Bring It In - Israel
 
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Tel Aviv, Israel Friday December 8th, Bring It In - Israel Fellows met at the Tel Aviv Sporttech to train with Coach Tomer Rubin. Coach Rubin is a veteran youth basketball coach and one of the leaders of the Givatayim Basketball School. Givatayim is a suburb of Tel Aviv. Coach Rubin ran the Fellows through a practice that included warm up, stretching, drills, games, and cool down. The activities were aimed at children 2nd to 5th grade. Fellows benefited from learning the drills and hearing them run in Hebrew. 
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Coach Rubin taught Fellows the tricks of the trade, giving them coaching tips, and letting them know what to look out for in their practices. Most of the drills involved competitions either one on one or in a group. As a result, Fellows learned new activities that both honed fundamental basketball skills and engaged children in fun and exciting competition. The practice also served as bonding time for the group allowing for much anticipated one on one and three on three competition.
To see more pictures from the training click here.
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Jerusalem, Israel Tuesday, December 7th, 2010, Bring It In - Israel Winter Fellows had the unique opportunity to meet with Danny Ourian from the New York Knicks Communty Relations department. Having spent time working with Bring It In - Israel Head Coach David Lasday at PeacePlayers International and Safe Haven West Side Basketball, Ourian sits on the Bring It In - Israel advisory board. Ourian, a cutting edge youth based sports development coach, spoke with the Fellows about how to organize an educational sports day with schools, camps, and community centers, from the initial contacting of the school administrators to the followup and evaluation after the event. This profesional development session proved to be invaluable to the Fellows, providing them with the tools to organize their own sports days. Fellows have expressed the desire to begin organizing sports days in Israel. Each fellow has commited to running 3 Israel sports days when they return to North America.
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Ourian shared with Fellows some of the tricks of the trade: How to build a relationship with the school and the administrators; The Importance of a sound practice plan; How to build excitment and make the event feel special; And the importance of a quick evaluation post event. To thank Ourian for all of his support  Bring It In - Israel presented him with an honorary Bring It In - Israel Coach's shirt.   
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This blog post is by Bring It In - Israel Winter Fellow Meagan Newman
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Training Day 2: Wednesday November 24, 2010 with Vito Gilic from Wingate. It was an amazing Wednesday evening at the Hands in Hands School in Jerusalem where the fellows got a rare treat to gain some very valuable insight from one of the most innovative and intricate coaches in Israel. Vito Gilic who has been coaching in Israel for the past 10 years joined the fellows sharing his tricks of the trade. The main point reiterated throughout the night was the importance of combining together both personal skills with basketball skills in every drill.
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The night started off with dribbling skills incorporating teamwork and creative thought. In pairs, fellows started dribbling side by side with the right hand leaning on each other until half court. At that point the partners broke apart and each did a lay-up (person on the left did a left hand, right a right hand lay-up). As the drills were completed a new element was added such as holding hands behind each other’s back or linking inside legs encouraging creative thought on how to stay together as a team.
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The next set of drills were passing skills. This drill set incorporated a lot of teamwork and coordination of both partners. Side step hand offs was the name of the game as partners made there way up and down the court side step shuffling while both tossing each other a ball at the same time with their right hand and catching with the left. The progression of the drill switched to catching with you right hand and throwing with the left to taking two shuffles, faking left and throwing
right to a fun game where partners were still passing both balls but were now squared to the basket like one would be in a game situation passing then taking a shot. Competition was added when the drill would end when the first fellow reached three shots in consecutively.
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Simple objects were incorporated into the practice when the fellows worked on multiple skills using a cone. Coordination and teamwork were prevalent when partners each had a cone and a ball and had to dribble and try to catch the ball on the cone when the partner decided to pass. Then, the partner who caught the ball on the cone proceeded to toss the ball back while maintaining a constant dribble. This
moved into a relay race increasing the skills as new elements included dribbling, crossovers, and catching.
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The final minutes of the practice were spent playing a type of full court game. Each team member was given a number. That number defined how many points their shots were worth. No team is allowed to dribble at the beginning but as teams scored, your point value equaled the amount of dribbles your team was allocated. The game was played to 15 and was a great way to end the practice. This game had more meaning behind it, as it is a way to manage equal and fair play. The game could be set up so the dominant more experienced player is worth one point and the struggling player worth the most. This not only give the struggling player more opportunities to practice but puts the strong player in a leading role making sure to feed the ball to other team members and not just carry the team themselves. Vito showed us unique ways to educate youth through basketball but made sure we recognized that it could be transferrable to other coaching situations and sports.

A big thumbs up for an amazing night the fellows are looking forward to testing out their new skills this coming Friday with a session back at Hand in Hand. Toda Raba Vito!!
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