Kudos to all the parents who are kicking off this Fall sports season juggling, school, multiple kids, a variety of extracurricular activities. It isn’t easy. Thank you for all that you do and sacrifice to make youth sports possible.

Fall tryouts are upon us. It is a fresh restart for the year ahead. This is a fantastic opportunity to revisit the value system of your club. What does your club stand for? Why do you exist as a club? Do your coaches and parents understand your mission?

Coaches tend to overestimate the impact they have on kids as athletes, but significantly underestimate the impact they have kids as people. You play a huge role in the lives of those you coach, lean into it.

Rule #1 for every club in the country should be to have the best interest of the kids in the club at heart, always. If you abide by Rule #1, you are guaranteed to succeed.

As clubs approach Fall tryouts, let’s remember is that the big picture goal is to encourage kids to fall in love with the game of basketball. If your club has this approach, you can’t go wrong.

If you are a coach and you genuinely care about the kids on your team as people, you will be both successful and fulfilled.

What club coaches sometimes fail to understand is that their actions or negative behavior not only reflects poorly on them, but on club sports as a whole. It is all connected.

As we wrap up July, sending a special thanks to all the high school club coaches who sacrificed time, energy, and expertise for their players. Coaches are the centerpiece of the player experience at the club level. They give so much and are always on the grind.

Youth club basketball can take a lot of lessons from elite high school club. At the top level of club ball there is a level of respect, decorum, and class displayed. The coaching is good, the basketball is well played, and teams win and lose with decency.

This is a great opportunity for reflection and improvement in the youth basketball community. We are so happy to hear that nobody was injured in Kentucky, but we have to be better. We owe it to the players to be better.

Sad day for the basketball community. Our hearts and prayers go out to all who were in attendance at the tournament in Kentucky. Please stay safe and remember that basketball is a game.

$40 billion is not enough to properly run youth sports.

“That’s just how club basketball is.” This can’t be an acceptable mantra by those of us in this space. We have to strive for excellence. Here’s do those who are in constant pursuit of making it better.

Club basketball is only as good as its worst/newest program. The betterment of club basketball is the responsibility of all. Yes, clubs are competing with each other, but they need each other at the same time. The sooner we all realize this, the better.

There is no reason for a fight to break out at a youth sporting event. What are we doing? It’s not worth it, it has to stop.

There is a rhetoric this morning around the fees associated with tournament play. Most of the discussion centers around the live period circuit fees. We agree, but in an effort to help this discussion, what is a fair price to pay for one tournament game?

This is unacceptable. We need to do better for our officials.

High School Club season is ramping up. It is a great time of year.

Who is your favorite club coach and what impact has he or she made in your life?

The enemy of club basketball is not rec basketball. The enemy of club basketball is not another club sport. The enemy for all youth sports is kids not being active and living a sedentary lifestyle. These are the at risk kids that we want to serve. Let's find ways to help them play ball.