What is Next Play Basketball about?

Introducing Next Play Basketball

I’ve never wanted to do anything but coach. By the time I graduated high school and I knew that I wanted to be a basketball coach. For the last 25 years I’ve devoted myself to being the best basketball coach I could be. I’ve read books, articles and attended as many clinics as I could get to. I’ve watched high school, college and professional teams practice and play all over this country and in a few others. I’ve coached AAU teams, high school teams, college teams and even spent a few weeks helping coach a team playing across Europe. I’ve made my share of mistakes, but I’ve seen a lot of things in a lot of places and have a pretty good idea of what it takes to build and manage a successful high school program.

Next Play Basketball is my effort to share that knowledge with as many other coaches, players and parents as possible. The core of our mission is to grow the game of basketball in South Carolina and beyond. We want to serve coaches and players by providing innovative ideas and viewpoints to help them solve the problems they encounter on a day to day basis.

INNOVATE.

The way things have always been done is rarely the best way to do things.

Even the elite programs and the players and coaches who make them up have to continue to grow and evolve if they want to stay ahead of their competition in the long term. As coaches it is important to evaluate the way we do everything. Are you doing it because it is the best thing for your players and program this year or is just the way you have always done it? Are you teaching the best way to execute the fundamentals of offense in defense in the way that will be most effective in today’s game or are you teaching them the way that you are comfortable with teaching? The margin between winning and losing is often razor thin. A whole season can turn on a single possession. Identifying new things that you need to do or doing old things in a new way can be the difference between cutting down nets and getting an early start on post season inventory. Through full program evaluations and self-scouting we can offer you ideas that you can evaluate and implement to make your team better.

SOLVE.

After 20 years on the bench I know all to well that high school coaches rarely have enough time or assistant coaches to do everything that they want to do to grow their program.

Sometimes you can identify a problem and maybe even a solution, but you just don’t have the time, energy or manpower to solve that problem. We want to help you solve those problems by working with your players, parents and coaches in addition to all the things you already do. Leadership or team building workshops for your players, feeder school or assistant coach clinics for your coaches, and parent education workshops for your parents. We can also take a topic that you want to study and bring an in-house coaching clinic to you on that topic. Whatever problems you can identify we want to work with you to provide you with the resources to solve it.

SERVE.

Basketball has been good to us. It has taken me places I never would have imagined and has allowed me to develop some incredible relationships with incredible people. We want to pay that forward and serve the players and coaches in your program. We want to help you develop, lead and maintain the program that are trying to build. Whatever knowledge or experience we have gained we want to serve others by sharing it with as many people as possible.