Dreams of glory don't end with the final buzzer.
They live on...Pushing the athlete to
compete one more time. Today.

The AAU Girls Basketball program offers an opportunity for all teams to reach a national tournament. By participating in your Association Qualifying Tournament, you not only have the chance to advance to the National Championship but you also become automatically eligible for the National Invitational Championship (N.I.C.). AAU Tournaments are offered to AAU member teams. The age determining date used by AAU Girls Basketball is January 1 (i.e., the participant must have been born between January 2, 1991 and December 31, 1992).

To become an AAU member feel free to email us at mike.gnas2@verizon.net or click the link on the left.

How to become a Player!

First of all girls do not have access to the court and gym time that boys do. Every school I visit during the summer has open gym time and leagues for the boys. So they have to overcome these obstacles.

First the key is AAU basket ball. Every top player in the area plays AAU. AAU requires a commitment of just about every weekend for practice and games plus at least 1 or 2 practices per week. You can just tell the difference when you see the AAU players on the court Vs non-AAU players. So those of you who think you will be good by shooting around in the back yard you are only partially right. You have got to play AAU to have a chance at being a good ball player. We post all tryout and info for all organizations so just watch.

Next you have to get your parents to support you. You can't be daddy's little girl out on the court. You have to approach the game with an aggressive mind set. Next you have to work hard on your game. You have no idea how many conversations I have had with Dad's who tell me how great a "driveway player" their daughter is. I then watch these players shoot around and see them taking 2-3 seconds to just get ready to shoot. Their parents think they are all world. They then get upset when an AAU player goes against them and plays killer D. You then hear all the shouts of "someone come help her out" when their daughter is playing. Parents you have change your mind set and see your daughter as a player. Does she have a jump shot or a set shot? Can she dribble with her head up with both hands, does she cross her feet or slide on defense? Do you take her to YMCA or other rec. centers and have her go against the guys? These are all the things your daughter should work on or be doing. Don't get me wrong it is ok to be play basketball as an activity but if you want to be good you have to do some if not all the things I am telling you here.

Next you need to go to some camps. Coach Lakey's camp is one of the best. It is inexpensive and he is one of the great personal development coaches have ever seen. I once had a player who had a terrible hitch in her shot. I showed her how to shoot correctly as did Coach Lackey. Her dad did not want to change her shot. When she played against younger players it was OK, now as she has gotten older she gets her shot swatted just about everytime. My point is take your kids to camp and let some others teach them how to play, then support their teaching. My own daughter improved her shooting by going to camp. Even though I thought my way of teaching was the best (don't all dads) it wasn't. Only through camp did my daughter get better.

Allow your daughter to experience the reality of sports. They are going to win some games they should not and lose some they should win. They will have good coaches and bad ones. You won't always like the other parents on the team nor will they think you are greatest person they ever met either. They could give a wit about your job, how much money you make or anything else about you. So don't try and impress them. They are their for only one reason and that is their daughter. You will meet parents who always complain. The most common complaints are "I just don't think X, Y & Z was fair" or my favorite "that is just not how it should be" or "if I ran my business the way this club is run I would be out of business" Just stay clear of those parents. They are always upset about something and think because they have a daughter playing that they have a right to complain about everything from practice time to the color of the uniforms!. Don't judge them but you don't have to listen to their junk either. If you really want to change something volunteer to help or do the things you don't like that others are doing. I have seen parents jump teams year after year and complain about their high school coach their AAU and their middle school coach. You wonder is it them or the coach?

The game is full of ups and downs. Your daughter will probably play more then she deserves or she might play less. You will see some teams that impress you and others you will wonder why parents allow their daughters to play for such a jerk. The ref's will be bad and cause you to lose some games you should win. (you will never notice the good ref's or calls that go your way) You will travel and get fatter (since you learn to eat quickly on the road thus McD's is the place of choice because you are always hungry and in a hurry) Your daughter will probably like the coach based on play time. The more she plays the smarter you will think the coach is. Remember every AAU team has no high paid coaches like in high school (just kidding on the pay coaches) just volunteers. They are giving of their time so try and be respectful.

The above are all realities of playing basketball. Work with your daughter through the tough times. Don't allow her to deflect responsibility and blame the coach. Be encouraging but also work with your daughter on her weakness. I remember my daughters team was in Nationals and we had just lost by 50 points and she had played 23 seconds. She was all upset. I told her remember the feeling so this summer when you have the option of sitting on the sofa eating chips and watching soaps or going outside and working on your game you have a reason to make a choice. You will never ever want to feel the way you did after the 50 point 23 second play time experience. I could have blamed the coach and gone on and on about how unfair it was but instead I used that feeling to motivate her. All summer she worked on her game it paid off as she ended up starting on her AAU team the next year. (don't get me wrong I have made just about every mistake a parent can make but in this one I did OK) What I have found is playing sports prepares the girls so well for school and the reality of the work world. I know we love are kids greatly but allow them to grow up a little when they play sports. Giving them this freedom to develop is one of the best things you can teach them ( and a whole lot better then showing them how to shoot). You want to be supportive of your child but allow them to work through some of their problems.

I hope this article helps someone. I certainly have the utmost respect for all the parents who take their children to all the gyms and games we play in.

Playing sports has it's ups and downs but in the long run you will look back on it and have many great memories. Plus think of the time you are spending with your kids. You are usually in a car with them at least 2-4 hours a week if not more. Turn the radio off and just listen to them. Their are all sorts of life's lessons you can teach through their emotions they have about their team. Just remember don't allow them to deflect their responsibility. I have coached for 26 years and kept in touch with most of my players. The ones who worked hard and had a great attitude all are doing wonderful in their jobs and family. Those that always complained or deflected responsibility all have job jumped and had trouble with others.

What do College Coaches Look For?

We took some time at the recent Blue Chip Tourney to talk with some college coaches on what they look for in the players they recruit. After all their were about 100 of them at the tourney and they all had notebooks and more info on players then you care to know. We were real interested in what were all of these coaches looking at and taking notes on. So we asked a whole bunch of them to share their thoughts with us. So here is our summary of their comments. Coaches start a season with usually about 2-4 openings for scholarships. They have a list of about 100 players they consider for those 2-4 spots. They then use the criteria below to determine who to pursue and who not to. By the time they go through this criteria they usually are down to about 6 players to fill the 2-4 spots on their roster. So if have a school in mind and don't want to miss out on the full scholarship then maybe this article will help.

First they need to know you can play. They told us the best way is seeing you in AAU action. High School just does not cut it. It is so easy for an average player to go out and score a bunch Vs activity players on high school teams but it is real hard for a player to do well on the AAU level. Once they have determined you can play they then micro your game and you as a person. More and more the coaches told us the player as a person becomes more important. That is attitude with a big A for those of you confused about what I just said. More and more their are good players to choose from. So here are the tips I learned to help each of you rise in the eyes of these coaches. Talent is a given the question is what separates you from others with equal talent?

Work Ethic: I heard many a college coach comment on the players of MA Lady Run-in Rebels. They had just finished 2nd in the nation last week but yet they were in Richmond playing as hard as any players there. Not only could these kids play they obviously loved the game. All the Coaches talked about this. They were impressed. It would have been easy for the girls to say "oh its been a long season and I'm tired I think I'll take some time off" or the parents to say "Gee I think little Sally needs a break" No these kids and parents were all there. They also made note of how hard the players worked in warm-ups and when the game was already (cont) decided, One coach said he had lost interest in a player who he was considering because she stopped playing hard whenever her team go down. They also compared notes on the previous years report on players. Lets say last year the player could not hit the 3 but this year they can. Coaches are so impressed with this improvement. They know that from your freshmen year to senior year in college you will get a lot better the key is working on your game. If you show the work ethic early on you will get high marks from colllege coaches who know you will improve.

Attitude: This is what elevates a player in a coaches eyes when ability is equal. They watch for everything. When the player comes out of the game do they sulk? Are they not enthused on the bench? Do they pout? Are they looking up in the stands for Mom? How do they react when their team is down. Do they dig in a really go at it the other team or did they start blaming others. I remember sitting next to a college coach who was at an AAU tourney a while back and two points guards he was recruiting were playing against each other. The coach liked both but favored the more athletic one. On a break away the athletic point guard had a four step lead from the other. We looked at the face of the other point guard it was full of determination. She sprinted the whole way down the court and dove for a strip of the lay-up by the more athletic point guard. She not only stopped the lay-up but won the scholarship over the more athletic player. The college coach told me it was not even close anymore on who he wanted. The other key element is the parent. College favorite way of determine the attitude of a player is by listening to their parents talk. I know that may surprise you but it is for the most part a good way of determing attitude. Coaches like to hear how a parent talks about her daughters coaches. If they are real critical of the most of the coaches their daughter has played for then chances are that is the way it will be in college. So you as a parent are not helping yourself with the college coaches when you become the almighty judge of your daughters coach. I know at the tourney I talked with 12 coaches about players on my team. They went down the list of players I had and other I knew about. I would never do anything to hurt one of my players chances in college but those players with great attitudes I made it a point of highlighting them. As a parent you need to know that coaches talk and talk (I won't call it gossip but it is close) about players. Bad attitude players and negative parents get discussed a lot more then you care to think about. Ever wonder why some college coaches don't recruit in their home town? That question was answered by one coach this weekend. She told me "Why would I want some parent sitting at every
game complaining about my coaching and then in my AD office threating to transfer all the time

Parents: I was amazed at the number of coaches who use as a criteria the parents. As one coach told me "why would I want to recruit a girls whose parents are going to cause problems with the team. I don't need someone calling me up all the time asking why their daughter isn't shooting more, playing more or being captain I always ask a parent to describe the teams and coaches they played for. If they spend more then 15 seconds being critical of a coach my meeting is short with them and I'm off to the next player. I don't need the head aches this parent will cause"I hope you parents are reading this. You may be ruining your child's chances by being critical of your daughters coaches. Refer on this site to my article on being a parent of a player. When I was at nationals I had 12 coaches talk to me about my players. Each asked about the attitude of the player and then they asked about the parents. College coaches can read between the lines of a coach well. I saw one AAU coach talking to a top college coach who was interested in 2 of his players. When asked about the parents this coach went on and on about how great and supportive they were, when asked about the parents of the other player the coach said "well they have been to all the games and really look out for what they believe to be the best interest of their daughter" The coach didn't say anything bad about the parent but the message was clear. So parents when you sit there and be so critical of the coach and always are causing problems you need to think who you will end up hurting. It probably won't be the coach.

Academics: Not as a big a problem with girls compared to boys. But do not take this lightly. A coach told me about one player who thought they could go mid division one. Well they didn't have as good a year as hoped so the only schools left interested were low division 1 programs. Of those schools only a handful here interested. Those schools were really top academic colleges so this player could not get in. Her dreams of playing college ball went away. As one coach told me the better grades you hve the more schools that can recruit you. So if you are low division one talent but have great grades you might find yourself in a super situation with a choice of many great academic schools interested in you. Coaches like players with a strong work ethic in study. The development of strong time management skills for study really works.