Swensday stuff

Mission Almost Impossible: Keeping 5th Grade Girls Focused
Swen Nater

Two seasons ago, I coached a 5th grade boy’s recreation team. What an experience! I have so many stories, many of which are hilarious. I’ll just tell you one. Little Nick was enamored by me being an ex-NBA player. The only problem was, he didn’t know how long ago I played. For some reason he believed me to be recently retired. Just a few minutes into our first practice he asked me, “Do you know Yao Ming?” We were right in the middle of a shooting drill. When I didn’t answer, he asked me three more times in succession and the third time, he was pulling on my shirt. I still didn’t answer. I was thinking, ‘If that kid took as many practice shots as he asked me that question, he’d be a pretty good shooter by now.’

A few days ago, I was asked to run a couple of practices for a 5th grade girls’ recreation team that didn’t have a coach yet. I agreed and last night was our first practice. Although I have two girls (grown up now) and helped coach them throughout their careers, I didn’t know what to expect. What I found was, in a practice setting, girls are even more distracted than boys, probably three times as much so. Like Little Nick did, one girl kept asking me the same question, “Can you dunk?” I thought, ‘Hey! I’m 60. I can hardly touch the rim anymore.’

10 and 11-year-old children are extremely curious and receptive to learning. It’s in the 4th grade many become interested in science, particularly how things work. They want to know everything about everything and they use the word, “Why?” more times than Campbell has soups. They notice every move you make, everything you watch, everything you read, and everything you say. That’s a good thing but, if a teacher is not skilled at keeping the focus on learning rather than that weird sound that just came from outside the window, a class period or practice will end up being a Q and A session and little progress will be made. 

The degree to which players focus during practice is directly proportional to the degree of production. Coach Wooden was well-aware of that and, even though we were much older than 11, we were easily distracted, especially if some cheerleaders walked into the gym or something.

Coach Wooden used three, very effective, tools to keep our attention on practice: The “Whole-Part Method,” “A Lean Practice Session,” and “A Positive Environment.” I applied his methods in yesterday’s practice and they worked beautifully, although that little girl kept asking if I could dunk.

The Whole-Part Method
The “Whole-Part Method” helps keep the players’ focus on an end result—something they will be required to do at the end of practice. Using the “Whole-Part Method,” at the very beginning of practice, I showed the girls the drill they were going to be able to do at the end. It was a full-court drill started by a rebound, followed by an outlet pass, a pass to half-court, another pass to a player under the other basket, and finally a score by that player. Showing what it’s supposed to look like is the “Whole” of the “Whole-Part Method.”

The “Part” is working on the components that make up the drill. I told the girls exactly what we were going to do—work on the pieces and then put them back together at the end of practice. Every time I moved from one part to the next, I showed and told the girls how it was connected to the previous part. They understood. I told them, “At the end of practice, we are going to put the whole thing together and you’ll be able to do it well.” This helped keep their attention and fostered progress. I even kept the attention (pretty much) of the girl that, incessantly, asked if I could dunk. 

A Lean Practice Session
The “Whole-Part Method” will fail if the practice doesn’t keep moving. We had three water breaks and, each time, it took a little while to get them focused again. You’ve got to keep it lean, meaning: Keep all players active during a drill, and keep moving from drill to drill with transitions that are clean, efficient, and short. In other words, don’t waste time. Keeping things lean helped keep those “prone to wander” minds and bodies occupied with progress, improvement, and achievement.

A Positive Environment
A few years ago, as I was walking down the hall of an elementary school, I noticed a banner hanging on the wall that read, “Catch a student doing something good.” The message was clear. It’s so easy to focus on what children are doing wrong. If you give recognition to a child when she’s doing something well, even though she may not be doing it close to perfect, she is very likely to improve the next time she tries. This happened yesterday. Clair wasn’t learning to come to the basketball when it was passed to her. She would stop and then catch. One time, she kind of kept moving forward and I said, “Yes Clair! You kept moving. Great improvement.” The next time the ball was passed to her, she came to it like a Greyhound to a Frisbee. Use praise sparingly, like Coach Wooden did, and you’ll have one of the most effective motivational tools available.  Motivation leads to hard work, and hard work leads to production.

With ten minutes left in practice, it was time for some fun stuff: A competitive shooting drill and a dribbling/layup relay race. With one minute to go, I gathered the girls together and said, “Let’s put our hands together and, on three, yell, ‘Hoops!’” Wouldn’t you know it; that little girl asked me again if I could dunk. I said, “I will dunk for you tomorrow.” There was a huge ovation. Then I said, “I’m going to dunk a Krispy Kreme doughnut into a glass of milk. That’s the only kind of dunking I can do these days.” Dunking Doughnuts. Hey, one of those curious 5th grade girls might make a million dollars with that idea.

“Hoops!”