The beginning of a season is usually full of excitement and anticipation with the promise of a fresh start as a coach. Leading up to the first day of gym time, coaches have a vision of scoring points at will and holding teams to at bay with stifling defense.
Of course, in order to realize those visions, you need to be prepared 
as soon as you get the gym. You need to have a plan to quickly evaluate the skills in the gym. Although this is obvious when you need to make cuts but it’s also true when just need to get a baseline for each player. Your assessment is going to set the tone the rest of the season for you and the whole team.
Once you get the roster from registration , you quickly do a count to see if the numbers will work. Rarely, do you get the idilic roster where you:
- know every name
- know their skills
- don’t have to make cuts
- have all the skills you need
Here are two things you must have before your first day of try-outs.
Pre-registration
In order for you to have a fair and effective evaluation that doesn’t impact your early season registration. A pre-registration process will expedite the check-in and planning you can do for the first session.
This will also give you a contact point for parent to communicate expectations for participation like doctors physicals, liability forms, eligibility verification, parent contact information and other valuable information you will need for any given play in the event of a medical emergency or just changes in schedule.
Keep in mind you still need to verify attendance on the first day. Confirm each attendee has completed all the paper work. Moreover, it will allow you to see who is missing on the first day and allow you to find out where the missing players are from a reliable source.
It is entirely possible that you may be missing your best player because of season overlap. They may have their last practice or game of the year. I suggest you accommodate those players just as you would expect them to be at your last practice of the season instead of try-outs for the next sport. Don’t put the parents or the player in a defensive posture so quickly. Your success as a youth coach is more dependent on relationships than strict adherence to rules.
Plan for the numbers
An effective pre-registration process will allow you plan for the volume (or lack thereof) of players the first day. The number of players you will always impact your practice plan and this is no exception.
Make sure you have a schedule that allows you and your assistants to get a good look every player. This will be very important to inform each practice plan from this point forward. It will be key to getting feedback from your assistants and make sure you are all on the same page. Although it may ultimately your decision, you need to rely on your whole coaching staff to make effective decisions.
Make sure you have drills that are appropriate for the numbers of players you have. You will have to factor in idle time, available hoops and available balls. Too much standing around will frustrate even the most attentive players. You want to give everyone as many opportunities to succeed as possible.
The best approach to limiting idle time is creating stations around the gym. You can create a station at each basket responsible for one drill, divide the players evenly and rotate every 2-3 minutes. You can even create a ‘hydration’ station to allow them to get their water without stopping the whole practice. Depending on the facility, you can also add addition stations in corners or center court to handle larger numbers. This approach works really well during the evaluation period because it will highlight the leaders from the followers and tell you who will be easy or difficult to coach the rest of the season.
Finally, when planning for the numbers, make sure you have drills that are a good blend of all the skills you need to assess. You should not be focused on too many dribbling drills but rather drills that show multiple skills in game situations. Again you need to create plenty of opportunities for the players to highlight abilities in all parts of their game.
I suggest you take the time to plan for the first day the best you can but be prepared to adjust. Look for my next post describing the only three things you need to do on the first day of tryouts.
Please let me know what areas of concern or tips you need as a volunteer coach by filling out the form below. I will reply back with some advice.