CoachUp Attends National Basketball Retired Players Association Conference in Cancún

A couple weeks ago, several members of the CoachUp team traveled to Cancún, Mexico to take part in the 2014 Legends World Sports Conference held by our partners in the National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA). Close to 100 former NBA, ABA, Harlem Globetrotters and WNBA players attended the event including Moses Malone, Nancy Lieberman, Spencer Haywood, and Otis Birdsong. If you’re not a basketball-head, do a quick Google search on those names. It was really cool to get to meet them and hear some of their favorite basketball stories.   The NBRPA members gathered to have their board meetings as well as participate in several workshops covering a wide range of topics like jobs in sports, finance, social media, health and wellness, etc. CoachUp provided one of those workshops to offer former professional basketball players some information about CoachUp as well as the opportunity to create a coaching profile.   These NBA players have played and practiced basketball for over 10,000 hours throughout their careers and are uniquely qualified to coach up the next generation of players. Over 20 retired professional players created CoachUp profiles at the conference. There are now over 70 retired professional basketball players coaching basketball on CoachUp. CoachUp also worked with about 20 NBRPA members to put on a basketball clinic for 80 children, ages 12-16. The members taught the kids proper footwork and shooting and had some fun in the process.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T91blDpFv8M   Some of the Globetrotters performed tricks for the kids, and other former NBA players signed autographs. During the conference, we also interviewed over 20 of the players, asking for their favorite moments from their career and advice for the next generation of athletes. Keep an eye out for these interviews in the future. There were some great stories all around, and you could tell that a lot of the guys who hadn’t seen each other in a while would be perfectly happy reminiscing and talking basketball for hours. We could have listened for hours. Through our interviews and presentation, we were privileged enough to get to know many of the players on a personal level. At the end of a busy weekend, CoachUp challenged several of the former NBA players to a friendly game of pool volleyball. Now, the CoachUp team is certainly not in the business of making excuses, but it’s important to remember that the majority of our opponents were between 6 and 7 feet tall. These were NBA players we were facing! You hopefully wouldn’t be shocked to hear that we lost both games we played (we challenged them to a rematch after the first loss. CoachUp’s a competitive group). It was verrrrrry close though. We can’t wait to see our friends in the NBRPA again. We made long-lasting friendships and are happy to help former professional players continue to be involved in the sport they love. Take a look at the basketball coaches in your area to see if there are any NBRPA alumni you can work with. You could be their first CoachUp client!