Skill still takes proper development. I'll give you this as an example: football players outta NYC. Considering NYC is one of THE traditional hotspots for basketball recruitment, we obviously have athletic talent out here. What the high school football players have, however, is mostly bum-@ss coaches who either think what Coach Vito taught them 70 years ago still works today (I coached at my HS during the mid 2000s, they STILL had the OL & DL hitting with shoulders first and hands inside, rather than shooting the hands out and striking the man with your first step) or hood legends who failed outta or couldn't hack college ball and use coaching to give back what amounts to limited knowledge of the game.
I left NYC at 18 with literally a caveman understanding of being a football player, and even moreso, being a DB. All I knew how to do was how to back-pedal 1 way, change direction 1 way, and to be tough and hit. I get to college and I immediately learned how far behind my development was when compared to the other DBs from around the country that were my age. I then had the absolute blessing of being coached for 1 season by Mr. John Gutekunst (the man is a DB coach GAWD and one of Lou Holtz' right hand men). I learned so much from him that 1 season, and my knowledge of the game, positioning, and the all around skill set necessary to be a REAL DB was improved hundred-fold. And it wasn't like I was learning some super top secret skills as many times I was left wondering "why the fukk didn't I learn these things after a 4 year HS career?". And why was this important? Not only for the sake of competence, but because I'm not the greatest natural athlete. You'd quicker win a bet of me winning school valedictorian than team MVP, so for a player like myself, understanding the game inside & out was imperative to my survival.
And now the end of my tale. As I mentioned earlier, I went back and coached at my HS in the mid 00s, When they saw the drills I was doing with the DBs, the drills I had brought back from college, the first thing those out-dated A-holes told me? "Don't do those drills, the players aren't good enough, just teach them the 4 or 5 drills we always use." Well one way or another I taught those kids the college drills, and lo & behold, after a few weeks of proper instruction, these kids knew how to back peddle, shuffle pedal, weave pedal, play off man, bump & run, know how to run support properly in relation to their teammates (as opposed to just "run in and make a tackle u son of a bytch!"), how to read pattern combinations, and how to read the QB's feet, head, & shoulder level on any given drop back. However, it being a predominantly old school Italian staff, I always felt shade being thrown my way, especially as my popularity began to soar among players. What u gonna do?
Sorry for the long winded reply & I didn't write all that to toot my own horn, but just wanted to illustrate just how important it is to be developed properly, regardless of skill level, and how easy it is to be coached up lazily due to someone having elite talent. It's taken for granted way too often, but good coaching is just as important to have as good skills, IMO. And it spans every sport.
Whats stopped them from having all around games?
Props
