Coaching English Style: Netball 101

I got talked into coaching Netball.  "It is easy...similar to basketball", the PE teacher said.

 Except for you can't dribble, you can't make contact, you have to pass after a one foot landing, there is no backboard, you can only possess the ball for 3 seconds, you can't repossess the ball, you can't obstruct a player or stand within 3 feet of a player when they are shooting, you can't touch the outer lines, you have to stay in your designated area and there are 7 designated positions per team. So really nothing like Basketball except for a net hanging from a pole!

In order to referee and coach you have to know these rules really well. So the school sent me to an all day Netball for Beginners course.. since it is such a "simple" game they skipped going over all the basic rules and jumped right to drills. Our instructor was a former English Netball champion of some sort. She was massively tall and limped slightly from the multiple knee injuries that Netball had inflicted on her large frame. She had us running around the gym like crazy, practicing our landing footwork, passing in figure 8's, shooting goals, running lines.. I felt like I was back in highschool at summer volleyball trainings and had a wonderful time.  Until the next day..I woke up with sore shins and became aware of other muscles that I forgot I had.

The season is now almost over- three more weeks. I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised by my group of Jr girls- ages 11 and 12. We have won about 50% of our matches and no one has suffered any serious injuries. Practicing outside in January and February in freezing rain was a challenge but no one got pneumonia either! I am just starting to blow my whistle at the right times and make the calls correctly. Oh and by the way, the picture up top..this is from a recent interhouse match. That is Jenna in the wing attack position. And those girls in the foreground: personal foul by the goal defense on the goal attack for contact. Yellow ball free pass!!