The NCAA and the NBA will launch a Web site this fall to support the organizations’ youth basketball initiative and provide an essential resource for players, coaches, officials, parents and youth teams at all levels.

The new Web site, called iHoops.com, will be positioned as the premier youth basketball online community in the U.S. and Canada. iHoops CEO Kevin Weiberg and Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski made the announcement before Game 3 of the NBA finals Tuesday night in Orlando. Representatives from Nike and adidas – founding partners for the iHoops initiative – also were on hand.

Active.com (a division of The Active Network, Inc.) was named as the technology provider for the new site. Weiberg said the site will provide skill-training curriculum, certification programs for coaches and officials, and the opportunity to register for events, tournaments and programs. It also will feature instructional videos, player profiles and highlights from tournaments.

The NCAA and NBA announced they would undertake the youth basketball effort at the 2008 Men’s Final Four, citing the need to change the focus of the game at that level from simply a recruiting marketplace to an educational and life-skills environment that equips young boys and girls with the tools they need to experience more meaningful lives. Weiberg was appointed as the initiative’s CEO in November 2008.

Weiberg on Tuesday said the new Web presence is the next step in providing “a solid foundation for achieving our goal to improve the environment in youth basketball for boys and girls, parents, coaches and officials.”

Krzyzewski called iHoops “a positive response to the need for basketball’s key stakeholders to take a more unified approach.” Krzyzewski serves as an iHoops board member along with NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball and Business Strategies Greg Shaheen, NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, NBA Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Stu Jackson, NBA Executive Vice President of Social Responsibility and Player Programs Kathy Behrens, and attorney and college basketball television analyst Len Elmore.

The addition of adidas and Nike as founding partners supports the initiative’s goal to create a coalition of key stakeholders that include USA Basketball, the Amateur Athletic Union, the National Federation of State High Schools and its member associations, the major coaches associations, and other organizations that sponsor or support youth basketball programs. 

Weiberg said with basketball currently being the No. 1 U.S. participatory team sport with 23 million American boys and girls playing the game, iHoops provides a “renewed emphasis” on the health and safety of youth basketball participants. The initiative’s online community and network of events will play a vital role in the game’s continued growth, he said.

Weiberg told The NCAA News in January that the Web site will give youth coaches the tools to do their jobs better, and to provide a calendar of events that are credible and that have the necessary component parts attached, such as the focus on education and health and safety. “We also want to use the Web site to develop grass-roots officiating programs to build a base of officials that is diverse and inclusive and knowledgeable about our education-based intentions. The Web site is envisioned to be the backbone of the initiative,” he said.

He said iHoops is designed to combat a trend in which the secondary school structure has become less important in the development of young basketball players.

“That development has moved more into the club system,” Weiberg said. “While that is not necessarily bad in and of itself, it is more of an unstructured system. Our goal is to provide more structure to nonscholastic basketball, and to communicate with participants and their parents and guardians a much more education-based message that goes beyond the development of athletes to the values of education and academic achievement.”