YOUTH BASKETBALL

Ok well it’s a couple of hours since I saw ESPN news broadcast live, the summit involving the heavy hitters in basketball trying to improve youth basketball in America. NBA, NCAA, AAU and sneaker company top guys all in attendance. (John Feinstein and Jason Whitlock, two outstanding writers were also in the building, and even asked a couple of questions.) These guys will be great to help get the word out.

Another couple of people the basketball Gods need to get in touch with are Doug Gotlieb, Fran Fraschilla, Bob Knight and Jay Bilas of ESPN. These guys have powerful voices and know the game.

I’m going to cover this situation very close in the coming days.

Really though, I understand it’s a problem, but it’s not as bad as people make it out to be.

First, I have talked about this in the past. Let’s start with getting an RV. Take a few oustanding basketball people like myself, Herb Welling, and Bob Hurley, and tour the country preaching how to play the right way.

We can run basketball clinics in each city. We can also use the local coaches and get them involved.

We’ll start in June and go the whole month, and into July.

First thing you have to do is get kids excited about basketball. Teach them how to pass, dribble and shoot. Also, you need to show them the importance of defending and not caring who gets the credit.

It’s mostly the attitude. Of course it’s teaching the game physically but we have to get into the minds of our players. All one has to do is look at Memphis Tigers Chris Douglas Roberts. Coming out of high school, he mentions in this article that he didn’t win any awards, make any ‘first-team’ all-state, etc. Joe Gergen of the New York Newsday reports.

He was a star at Cass Tech in Detroit but transferred to Northwestern High School for his senior season, costing him playing time and diminishing his scoring. “I didn’t make all-city, all-state. I was pretty disappointed,” he said. “Now I am a first-team All-America and I just laugh about how minor those awards were in high school compared to this. Anyone would love to be me right now, especially anyone from Detroit.”

PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!