November 6th, 2012 | Uncategorized
An empty gym: The athletes sanctuary.
This past weekend I helped out at the Masters Tournament held here at NUIG. My coach was organizing it and needed help with the tables so I hung around all weekend to help out and I must say I really enjoyed it. There were a lot of familiar faces and a number of them were kids from the club I coach at (Titans). Great atmosphere, but the best part was after
The most interesting part was a player I’ve been coaching followed my lead. It started off by helping me rebound my shots, and turned into a 1 on 1 coaching session. This player has particular trouble making left handed layups and by the end of the night that player’s footwork was finally corrected. Everybody here who has trouble with layups tend to jump off the wrong leg so it was very frustrating in the beginning. Even minor instructions such as ‘step right, left, right and jump’ were actually a challenge. Patience is the biggest key here for me. As for the player, Repitition. I have a new appreciation for coaches who primarily work with kids and teach fundamentals. I’ve been so competitive my whole life I expect other players with the same love to be putting in the work like I did on my own, but this is completely different here. Some of these kids were never taught 1 on 1 the correct way, or dont have a hoop or even a ball to practice with at home on their own. Seeing a kid improve right infront of you is a great feeling. I never thought something as simple as a proper layup (from a player who has been playing for a number of years already) would feel like a major break through.
