Using Parent Education to Change Grassroots Basketball

In the roughly 18 months since I published Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development, much has been written, but little has been done to change or improve the way we perceive youth sports or develop youth basketball players. Cross Over is more popular in Canada, a country already adopting many of the tenets of long term development which the book espouses, than in the United States, its intended audience.

Cross Over challenges the status quo and implores those involved with youth athletics as parents, coaches or administrators to examine their methods and invest in a more long term outlook toward youth sports, particularly basketball. Unfortunately, change is difficult. And, change is not immediately profitable: "In most companies, most of the time, generating and testing ideas is something that loses money right now. The only way to make money right now is by repeating a proven service or making a proven product over and over again," Robert Sutton, Weird Ideas That Work.

Since youth basketball is a business in the United States, and a very profitable business, no company seems willing to trade guaranteed profits for a potentially better product. Those in power are slaves to the status quo because it lines their pockets and those without power are invested in the process because they hope there is a free six-figure college education at the end of the road. Therefore, even as the shoe companies talk about change and basketball magazines write about this summer's differences, the system remains the same, as tournaments proliferate and only the individuals and business names change.

We have a very narrow view of youth basketball due to limited options. When a businessman wants to start a fast food company, he studies McDonald's and attempts to replicate its very successful model. When a businessman starts a youth basketball company, he copies the most profitable entities: the big exposure tournaments (like Big Time in Las Vegas), the big exposure events (like ABCD) and the recruiting services (like scout.com or Hoop Scoop). Exposing basketball players guarantees profits because these events have three marketplaces: players looking for exposure, coaches looking for players and fans. Even as the competition grows, any business providing well-run tournaments and events and any new source of online information appears to do well. Unfortunately, none of these profit-making enterprises develops better players or creates a better environment for players.

Everyone knows the phrase "thinking outside the box." In The Art of Possibility, Rosamund Stone Zander and Benamin Zander illustrate this type of thinking with the common nine-dot puzzle (join all nine dots with four straight lines without taking the pen from the paper). The answer to the riddle is to expand the lines far beyond the nine dots or to move the pen, and your thinking, past the dots on the paper and to imagine other possibilities.

Similarly, when attempting to change the current youth basketball system, we must look outside the obvious to discover unseen solutions. Just because the solutions do not presently exist does not mean they are not possible. Many people have asked if I think anything will change. I look beyond the present and see changes in motion. Cross Over has been mentioned in the Washington Post, Boston Globe and espn.com; when I first wrote on the subject in 2002, even a small basketball magazine was not interested in my thoughts or the subject. While this is not a sweeping change, it signals the possibility, as more people understand the riddle and look beyond the easy to see dots to find better solutions. Fortunately, Team USA's international struggles woke the basketball public from its pipe dream and individuals and the media now examine basketball more objectively than when the USA was the one supreme world power.

The next step is to implement new ideas: to innovate. Youth leagues can adopt a long term development model as opposed to the Peak by Friday philosophy. Rather than try to prove their competitiveness, they can brand their leagues as developmentally appropriate and learning-oriented. These terms lack the glitz and glamour of "competitive," "elite," "premier" and "all-star," but as parents learn about a child's stages of development and the psychological side of talent development, parents will turn toward learning-oriented programs.

Of course, for parents to make this change, someone has to educate the parents. We live in a competitive society and everyone wants to keep up with the Jones'. If "next door Johnny" plays on a competitive team, than "my little Jimmy" needs to be on an elite team. Parents need to understand that these terms are just marketing. These organizations run "all-star" camps and "phenom" camps and the like, but they advertise, solicit and accept any player willing to pay the admission fee. I get unsolicited anonymous emails from these organizations asking me to pass the information on to players I know. Just because a team calls itself the area's Finest Competitive Elite Premier Select Traveling Basketball Organization does not mean it is any different than any other team. And, usually these teams recruiting "all-stars" do so to hide their inability to coach or develop players. They recruit talent rather than develop it.

I trained a player who played for a "sponsored" team. He wore his free gear to workouts. He was 11. He was big for an 11-year-old, but if anyone looked at his parents, it was obvious that he was nearly full grown. I tried to train him as a guard; he said his coach only let him shoot inside the key and played him as a center. His father is 5'9. I had a long term vision; his family had a short-term vision. He was quick to tell me where his team was playing and how many championships they won. They rarely had a close game.

Unfortunately, the next season, he was recruited over and hardly played. I doubt he ever makes a high school basketball team. On the other hand, I trained another kid whose father had a long term view. He pulled him out of AAU basketball because none of the coaches were teaching his son anything and all they did was play tournaments without any practices. This kid, passed over by the "phenoms" and the "all-stars" because he was shorter, is as skilled as any player his age. His dad did not hit his growth spurt until high school, so he has plenty of growing ahead of him. This is the problem with the Finest Competitive Elite Premier Select Traveling Basketball Organizations. Eventually, the "sponsored" team will drop the first kid because he will not be good enough anymore because he bought into the organization's short term view and never developed while playing for the organization. Meanwhile, the organization will likely recruit the second kid once he hits a growth spurt because he will be good enough. One kid will have memories of basketball when he dominated 10-year-olds and a closet full of gear while the other player with have the skills that open real opportunities in high school and beyond.

Cross Over is a tool to help parents evaluate basketball programs. Parents have choices ranging from Parks and Recreation leagues to AAU basketball. However, very few, if any, organizations use a system-wide model which provides consistency. When you visit a Starbucks, you know the type of product and service to expect, whether the Starbucks is in Manhattan, New York or Manhattan, Kansas. AAU, YMCA, YBOA, BCI and others are similar brands, but there is no brand continuity. When a parent signs up her son for an AAU team, it is not like ordering an iced mocha at Starbucks. AAU teams differ greatly, usually depending on the coach. Some AAU teams are great; some are not. Some Parks and Recreation Leagues are great; others are not. Every situation is different, even though they represent the same brand.

Most assume all club basketball teams are more competitive than "recreation" leagues. In many areas, AAU basketball is so ubiquitous that it is now just another alternative; in almost every way, club basketball is a privatized version of recreation leagues. Watch a youth AAU Tournament: more than half of the games are blowouts and the ability of the best player on a team versus the worst player, who probably does not even play, varies greatly. It is just like playing at the local Parks and Recreation or YMCA. The difference between the experience at the Y and the experience with an AAU team rests solely with the coach's attitude and ability. There is no need to rush a child into the competitive arena before he is psychologically prepared, especially since the talent or skill level of many AAU teams, leagues and tournaments differs very little from the "just rec" leagues.

In a Capitalistic market, competition decides which businesses profit and which fail. In European leagues, professional teams and leagues drive the youth development system. In the United States, the profitable organizations, the NBA and NCAA, do not invest in the system to develop the players who provide the talent which draw the viewers, drive the ticket sales and deliver the advertising revenue.

Hopefully, Cross Over provides a small education on youth basketball development so parents, coaches and league administrators can drive the change to a more balanced, progressive model to replace the current hodge-podge of programs. Basketball is not merely a scholarship pursuit, a career or a season-long quest for a championship. It has the potential to be a microcosm of life, as Bill Bradley wrote in his book Values of the Game:

Each time a father takes his son or daughter to the playground to shoot baskets for the first time, a new world opens -- one full of values that can shape a lifetime. In my experience, the feeling of getting better came with hard work, and getting better made victory easier. Winning was fun, but so was the struggle to improve. That was one of the lessons you learned from the game: Basketball was a clear example of virtue rewarded.