COACH CATCH UP is an ongoing blog series we’ve created to be able to highlight different amateur sports team coaches, and talk one-on-one with them to hear about their story and coaching experience. Here, we sit down with Coach Marcus Sandiford from West Herts Warriors Basketball Club.
How was basketball introduced into your life?
I picked up basketball for two reasons. Firstly, because I was sick of playing football in the cold outdoors, and secondly because I had two friends in secondary school who were Canadian and they were basketball-mad! The first thing I did was watch a game and fell in love with watching Kobe Bryant play, and the rest is history...
Are there resources, tools, opportunities or technologies that exists today that you wish you had years ago growing up?
I wish there was more analysis and more videos. I often wish I had more footage of myself growing up and playing basketball.
How long have you been coaching basketball and why do you do it?
I started coaching from 22. I started as an assistant coach but went into being a head coach of a junior team at 24. I firstly went into it because there was an opportunity and wanted to see what could happen from it. After being in coaching for a few years I realised that I could have a positive impact on younger men and women’s futures.
What makes coaching rewarding?
The success off the court is the most important thing for me. I often find young people who need guidance in more areas than just the court and through basketball I can teach them how to navigate life situations. Also the success of watching young players leave my tutelage and still want to be involved in the sport as an adult.
What are some key barriers you face as a coach for a grassroots sports team?
Communication is a bigger struggle. It can be difficult to communicate as the contact time is usually 2 hours a week. Wanting young people to develop as basketball players is tough when you only see them for that little amount of time.
What do you teach your players besides basketball? How do you achieve this?
The sport teaches so much more and I try my best to teach all of these through the session. I pride myself on teaching accountability, teamwork, communication, leadership and organisation skills in every session. I do this by getting my players to take more ownership of their session, giving me what they want to do as a group and holding each other accountable if they do not believe teammates are not reaching the standards.
What sort of quality of coaching and tools do you provide to your players that puts you above other grassroots clubs?
I believe in the offer of the top quality of coaching. This is more than just x’s and o’s to me. It’s the life skills that come with it. In terms of tools we do not offer a great deal.
How to measure your players’ performance and help them improve?
This is all done on accountability. Setting them a task every week and then hoping they go and do some in their own time. This means that you will see in their performance and this will give them more opportunity to play in more competitive games!
Is there any piece of advice you learned as a basketball player that you now share with your team as a basketball coach?
Players pick up habits. If you use the word HABIT, the more you work on changing the HABIT you lose a letter. When you work at it and feel like you have an improvement you take off the H then A, then B. Then after all of that, you have IT!
While basketball is still a competitive-in-nature sport, how to ensure your team is still having fun while playing/training?
I feel like I can connect with the players so we make sure that we are not too regimented. If I feel like a player could have dunked it, I will tell them to. If a player does something good, I will stop training and make a point of it. So it’s the small things that make it fun for the guys/girls.
What’s your favourite feature of TeamSportz?
The fact that you can access the fixtures with the time, date and location makes it easier as a coach. Also the ability to load video footage of games, which also helps with analysis and feedback to the players.
