Why should you train with me? I think this is a very reasonable question.
At a glance, you can see that I have no coaching experience at the university or professional level. So why should I be able to help you get there?
Although I don't have formal coaching experience at those levels, I believe I am qualified to help players who have university or professional aspirations. I have received the highest quality coaching a Canadian player can receive during my 5 years at Carleton under head coaches Taffe Charles and Dave Smart. During that time I worked with them to develop my skills and abilities on the court, but I was also taught important lessons on how to build championship teams, what goes in to maintaining a locker room, and how to build and maintain relationships on and off the court. However, the most important lesson they taught me was how to play on any team. I learnt how to identify my role on a team and how to expand that role over time.
Additionally, from the age of 13-18, I spent countless hours in the gym by myself experimenting with different skills and drills. I took what I saw on Instagram, YouTube, and from camps and applied it directly to my own game. This allowed me to differentiate between the drills that were just "fluff" and the drills that produced real results.
I'm talking the results that allow you to transform from the player who plays limited bench minutes to the player who has the ball in their hands when the game is on the line!
What might come to mind next is - experience is one thing, but you haven't actually applied any of this experience through coaching.
During my 5 years at Carleton I coached a group of boys from the time they were in grade 1 until they were in grade 6. We were in the gym anywhere from 1-3 times per week over the span of 5 years. I was focussed on developing their skills and basketball IQ over that period of time - simplifying high level basketball concepts to their purest forms to make them easy to understand. This forced me to truly understand the game in its simplest form. Once my players understood the basics principles we continued to build on these concepts. Resulting in that group becoming one of the top U12 teams in Ontario last season.
If you still aren't sold I will keep it short and sweet. I have dedicated the last 10 years of my life to becoming the best basketball player I could be. I did this by spending countless hours in the gym, watching film, and brainstorming ways to improve. I have been coached by the some of the best coaches our country has ever seen. But, I still have made numerous mistakes along the way - wasting precious time that could have been used to get even better. You don't have to make these same mistakes. Take the guesswork out of your development and work with someone who has achieved the goals you have for yourself.
If I was able to play at the level I always dreamed of the only question you should ask yourself is...
Why not you?
