DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK

J’ai décidé de dédier une page exclusive à un de mes anciens coachs et ami John Saintignon. Je l’ai rencontré pendant ma dernière saison à Oregon State lorsqu’il était le “directeur des opérations basket” de l’équipe. Il m’a prodigué un coaching individuel tout au long de la saison et surtout pendant l’après saison avant mon départ vers Cal Poly Pomona. Ancien meilleur scoreur universitaire à UC Santa Cruz (32.4 pts en moyenne), il fut un des derniers joueurs coupé du tranning camp des Bulls en 1990 avant de commencer sa carrière pro en Espagne.

Il dirige ses propres camps et a travaillé dans de nombreux camps réputés tels le “Superstar Invitational”, le “Michael Jordan Flight School” and le “Five-Star Basketball Camps” à Pittsburgh.

Il gère également de nombreux workouts pré-draft pour des franchises NBA; c’est d’ailleurs lui qui s’est chargé de préparer Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer et autres pour la draft il y a 3 ans. C’est en participant à ses workouts individuels que je me suis préparé pour ma dernière année universitaire qui s’est avéré être un succès.

De part notre relation privilégiée, il m’envoie souvent ses écrits visant à inspirer les joueurs à se dépasser constamment et à travailler intelligemment. Je pense que le blog est une opportunité parfaite pour partager avec vous quelques connaissances et autres bonnes pensées d’un spécialiste de notre sport qui en vaut le détour.

Les textes sont évidemments écrits en anglais…pardonnez moi en avance de ne pas m’être aventuré dans une traduction longue et pénible de ses emails.

I have decided to dedicate an exclusive section of my blog to one of my old coaches and friend coach John Saintignon. I met him during my last season at Oregon State and his personal training skills helped me prepare to have a great senior year at Cal Poly Pomona.

Coach Saintignon was an experienced and successful high school coach in Arizona and Southern California. Before coming to Corvallis, he was a teacher and the head coach at Desert Edge High School in Goodyear, Ariz., in 2004-05. It was the first year that the school offered boys’ varsity basketball.

He was also a head coach at Canyon del Oro High School in Tucson, Ariz. (2001-04); Bonita Vista High School in Chula Vista, Calif. (1995-01); and Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, Calif. (1992-95).

At Canyon del Oro, he was the 2001-02 Coach of the Year. His teams qualified for the 5A state tournament twice and he sent eight players onto college basketball rosters. At Bonita Vista, his team won the CIF San Diego Section Division I championship in 1999, a first for the school, and he was named Coach of the Year. His teams at Bonita Vista won 100 games and played in the CIF playoffs all six years. At Mar Vista, the 1994-95 team won the school’s first league title in more than 30 years and reached the CIF playoffs three times. He was named Coach of the Year in 1994-95.

Saintignon has been a coach or director at many basketball camps, including his own camps, the Superstar Invitational, the Michael Jordan Flight School and the Five-Star Basketball Camps in Pittsburgh, Pa. He was a speaker at the opening ceremony for the Pan-American Games in May 2003 in the Dominican Republic. During summer 2006, he spoke at clinics in Mexico and Italy and worked as a counselor at the Pete Newell Big Man Camp in Las Vegas.

He graduated from UC San Diego in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in economics. He played one season there and spent his first three seasons at UC Santa Cruz. With the Banana Slugs in 1985-86, he led all three NCAA divisions with a 32.1 scoring average. He earned All-Conference honors all three of his years at UC Santa Cruz and scored more than 2,450 points in his career. He went on to play professionally in Spain and Mexico for four seasons.

I felt like sharing some of his great basketball knowledge with you all.

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Hard 2 Guard 2008 Player Development Newsletter

Volume 2, Issue 2

Practice in Proportion to your Aspirations.

In this Weeks Newsletter…

· A Quick Word: Single-leg Squats

· Deliberate Practice

·

A Quick Word

Functional training is a buzzword in the fitness and training industries. However, rather than train with different gadgets, functional training means training with a purpose. Hopefully we are past the days of leg extension and leg curl machines in sports performance workouts. Functional training also incorporates the ideas of balancing one’s training.

According to a study presented at the National Strength and Conditioning Association conference, squats do not work each leg equally. Studies revealed that one leg is burdened with six percent more of the load than the other. In addition to squats, add unilateral exercises like single-leg squats, lunges and step-ups to balance your strength work. (Men’s Health, Jan/Feb 2008).

During the season, it is often difficult to find time to lift weights. In my situation, we practice and have no access to weights. However, I try to get our players to do front and back lunges in every practice and rotate through other strength building exercises like step-ups and single-leg squats. My goal is for each player to be able to do a full single-leg squat by season’s end. We will see if we get there. I also like to use tennis balls to help with their quickness.

To train functionally for basketball, players need a variety of lower body exercises to develop strength and enable the player to control their weight in different planes. By incorporating these different unilateral exercises, athletes enhance their performance and reduce their likelihood for injury. Three of my favorite on-court exercises are:

(1) Single-leg Hops: Hop on one foot from side to side over a line on the court. We do 30 repetitions on each leg.

(2) Split Squats: Rest the toes of one leg on a bench and stand on the other. Squat on the front leg, keeping knees over your toes. This is a progression between a lunge and a single-leg squat.

(3) Lunge to Step-up: Face a bench or the bleachers. Step forward with one foot into a lunge. From the lunge, step forward with the back foot onto the bench and step up. Drive the trail leg until the thigh is parallel to the ground. Step back and repeat.

(4) I also like to have players stand on one leg and put the other one out straight to hold their balance. Then I have them lean over so they look like a bird standing on one leg…helps with stability.

Kids and Games

I met with several coaches recently here. They insisted the program was geared toward fundamentals, though in the hour I observed, the team practiced a 1-1-2-1 press, 5v0 man2man offense, 5v5 running through a play against a 2-3 zone and 5v0 sideline and underneath out of bounds plays.

This is the epitome of a Peak by Friday practice. The entire practice was organized to prepare for weekend games. Against the press, the offense rarely finished the play, as the coach stopped the action every time they broke the press. In 5v0 offense, the goal was to pass the ball and cut high off the screen, even though the coach explained that in the game, they should cut toward the basket. How do you expect an 11-year-old to practice one way and react differently in a game, especially when five defensive players are introduced? Defense changes everything.

One problem with the practice was the complete lack of competitive play.

However, I do not agree with this adult mindset that kids only want to play games. Now, if given the choice between a practice like the one I witnessed and a game, every kid will pick a game. But, if training sessions are more active, involve all the players and get the players learning and competing, I believe kids enjoy practice as much as games, especially at young ages. Kids enjoy learning. Games are necessary, but I do not agree that kids need to be filled with multiple games every weekend. When I was 11, we played 20 games a year, but we played for fun or on our own year-round. We practiced hard (for 11-year-olds) even when there was no imminent game.

While kids have changed, I do not believe they have change so drastically. I remember when some of my teams would beat a team easy, not a very good team, and they wanted to practice. The game was not a challenge. They were bored and they felt like they had not really done anything. They asked if we could stay and practice, they enjoyed the competition that it brought out, it was fun.

I think adult expectations for kids have changed dramatically. We expect less from kids and they offer less in terms of concentration and effort. Rather than examine the expectations and the process, we blame television, Xbox and Ipods, think all kids have ADD and put players in more and more games in an effort to motivate them.

The answer is not more organized activities, more elite tournaments, better uniforms, new shoes or any of the other trappings with which we are concerned. The answer is a change in the way we approach basketball and the expectations we have for players.

I coached a varsity team filled with players who played basketball as a hobby. One player wanted to play in college; some players never played competitive basketball. We practice in a public facility, so other coaches saw us practicing. Two coaches commented on the way we started practice versus their practices. The difference is expectations. From the first day, I told the players we would practice for 2 hours starting from the time all the players are dressed and ready. We start with a dynamic warm-up every day, so they know exactly what to do to start practice. We get through a warm-up and 2-3 activities before some of the other teams start their practice. It is not because my players are more committed or more interested in basketball; it is because they meet the expectations set on the first day.

As for the Peak by Friday practice, the coach insisted the program is truly about building fundamentals. He said winning and losing did not matter and he wanted the kids to have fun. The goal was to prepare players to succeed in high school.

My point is that if you say winning and losing do not matter and your mission is player development, an upcoming game should not alter your training session. Rather than change training to prepare for a game, continue training fundamentals and developing players and allow the players to perform in the game. If you lose, who cares, right? When you say winning does not matter, but spend entire practices, especially when practice time is precious, preparing for a game, your actions and your words say something different.

Tactical skills are part of the player development process. However, running plays 5v0 does not develop tactical skills. If player development is the goal, not winning, teach and train concepts. Rather than run through plays 5v0, teach players to move without the ball, to find space, to run a pick and roll or whatever tactical skills you value. The offense will not be as organized or as efficient in games, but, the goal is player development, not wins. The mistakes in games are opportunities for learning. Instead, you hear coaches constantly yelling, “Run the play.” How does running a play develop the players’ skills? There is a time and place for set plays and continuity offenses. However, during the learning stages, especially when you preach a philosophy of player development, the objective is teaching different tactical skills. Incorporate this teaching with more competitive play during practice and players will be ready to compete in the next game. They may not be as organized as the team that runs a couple good set plays, but they are learning and improving and at a young age, that should be the primary concern.

Copyright 2008, John Saintignon

All rights reserved. Written permission required for public or commercial use

Tip #4:

How to Watch Games

What makes the pro’s so different from you? Why do they make fewer mistakes? How can Chauncey Billups have a 3.59 AST/TO ratio and you can’t?

If I try to summarize it in one word, experience!

So what can you do? Well you can wait… keep going to practice and work hard, and one day you too will have that “experience” working for you. Or you can “jumpstart” your experience in a different way.

Ask yourself these questions:

Do I understand all the moves and tactics on the court?

Can I predict situations before they happen?

Can I view all the options on the court and select the best one for my team?

What Should I Do?

Here are some Practical Tips …

So how can one achieve all that?

Watch games, as many as you can. But, and here comes the important part, watch the games as a player, not as a fan. Many players make this mistake. They watch games, but they only care about who wins, who scores the most or makes the most amazing dunks.

Now that you look at the game as a player – not a fan – you should look for:

If you are a shooting or scoring guard, look at your favorite shooting or scoring guard. Watch how he takes his shots. Is it off the dribble or off the screen? How does he use the screen? What does he do on defense? etc.

If you are a center, pay attention how players in the center position get the ball on the low-post. Watch how they use their body to get advantage; which fakes they use when their back is towards the basket; how they position themselves to rebound, etc.

If you are a PG, watch how players in the PG position control the team. Try to see how they set the offense and at the same time create situations for themselves and for their team.

Right now with all of the NCAA games on, it’s a great time to watch and learn!

Coach John Saintignon

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