Last week I held a meeting with parents of our girls grade 6-8 select Motion players.

I started by focusing on this whole issue of “wanting it.”  I asked the parents, “What do you want?”

And then I said, “Well, at this age it doesn’t matter what you want – what matters is what your kid wants and once he or she figures that out, then we are here to encourage your child to put a plan in place to achieve what he or she wants.”

Some kids just want to be great high school players or quite simply, the best players they can be – and sometimes that means just being a good JV or Varsity player in their league. Motion X supports players who wants to achieve this goal as well as those who want more.

Some players mull the possibility of playing beyond high school.  We, as a staff of coaches comprised of mostly former college and pro basketball players, don’t sell this option very often, if at all.  Having been there and done it, we all know the odds, risks and cost of achieving this goal if things do not work out as planned.  What we do sell, however, is a plan to get a Manhattan kid to

1) figure out what he/she wants in his/her overbooked world

2) understand and execute on the “it” part of whatever he or she wants through a sensible plan that maintains academics as the priority.

Now this isn’t done by talking about it.  So if your child is talking about wanting to be a great high school player or a Division III college player, then IT won’t happen.  We are not going to ask the kids to give up all their social and family time and put in 3-6 hours a day as is the case with many high school athletes across the country.  We are going to ask the kids this spring and summer to put in an extra 20-30-45 minutes of private workout time outside of our workouts and events when their schedule allows – even if it’s going to the park to sprint or doing ball-handling drills in a basement.  These actions prove that the child truly wants to achieve his/her goals.

What about AAU or Travel Teams?

Our staff believes that the best point of entry into AAU is after grade 7, 8 and 9 NOT at grades 2-6.  Why?  The kids in grades 3-6 are not always the players who emerge as the strongest in grades 8-11.  Kids and parents who believe games, games, games are the answer don’t respect the fact that most college and high school teams spend 60 hours practicing for their first game.  Too many programs emphasize this game-culture that all too often promotes bad habits and aggressive kids with little to no real skills (not to mention lousy shot form which is very difficult to fix after it’s been done incorrectly for years).  AAU/travel is a different animal, it is and should be cut-throat tryouts every year, it is grinding on players and on families.  Don’t go there unless you’re sure your kid has excellent skills and needs it to reach his/her goals.

If you want to achieve long-term success and not get beat out by someone who is as aggressive and much more skilled, a player must follow our belief that the talent is practice, the practice is talent (and genes play arguably the biggest role at a certain point).  If we play a role in getting an X player on to an AAU team in grades 8-11, we will be proud to have played a critical part in the X player’s development.

Here’s our plan for Motion X this spring and fall 2012:

First, our Motion ID CHECK:  Our kids are typically serious academic students.  They are often crushed with homework each night.  Their hoops commitment must be well scheduled, streamlined, smart and customized to work on their strengths and weaknesses. The commitment must also include the proper ratio of practice hours to game hours – something our staff is constantly assessing and adjusting.

•  April-May = 3-4 weekends of rigorous training camp – back to fundamentals, perfect shot form, footwork, position-work that is customized at every workout.  X Players have Fri and/or Sat and/or Sun options as part of the X program.  (See our schedule under programs grades 7-8 boys/girls.)

•  May-June = 3-5 weekends of games in our gyms or short road trips to Westchester and/or Jersey.  When we are not playing, we still have our allocated Fri, Sat and Sun gym space.

•  Customized workouts where we encourage X players to go out on their own and work on their shot form, conditioning, footwork, strength (i.e. push-ups/band work every night).

They typically won’t listen to parent at this age – but hopefully they will listen to us.

•  Video tape work and constant feedback through report card assessments BEFORE we start X program, verbal reports during X and a final report card going into the summer so our X players know what we expect when they return in the fall.

•  Advanced Functional Motion Training (Wed. nights 7:30-8:45 p.m. at Madison Ave. Pres Church/between 73rd & 74th) is not included in the above program, but encouraged.  Motion coaches believe that our work one day a week with the kids for 75 minutes – basketball conditioning, body-weight exercises, medicine balls, ball-handing, heavy ball work, agility, etc. will boost their performance when they play.

Below is a breakdown of the costs for the X program and Functional Motion.  Scholarships are available (look under our ABOUT tab.)  If it’s better for your child to just participate in one-day per weekend programs, this option is available and costs $425 for spring weekends (Fri or Sat or Sun).  Ideally X players are committed to balancing a school sport (Mon-Friday) plus our hoops program on weekends.

Cost of Motion X Spring:  $950

Cost of Advanced Motion Training (Wed nights, Upper East, 7:30-8:50 p.m.):  $250

Coaches of Motion X:  Maureen, Ryan, Malcolm, Keris, Denise, Jordan, Marcus

If you have any questions, please reach out to Ryan or Maureen.

Yet the story of the Cubs needs to be told not because of what we did, but because of what they did for us.

Motion decided to say thank you to the principal, staff and students at our first rented public school – PS 191. We replaced the backboards over the summer with help from our friends at Zog Sports. I then decided to go into school to rally a group of grade 3-5 girls to form a club team that may or may not want to play against Motion teams on the weekend during our rented gym time.  At the very least, they would get regular exercise and be with their friends every week.

A well-known study proved if you do not encourage a girl to engage in rigorous physical activity or sports by the age of 10 or before they hit puberty, you only stand 1 in 10 chance that they will be active as an adult. There were too many athletic-looking girls in this school – in middle school – who were not playing sports. We decided to take a chance on putting the club team in at this school, in hopes it would provide girls the opportunity to have fun, be strong, stay fit and play as a team.

What I did not know at the time was that not one of the 22 girls who showed up – a range from girls who wanted to talk to those who wanted to play – not one of them every played any organized sport. No tennis lessons. No soccer teams.  Nothing.

I put them on the line, ran them, took no excuses, ran them again, thinking to myself they’re not going to like this at all. I taught them the basics, along with my temporary assistant. Twenty-two girls showed up the first day, 23 returned the next week.

When asked if they ever watched a basketball game, only two said yes.  Most weren’t sure of which direction to run in and they ran with the ball during most of the  scrimmage.  When asked if they would watch one over the Christmas break as a homework assignment, they all screamed yes.

Over the course of late October-early November, their new Coach Ari and I taught them the basics of the game, we showed them out of bounds lines, a 3-2 zone. Those grade 4 and few grade 5 girls who watched a basketball game and regularly showed up were asked to play against Mo’ Motion’s grade 4 purple team for their opening weekend in January.

Our uniforms FINALLY showed up and we were ready to go for it.

Ari and I spent most of our time walking home from practice talking strategy and wondering how nervous the girls may be heading into their first game. I could not make it, so it was up to Ari to lead and protect her Cubs.

On game day while I was in another gym, I looked at my phone and read the final score.

The Cubs beat Motion White 24-10.

Not 8-6. They scored 24 points.

How?

Rebounds.

Keep in mind that I’d spent weeks yelling at our leading rebounder to “REBOUND!” She stopped and looked at me after 3 sessions, after chasing down and holding a ball in her hands.  ”Mo,” she said, “What’s a rebound?”

It’s heart, hustle, effort.

For every shot that went up, the Cubs tracked down five rebounds to our one.

We gave the Cubs a life-changing experience, and they gave us one right back. I wore my Cubs shirt for the entire week and told every Motion team  and coach about what they proved. I’ve demanded our kids – boys and girls grades K-8 to “Play like the Cubs.”

Motion Purple saw the Cubs come into the gym for week two and they were better prepared, but it was still not enough for the mighty, tall and spirited Cubs. The Cubs beat them, too, but this time only 24-19.

Word got back to me that Motion Purple, “Wasn’t letting anyone push them around this time.”

(Please click through this gallery to see the Cubs working hard in their renovated gym.)

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