Basketball coaches plan for next season

As the season comes to an end, boys’ basketball coaches Christopher Golden and Wardell Collins prepare for the offseason and reflect on previous coaching positions.

Golden and Collins have a lot planned for next season, and how to prepare for it.

“For the JV players, we need to work on a lot of the fundamentals of the game, individual skills,” Golden said. “On top of that, in the off-season, we like to work on strength and conditioning.”

Collins, the varsity coach, shared similar plans.

“They are going to run a lot. They don’t realize it yet, but they are going to run a lot,” Collins said. “We start right after spring break. We’re going to be going two to three days a week. Lifting, running and then open gyms where they’ll just play and compete against each other. And then in the summer, we’ll do two or three tournaments in a league and also practice.”

Before Golden and Collins’ arrival on campus, both coached for different teams and organizations. Golden has coached in city leagues, but this was his first year coaching for a school.

“The biggest thing is in a rec league there are a lot of kids who are trying basketball out for the first time and everyone makes the team and some of them are into it and some of them aren’t,” Golden said. “At a school, everyone is pretty committed to basketball and there are tryouts, so you’re only getting the best players and the most committed players and it’s a different atmosphere.”

Collins has coached at three other schools in the past.

“It’s comparable to one of the other schools I coached at because it was very similar,” Collins said. “It was a junior high/senior high and talent and behavior-wise it was just the same type of kid. The other two schools it was completely different because the other two schools it was more competitive: different type of athlete, different type of students in general.”

By Abby Golden