Building and Organizing your program and culture by Darren Douglas
One of the biggest buzzwords in basketball from the middle school level all the way up to the NBA is “culture”. Without a “culture” that befits what the head of the program believes in and can foster in every member of their program, you have floundering, inconsistent teams that does not produce successful players.
While culture is a vital component of successful programs on every level, there is no concrete way to build the culture that most desire. Some have components of their culture simply because it was passed down and cultivated through coaches they played for in their career, some coaches look at successful programs and pick aspects to implement in their own.
While I claim to be no expert on culture, I have been blessed to be around programs with great culture for almost my whole coaching and playing career and I would like to share some of my ideas on the essentials for building and maintains a successful culture in your program.
When deciding what the vital essentials for your program, try to break it up into sections and have a plan for every section. An example would be.
Offseason
Preseason
Season
Post-Season
Feeder System Cultivation
In your offseason, have a plan for how players will improve, how you will monitor academics, and to view what style changes to play will be needed. If changes are needed, make your offseason drills and workouts reflect the changes you want to make.
During your preseason, develop how you will structure your tryouts, talent evaluation methods, and all other things to prepare for the grind of the season.
During the season, have a goal for wins, and have a plan in place to help attain those goals. Another big thing is to be realistic with these goals and to understand what will constitute a good season.
In the postseason, you want to review your season and what can be done to improve and what worked, you will also evaluate coaches as well as players.
Lastly there should be a plan to cultivate the feeder system. There are many different ways to achieve this, but the culture set forth should be taught as early as possible in your feeder system.
Attached is a PowerPoint detailing all of my thoughts on running a program. I hope it is useful to someone and thanks for reading!
Darren Douglas
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I’ve coached at the High School level (Grovetown H.S. Grovetown, GA) and AAU level for 8 years. I believe in hard work and growing as a coach. I am looking forward to sharing and learning as much as I can.
“Every one of the kids you coach is someday going to look you in the eye as an adult. And he is going to remember something you gave to him. Make sure it is
something positive.”- Roy Williams
Click on the link below to download the Building and Organizing your program and culture:
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