My first year as a high school basketball coach

As someone who was a varsity basketball player back in the day, I can say from experience that my days playing high school sports produced some of the most memorable moments of my life. I also made some friends that I’m still close to ten years later.

That’s why when I moved out here, I jumped at the opportunity to come aboard as an assistant coach of the Lakes District Secondary School high school basketball team. So far, it’s been light years more fun then I could have hoped.

The thing I love about team sports is that they have a way of teaching a young adult so many things about life; like teamwork, a good work ethic, how to handle disappointment, how to be a leader.

I love going to practice every Tuesday an Thursday and seeing everyone get a little better as a player and as a teammate each night. It really is a gratifying to watch athletes pick up on what you’re teaching them. The kids have been awesome as well.

Everyone on the team works extremely hard, and loves to play the game which makes it easy as a coach. One of my favourite parts of coaching was the time early on in the season that I had to earn everyone’s trust.

For the first couple of weeks of practices, I was really quiet because I had to earn the respect of the players to the point where they knew I was trying to help them get better. Then gradually I started finding my voice as a coach. It’s definitely a give and take kind of relationship.

We even got to experience some heroics back in November with the most epic buzzer-beater I’ve ever seen. Alex Buchner hit a five-foot fade away on the left side as time ran out to win the game in overtime. Crazy.

Oh, and we only had four players on the court because half our team fouled-out.

To be able to see all of our players experience some of these moments has in a way allowed me to relive some of my favourite memories as a high school athlete. Now to be on the other side and see what it looks like from a coaches perspective has been really cool.

With the rest of the season in the unknown, it’s hard to tell what the future holds for our team this year, but I think we have a good group that’s getting better every day.

Who knows, maybe I can get get some first year coaching luck and the Lakers can bring home some hardware.