Athleon Blog

King James Moment Dissected.

Brent Lamphier — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:20:07 +0000
Check out Lebron’s dagger against the Magic. This play is shown utilizing Athleon.com’s basketball playbook creator. Basketball coaches who use Athleon’s team management tools can automatically add this play to their playbook, getting their own young star open for a game winning shot as the clock runs out.


King James’ Immortalizing Moment
Brent Lamphier — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:29:21 +0000
Cavs down 2.  Demoralized after an inbounds play gives the Magic the lead with 1 second left on the clock.  Down 1-0 in the series, about the lose AGAIN at HOME, despite being the heavy favorite.
Williams inbounds the ball….WAIT.  Let’s go back 15 seconds.  How did the Magic take the lead?  Coaches, want a great isolation play that gives your shooter multiple options for the last shot?  Look no further… just make sure not to give Lebron James an entire second to win a game.  Athleon.com basketball coaches can even import this play directly into their playbook:
Coach Stan Van Gundy drafts a play to isolate the 6′10″ Turkoglu on the 6′7″ Pavlovic.  Multiple back screens get the player open (as the Nuggets/Lakers series has taught us, getting the ball inbounds is not a given), and Turkoglu is given free reign to get into the key.  As he drives, looking to get to the basket or get fouled he can:
A.  Drive all the way hard.

B.  Pull up at the top of the key for a jumper (IT’S GOOD!)

C.  Drive and dish as the defense collapses to Alston or, behind him, the hidden 3rd option Lewis, both of which have proven they can make decisive buckets.

D.  If his man steps in, dump it to Howard and let him do what he does best.  Even if this option isn’t opened, the movement puts Howard in prime position to quickly tip a missed shot (young defenders, notice the great boxout on Howard on this play).
Defense collapses stopping the drive, Pavlov is beat by the crossover allowing just enough space for the pullup j.  A cool Turkoglu sinks it.  Unfortunately, king James is waiting…


Basketball coaches looking for great inbounds plays from the sideline, who utilize Athleon.com's team management software can import this play using the moving playbook system on Athleon.  Login to your team's hub and look under 'Athleon recommended plays.'  Not an Athleon user (yet) click here to create a free, private team website.  



Team Athleon At Work
cal — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:05:37 +0000
Here at Athleon, we’ve been working hard to add new features to our site and improve existing content to better serve the coaches and athletes who use the Athleon service.  We’ve updated a number of features recently and we’d like to show you what’s new.
Team Hub

We have revamped the Team Hub and improved the navigation to make it easy for you to access the features you use most.  This includes a new header and menu at the top of the page, and a Tools bar on the left side of the page.
The center column contains Notifications which displays upcoming events and recent updates.  The center also includes information from a weekly article at Athleon Chalk Talk, the most recent thread from the Team Forum, and Stats information.  The right column has your Inbox, Calendar, Events, and Roster.  (Click on the Team Hub image for a full-size preview.)

Athleon Chalk Talk

Athleon recently started Chalk Talk to provide quality articles, tips, and quotes to coaches and athletes.  Content is contributed by Eric Musselman, the former head coach of the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings basketball teams.




Things Coaches Hate
Brent Lamphier — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:06:44 +0000
A big part of our job is to continually talk with coaches and athletes, and figure out what makes sports less fun (and of course try and change that.  Some recent findings of things coaches hate:
—-Email lists…who knows if anyone checks them?

—- Excel… why is formatting always messed up?

—- MySpace…why do my players like it so much?

—- Team Websites…why do they all look the same?

—- Team Websites…. why are they so ugly?

—- Dealing with parents… why are they always asking questions

—- Player attitudes… enough said.

—- Losing.

—- Bad refs.  Wait.  Inconsistent refs

—- Ordering tee-shirts.

—- Lack of hustle.

—- Stupid mistakes.

—- Out-of-shape players
Now we can’t help with refs or your players attitude (though we can try for both), hopefully we can help you out with some of those other things.  Feel free to let me know what you hate about coaching, and how you want to fix it.



Coach Knight Wants Your Players to Prepare Too.
Brent Lamphier — Sun, 04 May 2008 06:51:12 +0000
The will to succeed is important, but the will to prepare is more important.

– Bobby Knight



Workout Plans
Brent Lamphier — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:14:46 +0000
When I played high school football, in my 4 years we had two different coaching staffs with two different summer workout systems.  One you picked 3 days out of the 4 in a week and completed a three day workout.  They had workout sheets that you had to file out, have the coach who was watching the room sign, and file in a giant file folder.  I doubt they ever got looked at…100 players * 10 weeks in the summer…that’s a lot of sheets to go through.  But they were effective in making sure each exercise was completed.
The other coach was less structured, when you walked in the weight room a bunch of lifts were on the white board…some players did them all others did their own workouts.  Lineman had a different set of lifts.  Most guys left early to get ready for 7 on 7 afterwards.
Two different structures, two different sets of results, no real tracking.  Both systems lead to ‘hell weeks’ in the fall to get players in shape.  
After talking to hundreds of coaches and athletes, they told us there was a better way to do it…it just wasn’t built yet.  We built version 1 (which is live now) to test, and now we’re finalizing version 2.  It will be up by the time school’s out this month.
Custom workouts, lifts, conditioning program, and sport specific drills that you create, or choose from our database.  Use your current system or steal one of ours.  Whatever you want.  It’s your team.
Players receive a sheet with their workouts, they print them out (or you can print them out) they fill them out while working out, and then input their results in the same form onto the computer.  Workout takes an hour…input should take about 30 seconds.  
You then get an easy to analyze readout of player’s effort in comparison to each other, and the team has leaderboards, goal tracking, and more.  Watch how the bar gets raised when guy’s see how their teammates are pushing themselves.
This will all be live soon.  In the meantime, feel free to SEND ME YOUR WORKOUT, in word, excel, or wherever you have it stored, so we make sure that the system fits your requirements.  (The pick below is the old system…wait till you see the new one).





Landing Page Re-Done
Brent Lamphier — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 05:31:27 +0000
It had been awhile.  It’s only an interim solution to what we have planned…but hopefully it’s more obvious to you now what Athleon offers your team.  Visit the new Athleon.com now!



Non-US Cell Phone Providers
Brent Lamphier — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:06:50 +0000
We have received questions about text messaging for announcements and event updates/reminders in countries outside of the US.  We’re adding non-US carriers on a country by country basis…so if you don’t see your service provider there send us an email at brent@athleonsport.com, and please include the primary providers in your country (including the one you use).



Come See Athleon Pitch
Brent Lamphier — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:10:45 +0000
If you’re in the Seattle area and want to meet our team in person/ see a demo of what’s to come on Athleon, join us at the nPost Demo Event on April 22nd at the Columbia City Theater or on May 9th at the NWEN Early Stage Investment Forum.  



Check Out Revised Playbooks
Brent Lamphier — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:12:57 +0000
X’s and O’s apparently don’t mean much to Lacrosse…so, thanks to many of your requests, you can now customize your ‘bench’ to have A’s, D’s, M’s, and G’s, as well as the traditional X’s and O’s.

As part of the revision, you can now customize player names and numbers as well.  While creating a play, click on ‘edit player.’ to view your options.
Check out a demo of our playbooks — click here.