Give A Ball

Don't have one? Get one here.

Here's a fun warm-up from OncourtOffcourt I found on YouTube. It is similar to Ball Thief but as we all know, it is better to give than to thieve. Works with any number of players, but three or more is best. If you have a very large group, it's okay to break them into smaller groups.

Players form a large circle and place their racquets on the ground. Coach places a number of balls on each racquet, same number of balls per player, let's say . . . 5 balls each. On coach's command, players work to give their balls away. They must place one ball at a time on another player's racquet. They must go to a different player each time. First player to empty their racquet wins. If they are winning too quickly, put more balls on each racquet.

Hint: the facilitator in the YouTube video had a wooden train whistle as a prop to begin and end activities. How fun and what a nice change from the piercing referee whistle! Pretty sure I have one packed away in my son's old toy box. I also loved his suggestion about using specific words to begin the activity. In his example, his 'go' word was 'strawberry'. But he ran through several different fruits just to make sure the group was paying attention. Genius!