Coaching basketball to children is an essential building block in a child's development to a life of caring, sharing, good sportsmanship and success. Today's "me first" society with an emphasis on instant gratification is missing all the key elements to a fulfilling life of helping others to a common goal and the extreme satisfaction in reaching these goals. My success is your success, my happiness is your happiness and the work that went into our accomplishment was our work.

There is so much insistence on young people today to be the best "I" can be, to be the next koby Bryant or Michael Jordan. That's ok if you are blessed with the kind of talent that these gentlemen possess, for the rest of us mere mortals, team work is the key to success.

This is where a good coach can really shine, it's not about the wins and losses, it's about getting a bunch of young people to believe in themselves and their teammates, and doing the work it takes to get better as a group. It's about making the sacrifice to set up a teammate (setting a pick) for a lane to the basket for a layup, making the extra pass to an open player for a better scoring chance, boxing out an opponent to get a rebound for another offensive set.

Teaching the kids to talk to each other for help defense or to switch off on defense after getting picked, in short to play as one team not one individual. These types of lessons to a young mind go a long way in shaping a person's attitude; you clutch the philosophies of a great teacher/coach for the rest of your life. We all have a few stories of a favorite teacher who, many years ago, instilled a principle inside a course or even just a single lesson that has stayed with us since and after all is not a teacher a coach and a coach not a teacher. The beautiful thing about this is that, if taught right, kids don't realize that they are being prepped for life, they are just having fun.

Basketball is a great medium for such lessons because the whole game revolves around the play of the team and not the individual. If for example one player is having a tough time guarding an opponent, his team is expected to and has to aid in defending this player in order for the team to be successful. The game also teaches patients as well, basketball is not a bull rush to knock down a quarterback or a sprint to the end zone. Basketball is about waiting for the best scoring opportunity every time your team sets up offensively. Maybe passing up your favorite shot because another teammate has a better one or a particular teammate is "In a zone "so it behooves you to get that player the ball.

Basketball is also a game that takes hours of practice to get better at, so a work ethic has to be established early on, the more you apply yourself the better you will be. Other life lessons that kids can get from being taught the game are, just because it's not comfortable doesn't mean it's not right, IE; dribbling left handed or shooting with your left hand, if your opponent knows he only has to guard your right side, you become predictable and his job becomes easy.

Dare yourself to try, explore, learn a new skill, leave your comfort zone and explore your limitations, turn limitations into new assets. This approach to basketball opens the young mind to investigate other avenues in life that may have been closed to the previously unchallenged mind, body and spirit.

Learn more about this author, David Dicesare.
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