Three dozen young basketball players bustle through the hall of TS Jahn Munich on Weltenburger Straße on a pre-Christmas Saturday morning. Sneakers squeak, balls hit the ground and rush through nets, accompanied by a loud babble of voices. But the color of the basketballs is surprising: they are white and turquoise, with a curved lettering: the Brooklyn dribble. Wait, Brooklyn, isn’t that the venue for…? Yes, exactly: by Leonie Fiebich. The Landsberg native plays there for the New York Liberty, where she recently won the WNBA championship, the most important title in the women’s basketball world.
Along with shoes and jerseys, the balls are just one of the many gifts that Fiebich brought with him today. But the biggest gift for the players is probably that Fiebich herself is standing in the hall: 1.93 meters, well trained, black training pants, characteristic bun, mischievous smile. She has invited people to the basketball camp, a two-day course for young players – it is the first of its kind and bears her initials and her shirt number: LF13. The fact that she chose the new Jahn Hall as the venue is not entirely surprising: in 2018, Leonie Fiebich won the women’s youth Bundesliga WNBL with the Jahn (also wearing the 13 at the time), and at the same time has her first Bundesliga air in the 2nd division sniffed in which TS Jahn was still competing at the time.
The structures are not optimal: “Some talents have location disadvantages.”
That was all a while ago, six years to be exact. Today Fiebich is not here as a player, but as a coach – alongside Armin Sperber and Imre Szittya, both of whom can claim to have played a significant part in Fiebich’s career. When she opens the camp and calls the young players to her, it becomes clear that she has another role today, namely that of the larger-than-life idol. The 14, 15 and 16-year-olds sitting in front of her with wide eyes, some of whom perhaps dream of a career as professional basketball players, are suddenly very quiet. 200 players applied and participation was decided by lottery. Maybe one or two wild cards, that would explain the relatively large number of Jahn players, but otherwise they came from Wasserburg, from Mammendorf, from Fiebich’s hometown of Landsberg, from Gräfelfing – and even from Leverkusen.
“I like doing something for the youth because I thought it was so cool back then when the professionals from the men’s division came to our hall. Or the first division ladies from Nördlingen, with whom we had a cooperation,” says Fiebich later during the lunch break. “I wanted to establish contact between the girls and me and give them a little something to help them along the way.” The program includes athletic training, lessons in one-on-one and ball handling, but also short lectures on nutrition in competitive sports to mental strength. The approach of not just focusing on sport is new, says Fiebich, but chosen consciously. “Basketball is one thing, but you have to do more if you want to play competitively. I hope that the girls accept this too, i.e. the offers that go beyond sports. In a way, it’s an experiment.” In the evening there will be a conversation with the parents to answer questions about what to do if your daughter is drawn to competitive sports – also a novelty in the youth sector.
:The missing second division team
Jahn Munich has brought out two current national players, but after more than ten years sold the professional license of his women’s team and retreated to the third division. The club is now working on rebuilding without any grudges.
Imre Szittya, sitting next to her, nods: “We didn’t do anything like that before.” He should know, after all, as a former Bavarian state coach, he trained the best youth players in Bavaria for decades. So question to Szittya: What structures are needed to promote talents like 15-year-old Silvia Heide, the 1.83 meter tall WNBL player from TS Jahn, who is training today and who could have great things ahead of her? Or a Mia Weigand who has just turned 16, plays in the WNBL in Würzburg, plays in the second Bundesliga and has already competed for the U16 national team? Finally, Leonie Fiebich from Landsberg also made it to the top of the world.
Three pillars are crucial, says Szittya: “The training structure, the competition structure and the individual training.” And does all of this exist in Bavaria? Szittya hesitates. “We have a lot of talent in Bavaria. But some talents have locational disadvantages because the training and competition structures are not optimal.” This means: the competition in your own team is not strong, the trainers are not trained enough, and in many places the distances in the state are simply too long for one To establish competition that challenges the players.
However, the requirements are certainly present at individual locations, says Szittya. For example in Munich. There are now two WNBL clubs there, MTV and TS Jahn. As sports director, Armin Sperber is responsible for the female area of TS Jahn and has trained the youth teams for decades. He is also on Weltenburger Strasse today. You can see the pride that the camp is taking place in his hall and with his players. The club’s focus has been on the WNBL area for years, he says. More recently, Jahn has not had a women’s second division team since last year.
Solid youth work is one of the most important prerequisites for being able to play at a higher level again at some point, he says: “The idea of performance runs through all teams.” That means: Sometimes they are screened out, even in the U14 or U16. “It’s hard, but necessary. You have to take girls’ sports seriously if you want to be successful. Especially the players who have the necessary ambition. Then they’ll stick with it.” At least until they outgrow the youth sector when a place to study in another city, a college in the USA beckons – or another Bundesliga team. You won’t find them in Munich, at least in the female sector.
The situation is different in Würzburg: the WNBL players there can prove themselves in the second Bundesliga and gain experience there, just like Leonie Fiebich once did at Jahn. In order to make commuting between the teams as easy as possible, the coach of the youth team is also the assistant coach of the Bundesliga team, explains Janet Fowler-Michel on the phone. Fowler-Michel trains the Bundesliga team, is the U18 national coach and also heads the federal basketball base in Würzburg, a squad forge with an associated sports boarding school. She observes that many female players turn away from the sport as soon as they leave their teenage years. The combination of the WNBL and the Bundesliga would make it easier for the players to “stay with basketball a little longer”.
Or you can do it like Chanel Ndi, the former Würzburg and U18 national player: The 18-year-old moved to Nördlingen, to the only Bavarian first division club. The club is committed to investing particularly heavily in young talent. With Ndi, Jana Koch, 18, and Anna Löffler, 17, three young Bavarian players have been on the floor this season. Their integration into the team went “outstanding,” says Nils Gerstmeier, who heads youth work in Nördlingen. He blames the club’s internal mentoring program, but also the Nördlingen players’ shared community: “A really family structure has emerged.” In terms of sport, the Nördlinger youth concept is similar to the approach in Würzburg: in order not to overwhelm the players – and at the same time give them a lot of match practice – all three play with a dual license in the regional league team of TSV 1861 Nördlingen.
Gerstmeier believes that too much in Bavaria is still based on voluntary structures
Even if he is satisfied with his own approach: Basically, Gerstmeier thinks that youth sport in Bavaria is still far from where it could be: “Clubs like Alba Berlin are showing the way, and at a tremendous pace. They do excellent youth work, with personnel structures and the corresponding financial resources.” This is what is missing in Bavaria so far; too much of it is still based on voluntary structures. Maybe you could survive in a WNBL or the second division. In order to get the young talent so fit that they can eventually play successfully in the first league or abroad, and above all – this is particularly important to Gerstmeier – to train and develop a large number of players so that the top league level increases in the long term , but greater effort is required. Including the commitment of financially powerful clubs like FC Bayern Munich: “The performance base is great, but the top is only selective.”
In the LF13 camp today, the main focus is on enjoying the game and not on the idea of performance. “I hope that the girls just have fun and learn a little something,” says Leonie Fiebich before she goes back to training. It represents what a basketball player from Bavaria’s path to top sport can look like – if not only the talent is there, but also the appropriate framework. She is also here as a role model. A role that she is well aware of: “It’s really cool to show them where it can go.”
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