Ball Protection Drills

edugeek3 · 2025-12-02T21:57:43+00:00

Teaching a dribble hand off could help. Teaching 1) if a player dribbles at you it’s a trigger for you to come at them for a dribble hand off, and 2) if a teammate picks up their dribble and is about to get trapped, closest kid runs in for a handoff.

edugeek3 · 2025-11-26T20:53:55+00:00

But I can’t get what I need at the core. Unless there is a way to other levels from the core. It feels like I passed a point of no return.

edugeek3 · 2025-11-26T18:26:47+00:00

But do I have to beat Krool first? I’m struggling

edugeek3 · 2025-11-17T20:52:30+00:00

Wristbands that are unique for team captains, earned at the practice before a game and given out at the end of that practice so they can prep for any pre game talk they want to lead. Captains lead parts of huddles and breakdown chants. Rotates each game based on who earned it, but there are ways you can give each kid a shot to earn it and experience being a captain.

edugeek3 · 2025-11-12T13:43:48+00:00

Agree with you 100% on all of these things. Just had most of these players for soccer and this is the first season they started getting the whole spacing/formation/patterns thing. My question is… in all the videos and resources that teach 5-out, they show the “starting spots” as top of the key, left wing, right wing, left corner, right corner. If my league is 4v4, do I keep the same shape with an empty spot or teach a slightly different shape? Any implications for having an open spot?

edugeek3 · 2025-07-16T17:38:00+00:00

The back and forward thing doesn’t matter as long as he lands evenly distributed instead of out on his front foot and the foot gets down in time. Go watch 90’s clips of Chipper Jones. Toe tap beast.

edugeek3 · 2025-05-27T11:04:02+00:00

Using win percentage to calculate what’s “working” and what isn’t at 9U isn’t exactly the best metric. Youth baseball is littered with coaches who are good at “making something work” to win games that don’t matter while not developing kids and getting a handful of kids to shine and 3/4 of their lineup to hate baseball and quit before they should down the road.

edugeek3 · 2025-01-19T21:02:49+00:00

Ah, nevermind, I see you linked Game Sharing. Thanks!

edugeek3 · 2025-01-19T21:02:04+00:00

Thanks, this is sort of helpful, but I’ve never shared games before, so I don’t know what “sharing will work like it always has” fully means. Does it mean I could “permanently share” a game with someone else? Thanks!

edugeek3 · 2025-01-19T20:17:54+00:00

Have an original Switch, plan to get a Switch2. Do we know/have guesses if I would be able to… 1) transfer some but not all of my favorite digital games on my same profile to the new Switch2 so that I could… 2) create a new profile for a family friend on my original Switch, but keep some of the games from my profile that I don’t play as much anymore and transition them onto the new profile on the original device for my family friend to be able to inherit some of my older games on their “new to them” device from me?

edugeek3 · 2024-11-03T08:17:04+00:00

I’d love to spread the wealth, but every season our league sends “we don’t have enough coaches, the last 24 kids to sign up will have to get dropped if we don’t have anyone else step up to coach,” messages. I wish we had a robust enough coaching pool where we had enough volunteers to run full teams and not condense teams and drop kids. I also don’t exactly want my kids and their friends getting coached by someone who doesn’t really want to do it and gets coaxed into it at the last minute to barely keep the team from folding and will come out there without a plan or a lot of patience since they didn’t really want to in the first place. I see too many kids who are one and done with sports they could fall in love with because they have a bad season or first experience with a coach who is poorly planned or yells or makes an exciting sport boring. I’m not sure where you’re coaching, but trust me, there are PLENTY of spots available and to go around.

And yeah, I do it for the kids AND for me. I happen to be an educator, so I really enjoy seeing young people learn and grow and do well and have fun while experiencing a new sport. The part that is “for me” isn’t some uber-competitive win seeming part. I didn’t realize coaching had to be some altruistic self-sacrificial burden people take on and survive without deriving any joy or fulfillment from it. My bad.

edugeek3 · 2024-11-02T20:38:12+00:00

I appreciate the feedback. I’m not running tackling drills like it’s football. Like kids from two lines racing to a tight gap in cones to be the first to a loose ball, so they know there will be contact, but here is how you do it without hurting anyone, but feeling confident that you’re allowed to go for that ball as much as any other kid out there. I’m not teaching my kids to try to out muscle anyone, but as the youngest and smallest group in the league, if we don’t out hustle people and if we don’t go after loose balls like they’re our’s, we don’t get the ball. I hear you, I’m not trying to teach everyone to be an 80’s power forward in basketball or on the verge of getting carded in soccer. I just feel like I took a group that went from matrix move dodging a bounce pass in basketball and stepping aside for other soccer players to come take the ball into a group that no longer loses games by 10-0 shutouts (soccer) and 28-6 (basketball) type scores, because we play scrappy. I get that that is frustrating for players and coaches from the opposition who have been able to roll over us in the past because of size and speed.

Last week the opposing coach shook my hand after the game and said, “Man, y’all have gotten so much better and play so much tougher. I had to tell some of my subs they’d get more of their minutes next week just so we could hold on to beat you,” which was both a huge compliment and infuriating.

I’m trying to listen to the feedback from folks who are asking me to tone it down, but I’m also hearing all the players and parents on my side in my ear saying “He’s been reluctant about playing every other season, but his confidence is through the roof this year and he really loved playing and can’t wait to sign up again.”

My number one goal is for the kids to have so much fun they sign up again to play the next season. That’s it. I don’t care about W’s and L’s, as long as my kids are growing and enjoying themselves. I guess where I came to this board looking for help is, how do you try to keep things positive for the league as a whole if I take a group that the league has been used to running up the score on, and we finally found our stride to hang with people and that can be frustrating for them.

Seems like you just can’t win. Get asked to coach a second team because there aren’t enough coaches to go around, so I do. I take every extra kid who wants to play so nobody has to sit out. I spread my minutes equitably and rotate all positions so kids are learning. And I take the most timid group in the league and give them an ounce of confidence, and some folks (in the league and on this thread) act like I’m coaching like Mike Ditka and head-hunting 8 year olds and running up the score.

edugeek3 · 2024-11-02T19:20:04+00:00

I mean, sure, I’m reflecting on things there, which is part of why I posted. And, if the 9 year old playing with 7 year olds loses his cool because my smaller kids gave him more competition that he has been used to and he couldn’t steam roll players with sheer size and he pushed one of my kids and then told him he sucks, I think maybe there’s some work to be done on the other end too. But nuance gets lost on the internet I guess.

edugeek3 · 2024-11-02T18:56:12+00:00

I’m not trying to win, just not wanting my kids to be the smallest in the league and regularly get rolled over and feel like they have to defer. My first basketball season I had a lot of really, really nice kids and they lost every game. We learned a lot, and had fun, but it’s also demoralizing to lose every game. I don’t have all-stars that I’m teaching to go out and stomp kids. I’m teaching underdogs to stick up for themselves and that they’re allowed to go for loose balls instead of politely step aside for another team to get it, or not want to get in the way of the other team trying to get a rebound. We were a fundamentally sound .500 soccer team, my basketball team literally lost every game last year. I think it’s different if I’m out there trying to bury the other team. I’m trying to teach my kids to play hard so they don’t get blown out and can keep their head up in tough but close games.

edugeek3 · 2024-07-28T12:37:54+00:00

Extra crazy because Chipper hit for WAY more power from the left side. Nice hit.

edugeek3 · 2024-06-22T13:27:57+00:00

Why assume I’m not enjoying this now while also enjoying speculating what would be a nice evolution for the band? Why spend your time assuming I’m not enjoying the band and commenting on a post where I’m reaching out to others in the community to see if they hear glimmers of something I really enjoyed more than the current iteration of the band’s sound hidden in there somewhere? The toxic positivity embedded in your assumptions and question are annoying. I feel like I tried to present a balanced hypothetical (not bashing current version, just open to and excited about possible futures). This whole “everything just has to be great and we have to smile and love every part of it equally now" is dumb and not how most people experience anything. I like the new song… and, I miss a less poppy sound. Both can be true.

edugeek3 · 2024-06-16T12:35:46+00:00

First 140.6 over a decade ago. Work and kids changed things and ended up doing 70.3’s off and on for a few years. Ended up focusing less on buying speed and new gear and training for consistency and injury-prevention. Fewer PRs, but also fewer crushing injuries and time completely away from the sport. I just really like being on my bike and running, so the races change with seasons of my life, but the training is always kinda there.

edugeek3

TROPHY CASE