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Standing tall. Building a relationship with your coach. Honoring a lost parent. Coach C has your answers
Q: Our son had an on-again/off-again relationship with his high school coach last season. And now he has two new assistants helping out this year. Is change good? Any advice?
Coach C: First of all, don’t go through the assistant coach to get to the head coach. The head coach is going to provide all the information on the players to his assistants because he had them last year. So going through the assistants is not the way to go. This is when your child has to grow up. And it’s tough to ask a younger player to go in and talk to a coach and find out what the problem is. But he needs to go in there very humbly and ask what he can do to get better and what is expected of him.
Q: One of our team’s best players unexpectedly lost a parent right before the preseason workouts. My boys are a real close group. What’s the best way to address this?
Coach C: This is a great question. You have to have tremendous feelings to know what’s going on with that player because the loss of a parent is a very emotional experience. One of the best things you can do is to have a moment of silence during the first game of the season. You can also have the players wear a remembrance of the parent during the season on their uniform or sneakers. You don’t want to overdo it verbally, but you can (and should) do something by recognizing this as a team. This is very important because it is a very touchy situation. Something needs to be done.
Q: Many of the older players stay after practice to shoot around. My son, who is a freshman, wants to but shies away because none of the other younger players do. How can I encourage him to do so?
Coach C: First of all, this is very normal because he knows what’s going to happen. But show him it is a good idea. Sure, he’s going to get teased a little; he may never get the ball; and he might even get knocked around a little. But if he understands that, he needs to just go out there and do it because it’s going to make him a much better basketball player. But if he doesn’t want to do it and can’t accept what may happen, don’t let him do it. He may lose some of his confidence. But if he can handle it, the older players will respect him for it.ss
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