I'm Coach El.
A basketball coach with an occupational therapist's eye. The Designed Roster is what gets built when both disciplines live in the same coach, year after year.
[ portrait photography of Coach El ]
Most coaches see one thing. I'm trained to see two.
Coaches are trained to read athletes through a coaching lens — talent, effort, attitude, execution. Clinicians are trained to read athletes (and everyone else) through a different lens entirely — attention, sensory processing, executive function, motor planning, what an environment is asking of a nervous system at any given moment.
I'm trained in both. When I walk onto a court, I'm not just watching for shot mechanics or rotation slip-ups. I'm watching for the athlete whose attention got spent by the transition from a quiet hallway into a loud gym. I'm watching for the player who locks in on two verbal cues but loses the third. I'm watching for the freshman whose nervous system reads tension in a coaching voice as threat — not motivation — and shuts down before the play even starts.
The OT lens doesn't replace the coaching lens. It adds to it. It tells you what's actually getting in the way of an athlete's performance. Most of the time, it's not effort or attitude. It's something about the environment, the cueing, the sequencing, or the structure that a coach can change.
That's the whole work. That's The Designed Roster.
Where the lens comes from.
WBCA Assistant Coach of the Year, 2021
National recognition from the Women's Basketball Coaches Association — affirmation that the OT lens works at the highest competitive levels.
Master's in Occupational Therapy
Clinical training in how environments, attention, sensory processing, and executive function shape what people can actually do.
Coaching across every level
AAU from fourth-grade-up through high school, high school programs, and college coaching as an assistant.
Hoops Through Life
Founder of an ongoing youth basketball camp and clinic — the work that keeps me close to the game and the kids who play it.
What I do now
- Coach mentoring and consulting. One-on-one work with coaches who want to apply The Designed Roster to their own program.
- Workshops and speaking. In-person and virtual sessions for coaching staffs, athletic departments, and conferences.
- The podcast and blog. Where I work the framework out loud, in conversation with other coaches doing this work.
- Resources and playbooks. Practical tools you can use this week — free and paid.
- Hoops Through Life. Still running camps and clinics for young athletes — the work that keeps the lens grounded in the actual game.