Youth-Athlete's Sport Blog

On the exciting day that ESPN kick-off their 2008 college basketball coverage, the legendary basketball coach Pete Newell passed away at the age of 93.  Pete is a basketball coaching legend being the first of three coaches to coach the winning teams of a NCAA championship (1959), NIT championship (1949), and Olympic Gold Medal (1960) (the other two are Bobby Knight and Dean Smith).  More...

Coach Candrea and Team USA work with SportSkool to teach the softball fundamentals of base running.   Team USA coach Mike Candrea and Amanda Freed cover the art of pitching.  Amanda Freed shows the proper upper and lower body mechanics and the grips to throw a fastball, change-up, drop ball, and rise ball.   More...

On any given day, any team or anyone can win the game.  This is what makes competitive sports so much fun.  You never know when a player or team outmatched in every aspect of the game pulls off the victory by stunning their opponent.  Take a lesson from Michael Jordan. More...

In my previous post, Basketball Strategies 101, I provided a simple metric to measure the effectiveness of a team's offensive and defensive strategies.  In this post, I want to describe Dean Smith's more sophisticated offense and defense measure that he called possession evaluation.  This metric is described in detail with several examples in his book, Multiple Offense and Defense.  This book is a must read for any basketball coach or player who wants to understand and teach the fundamentals of basketball.  More...

Basketball often times is considered a simple game with the winning team having a higher score after competing for a pre-defined amount of time.  But what is often missed are the underlying offensive and defensive strategies and, most importantly, how to judge their effectiveness.  More...

Coach Candrea and Tairia Flowers work with SportSkool to teach the proper softball catching mechanics.  They show the mechanics required for a proper stance, glove work and framing, throwing, fielding bunts, and receiving throws.  More...

In baseball and softball, all nine fielders have defined responsibilities and need to move on every play.

Outfield fly to right with runner on third, the play is to make the catch and throw to home. More...

In baseball and softball, all nine fielders have defined responsibilities and need to move on every play.

Outfield fly to center with runner on third, the play is to make the catch and throw to home. More...

This is the fourth and final post on the SPARQ rating and training system.  The previous post answer the questions: what is SPARQ training, why an athlete should care about the rating system , and what it tests?  In this post, I will insights into the commitment required for the training to be successful and a few results of athletes that have gone through the program. More...

In baseball and softball, all nine fielders have defined responsibilities and need to move on every play.

Outfield fly to left with runner on third, the play is to make the catch and throw to home. More...