Off-Court Basketball Teambuilding

Do you get together with you basketball team AWAY from the court?

I never used to.

I liked to keep my coach-player relationship
clearly defined.

Two years ago I completely changed.

I had finally built up enough practice plans
that I wasn’t killing myself each week trying
to figure out what I was going to do in practice.

Without having to spend hours planning practices,
I had freed up time to take my Freshman team
on a hike on Saturday morning.

Just me and the guys, no parents, no balls, no basketball.

It was 2 hours well spent.

I got to know the players AWAY from basketball, and
they got to know me a little better too.

That hike completely changed my approach to
coaching.

The next day at practice was amazing.

No bad attitudes during conditioning.

Teamwork on the court.

They were more focused on basketball than ever.

I was amazed.  My 2 hour investment in time
(doing something that was *fun* anyway) made
a huge impact on these guys.

Teambuilding is never easy.  I certainly hate teambuilding
activities at work- yuck!

But going for a hike IS EASY.  Don’t force anything,
and you’ll be amazed at the result.

If your team needs to learn to work together,
try getting your team in a completely different setting.

Talk to you soon,
Pat