Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball: Only the Essential Drills, Practice Plans, Plays, and Coaching Tips! [Paperback]

Keith Miniscalco (Author), Greg Kot (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 20, 2008

You volunteered to coach the basketball team, but are you really ready? How will you teach the fundamental skills, run effective practices, and harness the energy of your young team? Fear not: Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball has the answers.

In Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball, longtime coaches Keith Miniscalco and Greg Kot share their experience and provide advice you can rely on from first practice to final shot. From evaluating players' skills and establishing realistic goals to in-game coaching tips, it's all here—the drills, the plays, the fun.

Develop your team's dribbling, passing, shooting, and rebounding skills with the Survival Guide's collection of the game's best youth drills. For plays and sets that young teams can actually run, flip to the Survival Guide's offensive and defensive playbook. And to get the most out of every practice, follow the ready-to-use practice plans.

Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball has everything you need for a rewarding and productive season.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Keith and Greg are to be congratulated for providing a simplified book of basketball skills, drills, techniques, and plays for youth basketball. With this survival guide, your season will be more productive and enjoyable for you and your players."

Dick Baumgartner
Director of Dick Baumgartner's Shooting Camp

"Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball is a wonderful book that provides insight, concepts, humor, and truth--which have all been tested. It is a must-read."

Tanya Johnson
Head Coach of Loyola Academy's Varsity Basketball

“Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball is a crash course in how to teach the basic technical skills of basketball. It's a must-have for introducing young players to baseline basketball Xs and Os.”

Amy Tocco
Executive Director of the American Sport Education Program

From the Publisher

"Keith and Greg are to be congratulated for providing a simplified book of basketball skills, drills, techniques, and plays for youth basketball. With this survival guide, your season will be more productive and enjoyable for you and your players."

Dick Baumgartner
Director of Dick Baumgartner's Shooting Camp

"Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball is a wonderful book that provides insight, concepts, humor, and truth that have all been tested. It is a must-read."

Tanya Johnson
Loyola Academy Varsity Basketball Head Coach

"Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball is a crash course in how to teach the basic technical skills of basketball. It's a must-have for introducing young players to baseline basketball Xs and Os."

Amy Tocco
Executive Director of the American Sport Education Program

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Human Kinetics; 1 edition (August 20, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0736073833
• ISBN-13: 978-0736073837
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,148 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Basketball > Coaching
  • #2 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Coaching > Children's Sports

More About the Author

With 19 years of youth basketball coaching experience and 8 years of coaching high school, Coach Keith Miniscalco knows how to develop youth players to excel at all levels. He has coached both boys and girls in several acclaimed Chicago park district and youth school leagues, including Our Lady of Lourdes and Queen of All Saints grade schools, Loyola Academy High School, and his own highly respected Over the Edge youth basketball travel program. He cofounded and currently runs Over the Edge in Chicago. The program's goal is to prepare youth-level players for high school competition. It has seen great success and has proven to be extremely effective for young athletes who wish to continue with competitive basketball. In 2008 Coach Miniscalco was named the boy's varsity coach at Northside College Preparatory in Chicago. He lives in Chicago.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Survival Guide Review, August 28, 2008

By 

Mark R. Muench (Park Ridge, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball: Only the Essential Drills, Practice Plans, Plays, and Coaching Tips! (Paperback)

As a parent who has a couple of kids playing youth and high school basketball, I have found the Survival Guide for Youth Basketball both a quick and informative read on the fundamentals for coaching kids. It is a great source of information and philosophy that coaches and prospective coaches can/should use to help with the coaching of young players.

One of the best qualities of this book is its ability to explain the rational of the various drills and suggested practice routines. Coaches can use these to help explain to young players (and their parents) the necessity of learning the fundamentals before going on to the more advanced aspects of the game. This is especially useful as most young players want to focus on their scoring and shooting, at the expense of good ball handling and defensive skills.

The book has numerous drills, practice routines, and schedules that can be easily understood and incorporated by both novice and experienced youth basketball coaches. The diagrams also really help illustrate the points that the authors are trying to make.

Some of the other neat aspects about the book include:

* The "Coach's Clipboard", which summarizes and helps to reinforce the key points of each chapter in the book

* The "Drill Finder" matrix, which allows the coach to easily find the specific drill(s) needed to help develop specific basketball skills

* Offensive and defensive plays and sets that can be used and understood by beginning players

The single best attribute of this book is that it provides a proven roadmap to all those parents who are getting ready to jump into a coaching role. It is a quick an informative read, and will be used by coaches as their primary reference guide for instructing young kids.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written, easy to understand and effective., October 24, 2008

By 

Brian E. Coll (Arlington,VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball: Only the Essential Drills, Practice Plans, Plays, and Coaching Tips! (Paperback)

I highly recommend The Survival Guide to Coaching Youth Basketball to new and experienced youth (grade 3-8) basketball coaches trying to get ready for the upcoming season. As a youth basketball coach for the past six years I always find the two weeks before the season to be the most stressful time of the year.

As most of us juggle work, family and coaching we can feel overwhelmed and unorganized for the upcoming season. The Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball is the first book I have read that gets right to the point - how do I get my young kids ready for the basketball season quickly and effectively?

If you are a new coach with little personal playing experience or a veteran coach looking for a way to recapture that teaching 'magic' this book is worth reading. Greg Kot and Keith Miniscalco have written their book in an easy to understand and well organized manner. They do not get overly technical nor do they insult your basketball intelligence.

Buy the book, take a few hours on a Sunday (after football of course) with notepad and pen and you will be better prepared for the season.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for parents and coaches!, February 5, 2009

By 

basketball mom - See all my reviews

This review is from: Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball: Only the Essential Drills, Practice Plans, Plays, and Coaching Tips! (Paperback)

We have two boys that are playing basketball (grades 7 and 3)and this book really helped us understand the basic skills. Both offensive and defensive skills are shown clearly. If you are a parent thinking about coaching youth basketball this is the book for you! If you are just a parent that wants to understand grade school basketball this is the book for you too! After getting this book we now know what is happening on the court when our boys play, and it makes the game so much more enjoyable. The coaches like that we understand the game better and are not "coaching" from the bleachers too! Buy this book if you are at all interested in youth basketball...you will not be sorry that you did.