Snow Volleyball

Our snow volleyball tournament is delayed as I still cannot find a Mikasa Snow Volleyball we can use.  If anyone has any leads on anyone who might know where I can get a snow volleyball, help me out.

Academy colors and logos

Basketball Elite Academy, Volleyball Elite Academy, and Youth Elite Academy will all have sessions scheduled from December to June.

Delay

The lack of a gym might result in a little bit of a delay in the announcement of the next batch of sessions.  Be patient they will be up soon and I will drop a note letting everyone know when they are available for registration.  Do not wait to register as in the last cycle most of the sessions sold out.

Gym needed

In other news, the academy is working to secure another location to rent other than school gyms.  The academy was informed that it is not allowed to rent the school gyms as it is a corporation and not a non-profit organization.  If you know of anyone who has a two-court gym or warehouse who would be interested in helping a sports academy supply skill training as cheap as possible to the youth of Saskatoon tell them to give me a call.

Christmas is right around the corner.

Christmas is right around the corner. This week we have a Pickup GamePlay on Monday, December 16 from 8-10 pm and Tuesday, December 17 from 8-10 pm. Sign up and come on out and play. On Tuesday from 7-8 pm there is a private lesson available.  The last session is on Wednesday, December 18, 6-10 pm we have “Everything in 4 Hours”.  There are a few spots left in this session.  Then we are off to the new year. Register now

Shooting Technique Basketball

If you want to be a superb shooter, you MUST HAVE a very good basketball shooting form and technique. However, you don't need a "perfect" shooting form.

In other words, your shooting form will never be 100%, and you don't want to be robotic.

With that said, you'll never be a great shooter unless you have "satisfactory" form and mechanics.
It's very common for players to have fatal flaws in their approach, and frankly, they have no chance of becoming consistent shooters.

https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/fundamentals/shooting-technique.html

Basketball Elite Academy

The start of the Basketball Elite Academy is rapidly approaching.  On December 15, I will book the necessary gyms.  I am currently developing the necessary icons and session descriptions.  Sessions will occur from 7-9 pm at the Evergreen Schools and other available P3 Schools.  The private sessions are normally one hour long and will occur from 9-10 on the same day as other sessions are happening.  I am building the list of interested coaches....so far I have four coaches who said they would be willing to do sessions. They are Brad Schoenfeld, Donna-Marie Frassetto, JJ Del Castillo and Scott Hundseth.  If any of you know others that would be interested please send me their email addresses as you will want approximately 10-15 different coaches on the list to make sure we can cover all the sessions.  Our ratio is one coach to ever ten athletes.  The system is set up to promote this ratio, electronically athletes register and when a session is full, athletes join the waiting list, if the waiting list gets big we hire another coach and then we double the number of participants.  Head coaches for a session are paid 50 dollars an hour while the assistant coaches get paid 40 dollars an hour.  A coach is paid 60 dollars an hour for private sessions.

All athletes are required to bring their own ball as the academy does not supply any balls.  To be selected for a session, each coach is required to complete the coaches contract and form information found at the following URL:

https://sites.google.com/view/elitesite/coaches-contract-agreement

The sessions are:

1. Advanced Defense

2. Advanced Dribble

3. Advanced Offense

4. Advanced Shooting

5. A week of skills

6. Basic Dribble

7. Basic Shooting

8. Defense

 9. Layups

10. Offense

11. Pickup Game Play

12. Private Sessions

Ideas for other sessions are always encouraged and welcome. 

The sessions are for athletes grades 7-12, girls and boys together.  They are individual skill instruction where the athletes can work at their own level.  Our goal is to make them better at individual skills.  Girls and Boys come to the same session.  Sessions cost 30 dollars per participant and no membership fee is require or a minimum number of sessions the athletes come and go allowing for multisport athletes with busy lives.  Coach's children can attend for free the sessions they are coaching.    

A very serious rule at the Academy is:

We do not use the academy to build teams or recruit players for teams during academy sessions.

The reason being coaches will stop sending their players to the academy if they do not believe it is a safe place with no recruiting.

Coaches at the academy are chosen for their maturity and report with the age of athletes we are training.  We are looking for the best coaches in the city.  We do not offer coaching positions to young players (university players) with a history of coaching experience, we seek teachers who have coached as they have skills for working with this age group of athletes.  Coaching certification levels are welcome but more emphasis is placed on older, mature, experienced coaches rather than higher-level coaches with limited experience with beginners and young athletes.  We do bring in guest coaches, (University coaches, professional players etc.) on occasions.  No formal evaluation of coaches is done, new coaches are used as an assistant coach and their continuing involvement in coaching sessions will be based on the athlete's evaluation and the head coach's thoughts on their skills.  Each session offered at the academy is evaluated by the athletes. 

Each of the interested coaches who have completed the coaching forms will receive an invite to a nationwide police check which is a requirement for all coaches.