Generating Interest in Your Basketball Feeder Program

Written by Coach Peterman

I have coached at the NCAA Division 2 (Southwestern Oklahoma State University), NAIA (USAO), and JUCO Levels (Blinn College and Carl Albert State College) as well as high school. I just felt that fellow coaches especially young coaches need to constantly work on their “game”. Just like the basketball players that we coach. We as coaches need to improve ourselves. That is my story and why I do this blog.

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September 4, 2014

Generating Interest in Your Basketball Feeder Program

In my program, we place a great emphasis on skill development in the younger grades and generating interest in basketball. We want our K-6 players to learn to love the game in a positive environment. We are a small school district, but last year we had over 85 boys participate in basketball in grades K-6. This gives us a great pool of players to develop and establishes basketball as a “cool” thing to do within our district. I attribute much of this success to several things that we do to create excitement in our youth program.

• Player of the Week: After each week of practice or open gym, we award one player a Player of the Week jersey. While this may sound trivial, to young kids it is a huge honor. The player keeps the jersey until the next practice, which means that he can wear it to show off at school. We take each player’s picture in the jersey as well. Earning Player of the Week serves as some extra motivation to work hard, display leadership, and improve skills.

• Social Media: We use social media as a communication tool with parents, but also as a way to show off our players’ accomplishments with the community. Every Player of the Week picture is posted on our program’s Facebook page. Parents love that their children are being recognized and other community members see that we are dedicated to our basketball feeder program.

• Small-Sided Games: For players to remain interested in basketball, our practices must be fun. We try to put players in competitive situations at an early age. While I am opposed to kindergarten and first graders playing 5 on 5 full court games, we make practices game-like by incorporating 1 on 1, 2 on 1, and 2 on 2 games. The games progress in difficulty as players get older and more skilled. This keeps practice fun and helps skills translate to game situations.

• Halftime Games: Our older players look forward to playing an intrasquad scrimmage at halftime of a varsity game. The 5th and 6th graders play a 5 on 5 scrimmage, while the 3rd and 4th graders give a skills demonstration at a different game. This excites our players, enhances the crowd at the varsity game, and shows the community the talents of our kids.

• Program Picture: Each year, we take a picture of our entire K-12 program together. Selling these photos provides a little fundraising money, but we do it mostly to create a sense of unity in the basketball feeder program. The kids love posing for the photo with our varsity players.

• Year-Round Open Gyms: We want our players to understand that, if they are willing to practice, they will always have a coach available to work with them. We never want to burn out our young players with 4-5 practices a week during any part of the year. To make up for this, however, we offer out-of-season open gyms once or twice a week. This allows interested players to continue improving throughout the year. The open gyms are not mandatory and players are encouraged to play other sports out of season as well. Many players take advantage of the opportunity to practice in the off-season, and it has really helped our basketball feeeder program.

• Positive Relationships: We want players to know that we appreciate their contribution to the program and that we care about them on and off the court. After each season, I write and mail a personal letter to each player thanking him for participating. The letters are always positive, but they may also make suggestions for skills to practice. Many parents have told me their children love receiving these letters. I also send school postcards to any of our K-6 players who earn Student of the Month. This shows that we care about their academic performance as well. I am a big believer that providing tangible forms of praise helps to create a positive relationship with each player.

• Postseason Banquet: I believe that each season should end on a positive note. One way of doing this is by having a postseason banquet for each level of our feeder system. We don’t do anything fancy (in the school cafeteria, everyone brings a cover dish), but a banquet gives me a chance to say something nice about each player and communicate upcoming playing opportunities to parents.

I hope that you can take a few of these suggestions to improve your youth program participation. I would love to hear what other coaches do to create a successful feeder system.

Coach Aaron Blatch is entering his 9th season as assistant coach at his alma mater, Southern Local High School in Salineville, OH. Coach Blatch has coached junior high and junior varsity teams, and runs the school’s K-6 program. During his tenure, the Indians have achieved the three best seasons in school history, and his youth program has allowed players to develop their skills throughout the year beginning in kindergarten.