Tryouts ... Day Four

So I get to the school and start preparing for the extra workout for the guys that missed the 10K run on Sunday and have to make up for it today before practice ... no big deal I was just mapping out a route as I really didn't want to run with them today ... just wasn't feeling it ... Coach Sharif was there and he suggested that they just run laps around the soccer field ... what a great idea this was we don't have to run and we can still make sure they are completing the run that they missed ...

So we are sitting there talking waiting for the players to show up and he turns to me and says "hey you know we got the time mixed up we were suppose to be practicing today at 5:30 and not at 7:30" great so come 7:30 we will have guys showing up but no place to practice ... well not really our coordinator Colin worked it out with the girl's coach to use half the gym so not all was lost ...

Ok back to the 10K run for the players before practice ... so at first only 4 show up ... we take them out to the soccer field and begin the run ... we tell them they have to run for an hour .. not to bad as at a steady pace they should complete the 10K ... funny thing is only one guy brought water ... another 3 showed up a various times as they ran ... don't worry those guys will still have to finish the run or something else ... I haven't decided yet ...

Ok onto practice ... Today we expanded on the offense showed them a couple more options in the motion and reworked the previous days options ... The guards are having some problems with the offense ... mainly spacing, timing and what to do in certain situations ... I am thinking of a couple of thing to do to help them out ... explaining the 3 rules again and also adding the forwards to the mix will allow them to see why they go where they go and why those cuts are important ... Now our forwards ... bang they got their movements down ... we went through all the movements and cuts during our 20 minute session last night and I am looking forward to adding the guards to see what they can do and if they remember ...

we had a couple of new guys come out to the team team to give er a go and see what they can do ... I know one of the guys we played ball back in the day .. good player just a bit out of shape ... but he is the first to admit that and I am sure he will get himself into it soon enough ... funny thing was that the two new guys both injured themselves last night ... one of them hurt themselves 2 minutes into the tryouts ... pulled a leg muscle and sat the whole practice ... the other guy made it through almost the entire practice but jammed his wrist so couldn't participate in the ball handling drills but did all the running so that was very nice to see ... he is giving it a go and I like the fact that even though he hurt the wrist he still knew he was able to do the running and still did it while others watched ....

I think today's practice was a record for injuries ... our trainer (I forget her name already, man I am bad with names) was a busy little lady ... the two injuries above plus 4 guys cramped up because they did not drink enough water so she was running all over the place stretching them out and taping ice to them ... these kids have to remember to drink more water before, during and after practice as I know for a fact that 90% of them don't ... as much as we educate them on it they still think that they know best ... well until they cramp up and cry ...

so the last 30 minutes of practice we worked on boxing out drills and conditioning ... I like the box out drill that we were doing but a lot of these guys have to learn how to before we can move forward ... I have a couple of drills that should help and will bring them to the table next practice ... the conditioning content of the practice was lead by Coach D and it was about 10 minutes long (running sprints, 3 man weaves, etc.) not to hard but hard enough that they had to think ... and this is where the cramping started ... I think they just didn't want to do the running but we have to take it as an injury and sit them out just in case ...

We have Wednesday off and we are back at it Thursday night at 5:30pm ... should be good down to our last two tryouts and the team will be picked ... more cuts to come Thursday ...

Until then ...