Who will push for reform?

This is Part II of an extended e-mail exchange between publisher Clay Kallam and correspondent Brian McCormick about the state of girls' basketball. The trigger was the publication of McCormick's new book, 'Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development (Lulu, $14.98, 85 pages), and an excerpt that appeared on the site.

BM: To get back to the ideal system, it's necessary to create programs around a long-term model where winning is not the most important thing at every level. Why should a JV coach care about his winning percentage? He should care about the preparedness of his players for the varsity level.

CK: That's true already at most high schools, though there are certainly exceptions.

BM: Not around here. I went to a JV summer tournament today and while the first two teams I watched had eighth graders playing up, at least two other teams brought varsity players down to play and win the tournament. An eighth grade coach should be worried about preparing players for high school ball.

CK: That's a little tougher because in many junior highs, the kids are going off to different schools, and there's no sense of continuity. And in a lot of junior highs in this area, it's totally about fun -- everybody plays equally, regardless of ability, and what happens is that no one cares and it becomes a joke.

BM:Teams need to play games and play to win, but they need to train with a greater goal than the next game. If coaches take a long term view, rather than a Peak by Friday mentality, a shift starts.

CK: To me, the agreement that reform is necessary is a key first step, but the gap between that desire and reform requires finding ways to change a system that financially benefits plenty of people to one that benefits young athletes who have no leverage.

BM: From the response I am getting to my book and my new website (www.thecrossovermovement.com), the time is approaching. Things are going to shift in the next ten years. They have to.

CK: I don't know that they have to, because all the stakeholders are making big bucks. Why should the NBA change? Why should the NCAA change? Why should high schools change?

BM: There is very little good about the sports system in America. If the USA loses this summer at the Worlds with the best players playing and Coach K coaching and Jerry Colangelo picking the team, there are no more excuses and people will have to look beyond the top and start looking at how players get to that level. Winning will only mask the problem for a couple more years...

CK: But do people really care about international competitions? The NBA is still the best league in the world, and so what if Brazil wins the World Championships? Columnists may fulminate, but what does it really matter?

And there's a philosophical issue here: The message is a divided one. If the focus isn't on winning and losing, but rather on participation and fun, then success at every level becomes unimportant. If the focus is on developing elite players, then there's no need for recreational sports.

BM: The answer for elite development and recreational development is the same: more general development as kids to build a better, deeper foundation. More playing at a young age builds an interest and motivation. And more skill instruction at an older age where the competitive athletes still play competitive basketball and the non-competitive players can continue in non-competitive leagues at recreation centers or gyms or intramurals.

CK: But without skills and some basic understanding of concepts, the game isn't that much fun. It's such a tough balance.

BM: The games for understanding approach to skill development. It’s an approach to teaching skills through games. What good is great dribbling ability if the player cannot make a good decision with the ball? What good is shooting ability if the player cannot get open on the court? Basketball is about making decisions and drills do not teach that; playing does. Players need guided play and coaches who allow mistakes and teach, not criticize. And, I know I am dreaming. However, if one thing is changed, I think it is that we need a movement toward an empowering coaching style as opposed to the autocratic coaches we mimic from the NBA.

CK: I don't think pushing for international success will bring about reform in terms of more fun, less organization and less pressure -- if anything, it would do just the opposite. And I don't think pushing for more recreational opportunities will lead, necessarily, to better success at the international level. More of a focus on learning the fundamentals and doing repetitive drills (the only way, really, to learn any physical skill) to do so isn't a guarantee that more kids will play the game.

BM: Actually, kids learn best when they discover something for themselves. Running boring drills is not the best way to teach skill development.

CK: Very true, but how can you learn to dribble well without tons of repetition? Or shoot? Or so many of the fundamental skills. You have to put in the time.

BM: Repetition is important, but it doesn't have to be boring to get reps or make players better. I coached a under-9 team in LA and the practices were fun and we were competitive and we did almost no drills and the ones we did were fun. We did, however, play a ton of one-on-one, two-on-two and three-on-three, and we did ballhandling drills like follow the leader and mirror dribbling. We never once had a player dribble the length of the floor and back, unless it was part of a full court lay-up drill or one-on-one.

People have this misconception that the "Euro way" is to do mindless drills. It’s the opposite. I never did more mindless drills than I did in high school here. In Europe, we scrimmaged far more. Every drill finished with a shot. There was no dribbling to one end and then back. It was dribble into a shot or dribble into a pass to someone for a shot. Every offensive drill ended with a finish.

CK: I tend to do that with my high school tea). Running for running's sake isn't all that productive.

BM: We played more one-on-one, two-on-two and three-on-three in a month than I did in my high school career. What we did not do was run plays five-on-zero for 45 minutes a practice. We would walk through a play once or twice and then scrimmage. Same with the slides for a zone defense or help D. We never did a shell drill -- we scrimmaged.

CK: Now I think the shell drill, with a scrimmage component, is critical to understanding defensive concepts, and you have to do it over and over again for kids to get it. Maybe the Europeans are more sophisticated and grasp things more quickly, or maybe there's more self-selection -- the people who play are more serious and have a better understanding or something. But here, all that has to be taught, at least on my teams.

BM: The shell drill is useless because most people do it where the offense can only do one thing and with four players. If the offense is not live, then it is not realistic. If there are four players, the slides are totally different than with the fifth player. I’ve never seen the shell drill done well at any practice I have attended at the youth, high school or college level. I’m okay with walking through concepts and showing players where they need to be on dribble penetration baseline or dribble penetration middle, but defense is all about relationships between the ball and the man and that cannot be taught in a static environment because the game is not static.

CK: That's so true. And basketball itself isn't static. What worked last year might not work this year; and what worked a decade ago, in terms of development and tactics, probably won't work now. It's clear that this system is broken in several important ways, but the model for the system to replace it has yet to be completely fleshed out; and more important, the path that leads to that new model has yet to be clearly marked, especially in terms of why today's powerbrokers should give up any of their profits or influence.

BM: The change is coming because the public slowly is coming around to the idea of change.

CK: I would like to believe that, but I don't know that public opinion is strong enough to change things. What does the NCAA care for public opinion as long as TV ratings are good?

BM: And if the money goes elsewhere, the other entities will follow. The NBA has something to lose because if half their league is international, will people care as much?

CK: There's no evidence that international players have hurt the NBA. This was a great year, with or without American fundamentals.

BM: International players have not hurt the NBA because they are still a minority. But if the NBA is 50% international players and nobody can pronounce the guys’ names, will Americans care as much? Or,will everyone just turn completely to football, the last totally American sport left? There are plenty of xenophobes like Dick Vitale out there. Hockey is a niche sport because nobody knows the players; the NFL draft is an event because even the average sports fan knows the top players and they are already mini-celebrities.

And at another level, if people perceive the players to lack rudimentary skills, will people watch?

CK: They watch And1 all the time ... and the elite players will always be skilled. It's the second-level players who aren't fundamentally sound, and the system, and America, is built around individual stars.

BM: Adults don’t watch And1. Kids watch And1. Why? Because it's fun and it's the antithesis of the boring, overly structured game they play with their organized teams where the coach tells the team who can dribble the ball up court and who can shoot. Kids don’t like rules and restrictions. They like freedom and exploration. That is And1 basketball personified.

More interest in the game, more motivated players, more equitable competition and more playing opportunities equals a bigger growth for the sport as a whole.

CK: I would agree, but will the NCAA do anything to make that happen? USA Basketball? Only the NBA and only as long as a visionary like Stern is the commissioner.

With that, the exchange between the two ended, but the conversation needs to continue, and on a wider basis. As we come to the end of another summer of watching exhausted teenage girls play six games in three days in hot gyms with skills that haven't improved in a year of practice, it should be clear that things can, and should be, much better for everyone.

But whatever happens has to start happening with pressure from the lower levels, because the college coaches have it pretty good, the shoe companies are making big bucks and USA Basketball and the NCAA don't need any changes. So it's up to us, really, and if not now, then when?