🏆 When is it Time to Move Kids Up?

One of the most under-appreciated aspects of coaching is finding and “sniffing” out the talent in your program.

Author

Greg Berge
October 24, 2024

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💭ONE THOUGHT
When is it Time to Move Kids Up?

How do you decide when to move kids up?

One of the most underappreciated aspects of coaching is understanding the skills and potential of your players.

Common questions coaches ask about young talent:

  • What are their strengths?

  • Can they help our team?

  • How do they fit into the varsity lineup?

  • What role will they play?

  • Are they ready?

It’s easy to assess a player’s value once they've proven their skills. But for young, talented players, it’s often harder to evaluate their readiness.

As a high school principal, I’ve hired hundreds of teachers. Often, I’ve chosen a young teacher with great potential over a more experienced one.

Why?
Because I envision what they’ll become in 2-3 years. I’ve learned the key skills that signal future success, and it’s similar in coaching.

When evaluating players, we need to look not only at their current abilities but also at their potential. Are they mentally and emotionally ready? Can they handle the pressure at a higher level? And crucially, how do they fit into the team dynamic?

This is all part of the “Art of Coaching.”

We have been fortunate to have great team success in our basketball program over the last decade. Many of these years, we did something viewed as unprecedented in our program's history.

We started a freshman.

In the three most recent seasons we have gone to the state tournament (2017, 2019, and 2024), we started a freshman on our basketball team.

This is not normal.

So how do you know if a player is ready? If they fit?

The first step is to bring them up in the off-season (summer for us) and let them play with the varsity. This is critical. It shows both the team and the parents if a player is physically “ready” to play at this level.

It also builds confidence in the younger player.

And if they can’t handle it in the off-season, then you have the answer you need as well.

Once the season begins, I use my very popular Pre-Season Self-Perception Form (FREE Download) with the team. What does this do?

  1. Player evaluate themselves and share their perceived role on the team.

  2. They do the same for their teammates (it is anonymous!)

  3. I take all of the data and put it in a spreadsheet to see the results.

What does this do? It tells me what individual players think of their role compared to all of the players on the team. It is great information to have, and it has produced uplifting and positive results for young talent. The players know.

According to Ranjay Julati of the Harvard Business Review, there are Three Levels of Talent that should be considered.

After I read this, I realized that I go through a very similar process when I evaluate young talent.

  1. Capabilities: Are you capable of playing at this level? Can you handle it physically, mentally, and socially? These questions are critical. I always ask these questions before I move a player up, and I am very thoughtful about them. I also make sure that the role they will have is manageable and not too much. You must have good leaders when you bring up a player.

  2. Potential: If you are capable, the next question to ask is, what is your potential? If I move you up, I need to envision what you will look like three months from now and how fast you will grow and evolve in this role. Also, how will moving a player up help or hurt the young player as an individual? You need good talent to be moved up, and you need the potential to be even better in three months.

  3. Team Chemistry: Finally, and probably the most important, is whether you fit with the team. Moving a player up is a big deal. Your teammates must be accepting. Your culture has to be strong enough to handle young players moving up. In addition to the chemistry is the role they will serve. If they can have a complementary role without pressure, this is the ideal situation. Finally, you also need good leaders who can accept the player and any bumps in the road. As coaches, having conversations with your team leaders goes a long way to knowing if this is a good move.

When the stars all align, and your talent meets these three criteria, you are in a position to move a player up to help your team.

Once they are moved up, a coach has a critical role in constantly evaluating how they are handling it physically, mentally, and socially.

There is much more to this than three simple steps, but I am convinced that our long-term success is due to the ongoing culture we have established and the acceptance of our younger players to the varsity level.

And because of this, we have not had to “start over” very often over these years, as we always had experienced players coming back.

Summary: One of the most under-appreciated and important roles of successful coaches is to be able to sniff out talent.

Follow these three steps from Ranjay Julati to sniff out the talent on your own team.

Good luck!

Check out the video from Ranjay Julati discussing talent below.

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