The future of www.highperformancehoopsnetwork.com

I hope that everyone that is involved in basketball gets interested in this new platform. I am still learning and always keen for input and ideas!!!!!

It is an opportune time to clarify what www.highperformancehoopsnetwork.com is about and some future plans. This site and idea has evolved through quick needs and fixes. Nothing has really being planned or thought through much. The logo was kindly chucked together by a parent in the junior team I coach. There was never much thought or planning put into this platform and hope it keeps adapting and evolving.

This site was developed through perceived necessity. In trying to engage with US College Coaches a question that began to be asked was by coaches - who is this guy? What is his background? What does he want from us? Do we need offer some kind of personal benefit? The amount of time it was taking to keep interested US coaches updated with general updates was significant, and I needed a page I could quickly point them to, and the opportunity to keep them informed on general information via a newsletter. This will make it more efficient for ALL of us.

My goal is, and has always been, to develop the opportunity for the great kids I coach to get opportunities to achieve their dreams. This article explains that in more detail: I have no idea "what" but I can tell you "why". I initially saw this site as an opportunity to provide more efficient updates to US coaches, help them understand who I am and what I do and provide a platform to help broaden the networks of college coaches interested in talent out of South Australia.

Initially this platform (including a website) was going to be about players at my basketball club, Sturt and ONLY Sturt. It was going to be branded as a Sturt platform. The Director of Coaching at the time (Paul Mesecke) and I offered the platform/site to Sturt. Sturt decided that this site/platform, whilst being a good idea, that they supported, did not meet their core business needs. They were happy for me to continue what I was doing though, and are supportive of it.

With Sturt being removed from "ownership" of this platform it does provide greater flexibility and opportunity to involve more players and people from outside of Sturt. It means that I can post blogs without necessarily needing the controls and checks that I would if it was a Sturt platform. Any views here are my own personal views and hopefully that of future contributors too. So the fact Sturt did not want to be involved directly was fine by me.

The goals may broaden and the site will always continue to evolve.

I suppose initially I was trying to do some personal brand development with overseas coaches, an "intro to Janx" if you will. The Aussie culture is that as coaches we need to stay in the background, it should not be about us and always about the kids. I strongly support this notion because it is the kids that do ALL the work and many volunteers and people that invest in their development. The Featured Athletes have had people invest into them from their clubs, Basketball South Australia and Basketball Australia. I am just another coach investing in them. An unfortunate by product of this brand building meant that locally some questioned the purpose of the site, and whilst it was so effective in achieving some personal brand building overseas a very embarrassing byproduct was a limited few people here misunderstood the purpose. This feedback has enabled me to refine a few aspects of the site.

I have recently updated the content on the homepage to help better communicate the purpose of the site. I have removed the "Janx' Resume" section as whilst it helped coaches overseas understand who I am, it could be perceived that I was using the success of these players to "win a job", which IS NOT the case. I have also added a section on the "What Janx does" page which states is "What Janx doesn't do":

Receive financial benefit from athletes or colleges.
Advise athletes what levels they should play at.
Advise schools whether the athlete is LM/MM/HM
Select the school for the athletes

All this should give greater clarity and focus on the sites purpose.

I am interested in also broadening the site out into these categories:

Girls Featured Athletes - the same as the current "featured athletes" section that currently exists now
Emerging Athletes - kids that may be initially interested in Junior College or Prep School before moving into the featured athletes section in future years.
Other states. I am very, very interested to identify likeminded people in other states that may want to help kids they coach in the same way I have been. If you are interested check the page "What Janx Does", also reading "What Janx doesn't do" and decide if you want to take part.

I am always also interested in hearing from people that may want to post a guest blog. I can't say yes to everyone but if you can post educational and informational blogs that have broad appeal locally and to US College coaches I am very, very keen to hear from you. I hope to use these blogs to also promote the work of others and our sport in general.