Structure of Practice

I was watching a little NFL Network tonight, and of course it's Training Camp season... The commentators were dissecting the practices of several teams, and they made a good point.

Practices are structured to move from the individual drills to the full-team drills and work. This allows the coach to stress individual skills (and fundamentals - imagine that), and the player to work and concentrate on the mechanics of particular skills. From there, the next set of drills might be small group drills, or offensive or defensive-specific work. Moving to the small group allows for more repetition, but in a more realistic setting.

Saving the full team drills or a scrimmage for the end makes sense - this is where everything can come together, whether it's offense against defense, full-court, full speed, etc. By this point, the players have had the maximum amount of time to work on their own - and it is now their time to shine. Usually, the full team drills are also what the kids look forward to most. If you started with them, you might see less effort as practice went on instead of more.

Good luck!

To scrimmage or not to scrimmage...

I'm not a huge fan of scrimmaging during practice for the under-8 set.

Why? I feel like it takes away time we'd other wise spend on fundamentals. The basic skills are essential for young players. Not only do they learn to do things, and do them well early - it gives them the best chance to work on those skills later through their careers.

There is nothing inherently wrong with scrimmaging, especially for a few minutes at the end of practice. It does actually provide a little glimpse of how the game evolves - hopefully leading to the kids being more comfortable and less scared when it "counts". But at this age, scrimmages can get out of control, and if the kids aren't actually applying the skills they should, it could be worse than not practicing at all.

There are several drills in each sport which you could run to provide "game experience" in lieu of a full-on up-and-down scrimmage. But if you do try an actual scrimmage, consider stopping it at key points (turnovers, great plays, bad plays, etc) for a teaching moment. This is a great time to point out good things, bad things, and what the alternative might have looked like.

It may make sense to run some small scrimmages later in the season - especially if your players have gotten the drills and basics down. Still, don't just switch to scrimmages because you don't have any more drills to run. That would be a WRONG reason.

Good luck!