Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This is one of the first coaching books I read. I only have 5 or 6 total. This book is fantastic and is the short cut for coaches that don't have time to read a ton.

Great drills, well laid out, the right attitude we all should have as coaches, and good tactical strategies.

Fantastic book full of great information that can come in handy with the younger kids. Gave me lots of great ideas and ways to work with the younger team mates.

I bought this as a gift for my husband and after looking at it, I didn't think it was very good at all. I know it is called "Survival Guide for Coaching Youth Basketball" but I assumed when buying it that it would be targeted towards middle school or high school aged kids. It seems more for young elementary school aged kids. I was really disappointed. I think it would be good if he were couching elementary school aged kids but this isn't going to be helpful.

I have a few books on coaching youth basketball and this is a very good beginner's reference. It covers fundamentals, drills, practice and game planning but for early youth basketball: k-6th or 7th grade. Once you get beyond that, you're going to need more advanced drills and plays, but this is still a good reference as fundamentals should be a part of every team's practice routines.

I wanted a book to help me remember some drills from my playing days. I've never coached BB, so I needed a reference boo. This book does those things! This book is very well organized. There is a very good table in the front of the book that lists all of the drills that are in the book. It states what each drill focuses on(Passing, Shooting etc..), difficulty level of the drill(3 of them) and of course the page. This makes it very easy to find drills for a specific skill set.
If you have never coached kids before, this book also gives some advice on what to expect when coaching younger kids that are NOT related to sports(like bathroom breaks, keeping kids focused etc..) I have coached younger kids in other sports, so I skiped this section.
The graphs and diagrams of the drills are very easy to understand. They do a step by step approach and even give you some suggestions on how to increase the difficulty level of the drill.
I am glad I bought it.

I've been playing basketball all my life and love the sport but coaching is completely different. Knowing what to do and knowing what to teach are two different things. This book was easy to read and is a great tool to get started with. It explains the fundamentals that the kids need to know and gives a reasonable amount of drills to reinforce those skills. I use something from it in every practice.

Please read the title, it tells you everything you need to know.
"Coaching Youth Basketball" - This book is about the basic fundamentals to teach to new, inexperienced or even older kids who have been poorly coached. It's an introduction to dribbling, passing, shooting, offense, and defense. They also touch on in-bound plays and beating a press.
"Only the Essential Drills, Practice Plans, Plays, and Coaching Tips" - This is a good thing, it's easy to read, understand and teach. It's a good starting point, as you and your team advance you will need more drills, plays, etc.

I am coaching for the first time and this book covers all the basics across the board. It includes drills for fundamentals, offenses, and defenses.

The only thing keeping it from 5 stars is that it does not cover implementing a full court press (it does cover breaking one) and it doesn't illustrate enough of the ways you can score out of the offenses it provides you. Instead if focuses on ball movement and that's where it ends.