach's Bible: A Comprehensive and Systematic Guide to Coaching (Nitty Gritty Basketball Series)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm always looking for books that will help me with the teaching aspect of coaching (which also happens to be the most important). The author has the right idea of focusing on breaking things down to the fundamentals, but does only a so-so job of explaining them. The coverage is inconsistent; sometimes explanations are very clear, other times you're left to fill in blanks. The same is true of information provided on why certain fundamentals are important and why the methodology offered is the correct approach.

The author does do a good job of explaining the order in which skills should be taught, and offers good insight into common misconceptions.

Drills is where this book really fails to deliver. Every coach is always looking for drills that are effective, straight-forwarded, and keep the players interested enough to actually learn something. The author does offer some useful drills, but the a large number focus on one minute skill and propose approaches about as exciting as watching grass grow. Could you really keep a team of 10 year olds interested in 10 minutes of proper wrist movement?

If you have some experience coaching, you can probably use this book to pull together aspects of different drills to create effective and fun drills for your players. But if you're new to coaching, don't let this be your "Bible" on how to run practices.

A final note, the illustrations and diagrams are very low quality. The stick-figure cartoons make the book look amateurish and provide no value.

As a coach of a 5th and 6th grade boys basketball team I found this book a tremendous teaching tool this season. Most of the children I coach have had little or no formal teaching in basketball previous to me. This books true value comes from being geared towards all skill levels. A coach at my level, straight through coaches of High school varsity teams, can find drills to introduce to their players.

Every year I've bought a new book on drills because I've never been completly happy with the previous years' purchase. I'm happy to say that next year, and for many more to come, I won't have to buy another.

As a youth basketball coach, I love this book...it gives practice drills, philosophies, plays, and strategies to make your players learn the fundamentals of the game...I highly recommend this book to any coach!

The book has a tremendous amount of positive basketball knowledge. Many coaches get away from fundamentals and this book goes into detail on the benefits of breaking everything down to the bear essentials. A great compliment to this book is the video "48 Championship Basketball Drills" which has some outstanding creative shooting drills. Sid Goldstein should be hailed as "El Sid" on a good effort and worthy teaching tool.

This is an outstanding fundamentals guide that I use for my girls youth team, age 12. I found this book in a bookstore during a visit in Chicago. Now I try to convince my coach partners to buy this book as well.

I used this book for reference in coaching an eighth grade girls basketball team. The Book completely covers all of the fundemental skills of basketball in well organized and detailed chapters. The author suggests a practice format which stresses basics. I believe the book is particularly usefull for coaches of relatively young players. It does not stress complex plays or defenses. I was disappointed with the poor illustrations. Excellent text on instructions for a skill or practice drill make reference to overly simplistic stick figure drawings. More skillfully drawn illustrations would greatly improve the book.

As a youth (parent) coach, few of us are ever taught "how" to coach. I watched my kids participate as 8 or 9 yr. olds and they struggled with incompetent direction from those willing to "volunteer." I was reluctant to step up but felt that I had to help. As I searched for resources, I came across this book at the library & immediately knew that I had to have my own copy. I have used it virtually every week to create intense learning sessions at every practice.
This book allows any reasonable person to do a pretty good job of teaching skills that translate to consistent play. I have been complimented countless times by refs & other coaches on the well rounded play of my club-type, youth teams. I have taken two groups of very average kids to our state "invitational" tournament 3 yrs in a row and played with the best in the state. And we didn't have any stand-out athletes but we consistently got points & higher than average achievement from every kid in my program.
As a coach, I liked the ability to look up specific aspects that we struggled with and progressively challenged the kids to higher skill levels in very specific areas (passing, ball fakes, pressure shooting etc). While the kids often want to scrimmage...it doesn't promote "better skills" and I may have given in to their constant requests to just "play" if it weren't for the knowledge obtained in this book whereby practice is for learning; games are for testing.
I will be eternally grateful to the author for helping me make the most of some of the most incredible experiences; the opportunity to share the life-skills of competing through basketball with my kids. I have two kids that are now competing very well in basketball (high school)and in life. I also feel like the luckiest person alive to be able to inspire my kids (& their friends) as a highly knowledgable and well respected coach that I couldn't have done without this book.
Needless to say, I highly recommend it to even seasoned basketball people that truly want to learn how to "teach" skills to kids.

I have read many 'how to' basketball books, all disappointing. I finally found this one and find it 100% effective. I wish my high school coaches had read this book and taught the techniques when I played. Today I play Senior Basketball and find I still have much to learn. This book covers it all. I read a little at a time and try to make its principles habit. This book is for players and coaches of all ages. Study it well.

It describes the basics of basketball but with few exercises for each subject...

It's a good book for beginner coaches; want to have a very good knowledge of basketball fundamentals. But this is not a book of basketball drills.

A gift for my son who is a high school basketball coach. He has found the book very helpful. Good choice.