Rather than "practice" at home. I always encourage our athletes to play. Make up a game, find a way to compete, establish rules and go. Iterate your game and learn on the way.

What is Roofball? Roofball is a game that my brother and I made up in the Summer of 2005. We were in our backyard peppering when all of the sudden one of us (probably me) shanked the ball onto the roof of the garage. The ball rolled up the steep roof, and then reversed course and started it’s way back down. My...

This past Saturday October 10th was International Mental Health Day. It provides a convenient excuse to talk about an uncomfortable but necessary topic in the world of youth sports: mental health.

Today more than ever our young athletes have a profound amount of stress and anxiety. Throw in a global pandemic that has taken away their social lives, proms, sporting events, and basically any other thing that teenagers use to define themselves and you have yourself a dangerous cocktail for...

I truly believe coaching youth sports can be one of the most fulfilling things you do. Your ability to have life long impact on a group of young men or women is hard to find anywhere else. I would say that being an effective coach is about 15% dependent on your technical knowledge of the skills required and the remaining 85% is about your ability to maximize your teams practice time, ignite your athletes passion, and to quite simply (pardon my language) give a shit about your...

In our club we are lucky to have a large number of alumni and current college players coach on our staff. Many times, Bay to Bay will be their first coaching experience. As such, one of the first discussions we have with our new coaches is how to run an effective practice. The easiest way to get more out of your practice sessions is to formulate an organized and efficient practice plan.

Often our more inexperienced coaches have entered the gym with a "let's see where this practice takes us...

Back when I was in high school, I picked up an affinity for "Self-Improvement" books. I gobbled them up on a weekly basis and loved nothing more than adding another completed book onto my shelf. A few months ago, I picked up one of my old favorites: 7 Habits of Highly Effective people by Steven Covey.

As I was going through the book, I was taking down notes of my favorite quotes and I put one down that rang especially true for me today. The quote was this:

"My friend , love is a verb. Love -...

Have you ever heard of the "windshield" concept? Every single day, we each live with a windshield of people in front of us. One of the keys to igniting your internal motivation is to fill your windshield with vivid characters, role models, and images of your future self.

Another common phrase that describes this phenomenon is, "You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with". In this day and age, you don't even need to physically "spend time with" someone. Whether...

On March 26th, 2020 in the midst of shelter in place restrictions, Arielle and I decided to start posting Bay to Bay videos on TikTok.

Within one hour, the first video had over 30,000 likes . We had found an attention arbitrage. From that day on, we have posted one video a day and have tested out a number of different posting strategies. Here are the most successful that we have found:

1. Educational content. We use videos and captions to describe common coaching cues (envision a jump...

Over the past few weeks, I have heard more and more grumblings from players, coaches, and even parents about the desire for competition (understandbly). Under the current guidelines in California, no sort of competitions are allowed (unless you are a professional or collegiate sport organization with an extensive amount of testing availability to mitigate risk).

I have even written about the need to adjust your training mentality throughout the pandemic here. That being said, I am always a...

If you're wondering what a sales funnel is, simply imagine an actual funnel you would find in your mom's kitchen. At the top of the funnel, some substance is poured in, which filters down towards one finite destination.

In running a club, something similar occurs. At the top (email opt-in), lots of potential customers arrive who may enter your funnel. However, unlike your mom's funnel, not all who enter your sales funnel will make it to the other end (usually becoming a...

In tip #19 of Daniel Coyle's Little Book of Talent, he says, "Don't do drills. Instead play small, addictive games."

This is a thought experiment for all coaches and athletes to think about how we structure our practice. When thinking of a drill, words like mechanical, repetitive, and boring come to mind.

On the flip side, a game invokes a feeling of fun, passion, and excitement. Imagine how much faster our athletes would improve if everything was looked at through the lens of a game?

Great...