Caitlin Clark- Whiffle Ball?

Fever vs Mercury on Friday at 6:30pm on ION

WNBA starts back this Friday. I have really missed the WNBA during the Olympic break. Since I have been at least temporarily won over to be an Indiana Fever fan, I was excited last week when I saw on social media that they were back from break and starting practices. My first thought was,”The Olympic break is going to work out well for the Fever.”

My logic was that the Fever were back practicing with their entire roster available to practice. Many other WNBA teams were starting back to practice also, but for most of the other teams, their best player or best players were missing practice with the Olympics. During the first half of the season, I had thought the break would be much needed for the Fever to get practice time they did not have at the beginning of the year.

A whiffle ball game

I had read that Clark and some of her teammates had been able to take a week off from basketball to get refreshed. Perfect, get some rest, relax, and then get after it for about two weeks. 

When I saw a Tweet or Facebook post on the Fever practice, I was anxious to see some of their routines and drills. The first day, they posted the players taking off to do a scavenger hunt. Day 2 they showed a whiffle ball game, and followed it up with a putting contest on Day 3. 

I get it, basketball is a long season. Basketball coaches must come up with creative ways to not only maintain player’s interest and focus, but also find ways to boost enthusiasm, energy, and bonding. As coaches, most of us work to shorten the length of practice as the season goes on- in an attempt to keep players fresh and continue to play with energy.

Time is valuable.

Coaches can elevate enthusiasm in  practice to elevate enthusiasm by making drills competitive. In practice, players can compete vs the clock, vs the other team, vs themselves. I get the value in changing things up in practice. But they just came back after days off, did they really need to change things up?

Time is valuable. Players are giving up their time to practice- a coach needs to honor make sure the time is used constructively. Time is limited and there are 100’s of things to “get in” as a coach- coaches can’t throw away time doing lots of recreational drills. To me, there are enough ways to make good, instructional basketball drills into fun, competitive drills that it is a waste to just throw out some PE or camp drill just to have fun. Be creative and use one of your basketball drills to accomplish that.

like the process of the sport

For first year WNBA players like Caitlin Clark, it is a really long season, coming off the college season.  The Fever had just had 7-10 days off. The Fever have many more things to work on than their putting or whiffle ball swing. I have no problem with a team who is in the middle of the grind of a season to take practice time to play whiffle ball or a team bonding drill. 

I have nothing against whiffle ball- it could be an exciting break in the middle of the season grind. When you are just coming back, you don’t need to change things up. And if you EVERY day are doing a “camp activity”, this becomes routine. The “camp activities” after a couple days become routine. The time is valuable to the players, the time is valuable teaching time for the coach. Would they be better off taking a basketball drill and scoring it to make it fun, competitive, and building energy—- absolutely.

Back in the days when I coached cross country. When we got done stretching, I would tell them what our workout was going to be. When I would announce what our workout was to be, it baffled me that a runner or two grown about having to run so far. How can you be successful in any sport, if you don’t like the process of the sport. You are not going to be a champion in cross country if you don’t like running!

best team bonding activity

If pro players need to be “entertained” in practices, it is a problem. I don’t think champions need to be entertained every day. I am all for team bonding, but coaches MUST keep in mind that the best team bonding activity is to compete and win games!!

Would my reaction to all the “camp activities” by the Fever be different if it was Geno Auriemma, or Lisa Bludder, or Phil Jackson, or John Wooden doing this- absolutely. If they did it, I would have thought that I should have played more “camp games” in my practices. 

If you are not a coach with a winning history and you are doing things "outside the box," be ready for criticism until you win. 

I hope the Fever are ready to go on Friday night!!