Basketball, wrestling, and swim tryouts hit in mid-November, and most families prepare for the wrong thing. Coaches aren't looking for the kid who makes the most shots in warm-ups. They're looking at four things most players never think about — and all four can be practiced in three weeks.
Winter tryouts land in mid-November at most high schools and clubs — basketball, wrestling, swimming, indoor track. Three weeks out, most families prepare for one thing: the skill. Shooting in the driveway, extra reps, maybe a lesson. Skill matters. It's also the thing the coach can see in ninety seconds and the thing you can change the least in three weeks.
Here's what coaches actually spend the two days watching, and all of it is improvable before tryouts.
Coaches watch the back of the line. They watch who jogs to the next drill and who walks. They watch the kid who sprints through a conditioning set when the coach's back is turned. Effort is the one trait that predicts whether a player gets better, and it is completely visible from across a gym. Practice this: for three weeks, do every rep of every workout at full speed, especially the boring ones. It becomes a habit, and habits show up at tryouts.
The coach says "get lower on defense." The player who does it immediately — and stays low for the rest of the drill — just told the coach they're coachable. The player who nods and goes back to standing up told the coach the opposite. This is the single most underrated tryout skill. Practice it: when anyone corrects you in the next three weeks, in any context, do the thing immediately and visibly.
Everyone misses shots, gets pinned, blows a turn. Coaches watch what happens next. Head down and a slow jog back? Or a clap, a "my bad," and a sprint to the next play? The second player is who they want in a close game. Have a plan for this before you walk in: decide right now what your response to the first mistake will be, and do it every time.
Tryouts are long and coaches often save the hardest segment for the end on purpose. The player who's still moving at full speed when everyone else is gassed is noticeable, and conditioning is the one thing that improves dramatically in three weeks. Run. Sprint intervals, three or four times a week, starting today. It's the most visible change you can make.
Don't send a highlight reel to the coach before tryouts. Don't email about your kid's summer league stats. Coaches notice, and not favorably. Do make sure your kid sleeps the two nights before, eats breakfast, and has the right shoes. The night before, say something short: "Work hard, listen, be a good teammate. The rest is the coach's job." Then stop talking about it.
We wrote about what to do when your kid gets cut. Read it before tryouts, not after. The short version: ask the coach what to work on, believe the answer, and find a place to play this winter anyway. The kid who gets cut in ninth grade and makes it in tenth is a common story, and it starts with how the first week after the list is handled.
— Christian Bentley, Founder, First Step Athletics