• Teamwork and sportsmanship are as important as scoring in coaching youth basketball.basketball image by aline caldwell from Fotolia.com
  
  Coaching a youth basketball team is both a challenge and a reward. As a coach, you aren't just teaching the children how to be good basketball players, but how to act as a team. This involves showing them how to be supportive of one another. Teach your players that basketball is a team game, not an individual one. It takes teamwork to help each other score. Winning a league championship is great, but watching your team members grow as a team is an award in itself.
  
  

Make It Fun

• Find a way to make your drills during basketball practice fun. As an example, have a free-throw shooting contest. Award prizes to the highest scoring players and the players that make the most baskets in a row from the free throw line, such as a soda after practice or the ability to avoid running laps around the court with the team after practice.
  
  

Use Three Stations

• Instead of having just one drill the entire team is working on, create four stations. This might require having an assistant coach or asking a parent to help by monitoring the other stations. Create stations to work on passing between teammates, dribbling the ball, shooting and rebounding. Choose a time period and blow the whistle when it expires. Players move from one station to the next when the whistle blows.
  
  

Be Fair

• If you are coaching a little league basketball team that has your own child or friends of your children on it, be fair when setting the lineup. Ask another parent to help you as an assistant coach, if possible, for determining the starting lineup and playing time. This will help avoid the perception that you are playing favorites for your child and his friends. As rewards for strong performance in practice, allow players to start the game. Another reward can be playing time, just because a player starts on the bench doesn't mean you can't give him as much or more playing time than the ones that start on the court.
  
  

Keep Your Cool

• Coaching basketball is not just about winning and losing, it's also about teaching sportsmanship to your players. Even if the referees makes a wrong call, do not berate them on the court. This would be an example of poor sportsmanship. Do not allow your players to demonstrate poor sportsmanship. If your best player argues with the referee, remove the player from the game. This will not only teach him a lesson, but one for the rest of team. Your players will know that of any of them argue with a referee, they might be removed from the game, and that their skill levels will not cover for a disrespectful attitude.