The inaugural London International Coaching Conference was held at Brunel University in Uxbridge from 6 – 8 July 2007. The conference was the brainchild of Jack Majewski, the Head Coach of Richmond upon Thames College’s Basketball Academy. Richmond upon Thames College fully supported the conference and members of staff from various departments helped with the organisation and promotion of the three day event.
ULEB were instrumental in providing the speakers and around 90 coaches showed up on the Friday afternoon, all eager to hear and learn from the experts.
The new sports facilities at Brunel University provided a great venue for the clinic and the proceedings were opened with Neil Bath, the Manager of the Academy at Chelsea FC, who gave an insight into their elite development pathway for the best young soccer players and several examples of best practice and the pursuit and promotion and pursuit of excellence within the sport.
The basketball clinicians were headlined by one of Europe’s best. Sergio Scariolo, the Head Coach of Unicaja Malaga from the ACB Spain and Euroleague Final Four, presented some of his offence and defence strategies and philosophies during the course of Friday and Saturday. Working with the team of demonstration players from Richmond upon Thames College, Coach Scariolo gave an insight into the minutiae of detail that he teaches and expects his players to be able to execute.
Also presenting was Coach Pierre Vincent from Bourges Women’s Pro Team in France, a Euroleague finalist and Assistant Coach for the French Women’s National Team and a former coach for the French Junior National Team. Pierre who spoke on all three days, broke down two topics for the coaches – defending the pick and roll and zone offence. The latter subject was particularly interesting as Coach Vincent talked about reading the defence and playing in the gaps of the zone. His detailed analysis and instruction on how to do this gave a valuable insight into the ‘learning through understanding’ methodology.
The third foreign visitor was Murat Didin from Frankfurt Skyliners, German Bundesliga and a former Turkish Championship winner and National Team coach. Coach Didin’s easy going and humorous approach to his on court presentation of Transition Basketball was greatly appreciated by the coaches over the three day clinic. He presented some great ideas about early offence and quick hit strategy for the point guard and trailer.
The British representative was Coach Tony Garbelotto, Head Coach of London United, BBL, and Assistant Coach to the GB Men’s team. Tony’s focused on the fundamentals for younger players and emphasised many essential points and skills which need to be taught to developing players.
The conference provided varied, informative and stimulating clinics which left the coaches who attended with thought-provoking and worthwhile memories and a thirst for further knowledge and ideas.
Richmond upon Thames College would like to thank its partners for helping to make the conference such a success, especially the Basketball Coaches Association (BCA) for its support and to BCA Coach, Mark Dunning, for arranging the schedule.
Due to the success of the 2007 event , the next step was to progress Future Stars to include a top class pan-European Junior tournament for 2008.