What Elite Coaches Look For In Their Recruits

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What Elite Coaches Look For In Their Recruits

As the old saying goes, “you can’t coach height”, but, according to researchers at the University of South Australia, you can recruit and develop key skills beyond genetic gifts. That was their conclusion after interviewing 90 elite basketball coaches from around the world, including men and women from major college programs and professional teams from the NCAA, NBA, WNBA, and 10 other international leagues.

"Game statistics are commonly used to recruit basketball players but by watching players on the court, and how they behave outside of it, coaches can pick up a lot of non-physical factors that indicate whether a player is likely to make the grade,” said Michael Rogers, a PhD student in the university’s Allied Health and Human Performance program and lead author of the study.

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Building a Cognitive Fitness Framework for Athletes

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Building a Cognitive Fitness Framework for Athletes

With team training now resume for many leagues around the world, athletes are increasing their physical fitness levels back up to in-season form. Well-known data metrics, like heart rate, speed, and power, are being uploaded and summarized by performance trainers and scrutinized by coaches. But, mentally, where is the team at? Are they cognitively as sharp as they were two months ago? Are they thinking about family members or friends? How has this new pattern of living affected their brain?

Of course, team psychologists will have discussions with players, when needed, to address any concerns that they bring forward. Yet, it would benefit players and the team if there was a standardized framework for assessing their overall readiness to endure the battle on the field, in other words, their cognitive fitness. On top of physical capabilities, the variables of anticipation, awareness, perception and decision-making often determine the outcome of a game.

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The Playmaker's Advantage - Introduction

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The Playmaker's Advantage - Introduction

Here is an excerpt from the introduction to our new book, The Playmaker's Advantage, available now online or at your favorite local bookstore.

© 2018 by Leonard Zaichkowsky and Daniel Peterson

How hard could it be? I was an adult, a dad no less, with a reasonable understanding of the game despite never having played soccer. They were a pack of nine-year-olds, veterans of at least two to three seasons of battle on fields with reduced dimensions and shrunken goals. Besides the color of their jerseys and shoes, they were open to nearly any of my suggestions as to our strategy, tactics, drills, and motivations to get the Saturday morning win and the red Gatorade that would follow. 

As a rookie volunteer coach, I researched and debated the best formation, attacking style, and starting lineups. Just feed my plans and knowledge into their curious heads, and we would surely hoist seven-inch-tall plastic trophies at the end of the season. Armed with a clipboard detailing each drill with its allotted time, I blew the whistle to start my first team practice.

An hour and a half later I realized that young brains vary from adult brains on many levels. So many concepts, so many skills, and so many rules were like foreign language lessons to my future superstars. Explaining to one of them that “you were in an offside position when the ball was kicked” only resulted in a blank stare. My coaching advice to another that “we should not all chase the ball” was similar to saying, “Don’t chase the man handing out free ice cream.” 

Putting down my clipboard, I knew the practice had to be redesigned on the fly. I was trying to teach them calculus before they had mastered addition and subtraction. Despite the seemingly logical explanations and directions from me, they kept making the same mistakes. The mental workload was evident in real time on their faces as they struggled to transition from instructions while standing still to decision-making in motion.

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