A Pen And A Napkin

Just a few updates for the coming week or two for "A Pen And A Napkin", including this week's interview pod, working Snow Valley, the Nebraska Coaches Association clinics and APAAN "University"

You can run all the plays you want, but if you don't finish the shot at the end of it, it doesn't matter. In order to become a great shooter, you have to have a routine that is practical and well-rounded, but also active and will get your players ready for practice. In this Foundation Friday, we go through our "33 Shot" Warmup; feel free to tweak to fit your program or your philosophy.

University of Illinois-Chicago MBB HC Luke Yaklich comes on the pod to discuss his career, starting as a high school coach before moving on to college ball. We also discuss the influence of Dan Muller, John Beilein, and Shaka Smart, as well as practice planning and the importance of preparation. Great conversation with one of America's best coaches!

Every coach, every off-season, looks at their schedule and their team, and it's human nature to try to anticipate what your record is going to be the next season. However, we often look at things from the perspective of "everything's going to go right" perspective instead of a realistic, analytical perspective. Here's a formula that I've used that gives you a pretty accurate predictor of where you...

Here's our first week of APAAN "University"; let's get the party started!! As a bonus to everyone who has followed "A Pen And A Napkin", we're going to open up our first week, "Communication with Your Players", to ANYONE who wants to jump on for free! Here's a quick preview of the week!

We're excited to have on our first international coach, Brent Tipton, the U17 Men's BBall Coach from Guam! In this episode, Coach tells us about his journey, international coaches we should be studying, fundamental skill development, attacking pick and roll concepts and the two sided fast break. Alot of good information; enjoy!!

We're not coaching an Xbox game, we're coaching human beings, and sometimes the hardest part of coaching is the personalities that you have on your team. You're going to have players that are not content with their role, so how do you identify these players early, what are the warning signs and how do you handle those situations as quickly as possible? Here's some things to look for and some strat...

A quick three minute pod on updates for this week, plus discussing updates to our "A Pen And A Napkin" University program!

We, as coaches, want to run great practices and workouts at all times. However, it is inevitable that we're going to have a bad practice at multiple points throughout our season. The key to this inevitability is bouncing back as quickly as possible and not allowing one bad practice to become two or three bad practices. In this week's "Foundation Friday", we take a look at strategies to minimize ou...

In our last pod on Don Yaeger's "Great Teams", we take a look at the last pillar of what makes a "Great Team"; Mutual Direction. Getting your teams to move in the same direction is the greatest achievement of any coach or organization, and Yaeger gives us a lot to think about when it comes to what it takes and what we can do to get our team unified and moving together as one!

This week's pod is a "Quick Hitter" with three terrific guests! Chris Fore, the President of the California Coaches Association, comes on the pod to discuss the rights of coaches and what coaches should look for in their jobs. Jeff Morris, a retired girls hoops coach from Nebraska, chats about his career, while Casey Hall jumps on to discuss his active 2-3 zone and how to create chaos while protec...

Cracking zone defenses can sometimes be easier said than done. In this week's "Foundation Friday", we talk about attacking zone defenses, concepts and ideas for getting open shots, fundamentals vs. a zone, and one of our favorite breakdown drills for attacking a zone.

In our third part of our four part series on Don Yaeger's "Great Teams", we dive into "Activating Efficiency". In this pillar, Yaeger addresses conflict resolution and how to work through friction, mentoring, leadership transitions and how to run an effective meeting. As this book moves along, there's more and more information that apply to coaching your teams on a daily basis; take this informati...

Holy crap . . . I designed a website! Today we're launching apenandanapkin.com, which opens up access to sign up for "A Pen And A Napkin University", your online coaching course where you can "hone your craft" to help you become the most complete coach that you can be! Details for both are in the pod, so enjoy and get fired up to get better today!!

In this week's podcast, we dive in with Dexter Goodner, the GBB HC from Ord (NE). In our outside discussion, we go through his career, bouncing back from a heart-breaking loss, the influence of Kansas basketball on his career, taking a stand on social issues, weightlifting, music in practice and summer workouts. Alot of great conversation and fun interaction!

We're kicking into high gear with our summer camps and leagues, and it's easy to get sucked into things like focusing on winning and losing. Although you never turn down a win, you need to focus on a multitude of things to ensure that your program grows in the direction where you are using. your summer activities to build towards the most important season; the winter. Enjoy!

In Part II of this 4-part Book Club series, we take a look at Pillar II of Don Yaeger's "Great Teams", which is Effective Management. When we look at our teams, we have to look at them from the perspective of their "boss", and the strategies and leadership styles it takes to get our players to "go to work" every day, build a great and deep staff and develop camaraderie!

A terrific episode on our latest podcast with Nate Sanderson, the new GBB HC at Mount Vernon (IA). In this episode, we discuss rebuilding programs, winning state championships, bouncing back from getting asked to resign, basketball analytics, practice design, communicating with your players and . . . wiffle ball!!!!! TERRIFIC chat; you're going to draw alot from this one!!

One of the key components of a high school program is running an effective elementary level camp in the summer to spark interest in your program. In this "Foundation Friday" podcast, we talk about suggestions that will make your camp better and to help run it smoother while also giving your campers a great experience!

In Don Yaeger's "Great Teams", we break down the essential qualities that a "Great Team" should possess to be considered great. These 16 qualities, broken down into four pillars, will help you figure out what you should be looking for to identify and/or build a great team, whether that is in sports or business. Over the next four weeks, we'll take a look at each pillar, starting with Pillar I, fin...

Most of our coaching careers are focused on the next job, but we often forget about what we should and should not be doing leaving our last job. Although I"m sure that I've made my fair share of mistakes leaving my current job, here are some thoughts and advice on what you should and should not do as you leave one job behind and transition into the next one.

This week's interview pod features Jason Isaacson, the head boys basketball coach at Council Bluffs (IA) Abraham Lincoln. In this pod, we discuss the keys to turning around his alma mater, developing players in the off-season, the recruitment process of a Power 5 player, practice set up, defensive philosophy and much more! Alot of great stuff to learn from this pod!!

Have you ever wondered what your impact on your former players was? Have you ever gotten a chance to sit down and ask about your players experience with them after there's been some time to reflect on it? Have you ever wanted to ask your former players what you did well and what you didn't do so well? This week, three of my former players (Laura (Speer) Dischler, Tara Cannon and Caley Barker) sit...

As coaches, we're always trying to "win on the margins", and here's another area in which you can help your team win; the timeout game. In this pod, we discuss timeout philosophy, organization, how to "steal" timeouts and what you should be teaching your team about your timeout philosophy.

If you couldn't make it to our coaches clinic on May 1st . . . no problem!! We taped every on court presentation, and they are now available to you at the VERY affordable price of $10 per video, or $50 for the entire collection! Over 4 hours of coaching information from some of the best in the midwest, with NO repeats when it comes to concepts and drills taught! It is truly a complete library that...