Starting on Sunday, I am going to be heading over to the Pump Brothers AAU basketball tournament here in LA . I will cover some of the games for Basketball.org and offer some of my viewpoints from the tournament. I am excited to watch the games, check out the talent and see old friends.
I want to take this opportunity to reminiscence and talk about my experiences with AAU and AAU in general. Arguably, my AAU experience is one of the highlights of my life. What better way to spend a month, as a 17 year-old, than travelling from tournament to tournament and playing games against some of the best competition in the country, while bonding with teammates who instantly became friends. However, due to the AAU “system” plenty of kids out there don’t get to have the same experience as I once had.
I was fortunate enough to play for a great coach in Nelson Washington of the Bay Area Ballers. Nelson truly didn’t care about the AAU “hoopla” and cared only for the progression of his players. He worked to get you recruited and pressed his teams to play together to win. His belief was that the more you play as a team, the farther you go in a tournament and the more exposure you get. Our teams bought into this philosophy.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of AAU coaches who don’t give a damn about Nelson’s philosophy. Yes, they do want to win, but they don’t care about their players, getting them recruited or even improving their games. These coaches just want the exposure on themselves. They take money from shoe companies (something Nelson turned down), stack their teams with players all throughout the country and don’t even coach . I believe this is flat out wrong in an “amateur” competition and not good for basketball in general. These AAU coaches and sneaker companies are kissing the ass of a 17 year old making these kids think they are above the rest. Why wouldn’t they?
I don’t think this type of system can be stopped, but I would like to see it changed. I do think that basketball in this country is severely lacking in fundamentals and do believe it has to do in part to the current youth basketball system. As we saw with the 2004 Olympics and other international competition, we have taken strides backwards in respect to the international game. We need to make changes now. Colangelo and USA Basketball are making the appropriate changes at the top of the game, but there needs to be changes at the bottom.
Hopefully, Basketball.org is that change and we intend for it to be. We are working diligently to get to our launch in order to give youth coaches and players an online basketball resource for they can be the best that they can be. Don’t mean to sound like an Army slogan but you get my point. These tools will help create more fundamental basketball players and teams, thus enhancing the entertainment of the game.
Image Source: * AAU
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Very well said, Jaime.
As a basketball official and a former player, I really feel the AAU system is one with great potential but it needs structure. I definitely agree with your assessment of the association, some of the coaches are terrible. My son is now old enough to play and I struggle with find a team where he will get the discipline, instruction and other life skills that I feel a lot of the coaches really lack themselves. The parents are even worst than the coaches.
As a coach on the high school level in SC I have first hand experience with AAU and it is mostly bad. Most coaches compete for kids with lies and false promises. The top team in the state is propped up by Nike and is just as you described, no coaching and just 3-5 D1 players running up and down the court. Many of the teams are filled with kids who are academically ineligible for their high school teams and will never go to college. I’ve seen kids expelled from school playing just so a coach can win games. These kids rarely pay while the players they replace do. There are a few quality AAU programs out there but most I have had dealings with do more harm than good. As Saeed said, there is so much potential with this organization but they must have more structure.
You hit the nail on the head. My son is 16 and played on a travelling team this summer. The only good thing to come out of it was his introduction to the experience in Las Vegas and LA so he won’t be shell shocked for next year and the fact that the other 13 PLAYERS (yes, this coach took 14 kids) got to know each other and had fun together. Outside of that it was a fiasco and all of my worst fears came true with this team. Not only were the last several months leading up to this the most stressful time we’ve had dealing with an AAU program with the “director” and coach continually asking for more money and not wanting to tell us where it was going or giving crazy reasons for needing it… by the time we realized it we were backed into a corner and it was also too late for the guys to get on other travel teams. There were numerous moments where the “director” threatened to kick kids off the team and not return any money to the families she was threatening. And, that’s the financial part of it. The coaching was another story! No fundamentals, 14 KIDS on the bench, subbing every 2 minutes, kids that shouldn’t even be on a team… so they’d go into games with a bench really only 6 deep and expect the other 8 to win games. Not going to happen. This coach was so egotistical he truly believes he can put any 5 kids on the court and they will win if they follow his offense. That’s unbelievable. In LA this week, they had a team meeting to ask the kids why they thought they weren’t winning and said they could “be honest with their feelings”. One player said he didn’t feel like the program was setting them up to win with the number of kids and then playing the kids they were playing with no consistency. They got so upset at what he said, they told him to pack his bags (this is at midnight) and that he was being sent home on a greyhound bus.. by himself!! This continued with for 3 days, fighting with the parents who are in Washington State and not able to be there to help their son. The police got involved finally and brought these people to reality reminding them that they are responsible for this 17 year old minor and cannot put him on the street. Yes, several times over the last few days they’ve threatened to put him on the street and he’d have to find his own way home. What a joke!! Anyway, my reason for stating all of this is to warn parents… PLEASE… if you have your son or daughter on a team and your gut is telling you somethings not right, pull them! Don’t worry about the money! My son had 6 D1 colleges attending his games in Las Vegas and LA… do you think they saw what they wanted to see with him on the court for 7 sparatic minutes. Hopefully they know his a good player and this is a reflection on the coach and not my son. This has definitely been a learning experience!