Coaching a HoopLife League Team
Ten weeks, one team, and a leadership workshop you run with your own players every single game night. This is the role with the deepest effect on a kid.
- A 10-week season with your own team: weekly games, practices, playoffs and the all-star night.
- Every league night includes a 30-minute training block and a confidence and leadership workshop you run yourself.
- Some coaches lead more than one team. Paid on the same $15 to $25 an hour scale.
- Three seasons run each year, so you can coach one season or all three.
Running weekly sessions is teaching. Coaching a league team is something else. They are yours for ten weeks, and by week four you know which kid needs pushing and which one needs leaving alone for five minutes.
What the season involves
You take a team through a full 10-week HoopLife League season: weekly games, practices, playoffs and the all-star event at the end. Some of our coaches lead more than one team in a season.
There are three seasons a year, in the fall, winter and spring, so you can coach one and stop, or roll straight through the year.
The part that is not on other coaching jobs
Every league night has three parts, not one. There is a 30-minute on-court training block, there is the game, and there is a confidence, leadership and basketball IQ workshop that you run with your own team.
That workshop is not an add-on we bolted on to sound good. It is the reason a lot of parents put their kid in this league instead of a cheaper one, and it is the thing coaches tell us changed how they see the job. You are not only deciding who brings the ball up. You are the adult in the room for twenty minutes a week on how to lose well, how to speak to a teammate who just cost you the game, and how to be worth following.
What you are given
Practice plans by age band, the workshop material, and a curriculum. You are not inventing a season from scratch. Teams are formed by the head coach during the program rather than by tryout, so you are not handed a stacked roster or a hopeless one, you are handed kids.
Boys play in grades 1 through 12 and girls in grades 1 through 8. Grades 1 to 4 play 3x3; grade 5 and up play officiated full-court 5v5. The league is sanctioned by Basketball Saskatchewan.
Who this suits
People who want the season-long version of coaching rather than a stream of one-hour sessions. If you have coached school or club ball and miss having a team, this is the closest thing we run to it, without the politics and the travel.
It stacks well with weekly sessions. Plenty of coaches do both, and that combination is how a part-time gig becomes a real week's work.
Apply
League coaching sits inside the Basketball Coach role. Apply there and say in the application that you want a team, because we staff league coaches separately from session coaches.
Frequently asked questions
How long is a season?
Ten weeks, and there are three seasons a year: fall, winter and spring. The league page has the current divisions and nights.
Can I coach more than one team?
Yes. Some coaches lead multiple teams in a season.
Do I run the leadership workshop myself?
Yes, with your own team, every game night. You are given the material. It is a 30-minute block on confidence, leadership and basketball IQ.
Do I pick my roster?
No. There is no tryout in this league. Teams are formed by the head coach during the program, which is deliberate and keeps it about development rather than recruiting.
Not sure where your kid fits?
Leave your name and email and a HoopLife coach will help you work it out. Or start with the $10 Get Started package: a planning meeting with a Director plus their first session.
