Over the past couple of months I've been devoting my time coaching kids basketball. These kids were in Kindergarten through Second grade with a few exceptions on a handful of kids. At first I had struggled to coach the kids while the majority of them where friends and didn't want to play basketball. As time progressed I've came out of my shell and was more vocal with the kids as I had to use my voice to get their attention and tell them information on practice, plays, and games. It was hard but I had great colleagues besides my mentor Anthony, I had other coaches to help me along the way to help me if couldn't handle all the kids at once. At times I was able to make my own plays for the kids to run in their practices and games. While the plays didn't really work in the practices, they eventually ran the right play in games when it mattered the most.
Coaching was something that was totally new to me and I had never seen what it is like on that side of the sport so I was kind of nervous in the beginning. During the clinic stage is where i was able to learn as I go because all I really did was teach the kids the basic fundamentals of the game of basketball. This gave me lots of confidence because I wasn't thrown into a game situation where I'd get nervous. Being that I had to give feedback to the parents about their kids progress I feel as though that I can now talk to any person with confidence rather than being shy and nervous. Compared to the first practice when I was nervous and didn't talk as loud, now i can talk louder and not be shy about it. Intellectually I was able to form a bond with the kids as most the kids referred to me as coach Chris, most liked the NBA so when we would split up into groups I would talk about the NBA with the kids. Most of them like the Heat and Thunder, while only a few liked the Warriors.
With Success comes failure and there was a few times where I had challenges in my project. During the clinics the kids didn't want to listen to me being that I looked to be younger than all the other coaches. But after the first class the kids took me serious after I started to relate the drill to those run in the NBA. Another challenge that I faced was outside of my coaching classes and that was night school at Baden. I had to make up 10 credits which meant I had to complete 2 books before May 9th. The nights I would've been at school I went to go meet with my mentor instead, after having the will and courage i was able to finish both before there respective deadlines. The finals major challenge I faced was in the class stage where I had kids in my 4:30 class that required special attention due to an illness, or just not interested in the sport at all. This wasn't as hard to overcome as I had 3 other coaches that would all watch over these kids while my mentor led the practices and games as normal.
All in all, I learned a lot about coaching in the past couple of months. I've always seen sports from the athletes point of view and now I can say I've been a coach. At first the kids kind of didn't want to listen to me but as time went on they trusted me and thought I was a "cool" coach. There were struggles but thanks to my mentor and fellow coaches they were able to guide me when there were struggles. This is something that I can see me doing part time in the future as my mentor told me that there is a possibility of me getting a job to coach the basketball classes. Overall I'd have to say that the capstone project seemed scary, but these last couple of months made it seem interesting and fun and I have memories that I will remember for the rest of my life.
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