AP Story by Dave Campbell, May '08

From WCCO.com -- Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:06 GMT

Column: Teaching the world how to shoot is a weary pursuit

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Tom Nordland lost his shot for 32 years. He's trying to teach everyone who's ever picked up a basketball how he found it again.

''I can do this for anyone,'' the man says, with so much ardency and so much urgency that it can't possibly come off as cocky. This graceful game has developed a fundamental problem. Shooting, the most basic skill required for success, has become a lost art. Players who can drive off the dribble for rim-rattling dunks and follow them with snarls and stares at beaten defenders now possess the sport's most desired skill set.

The drop in shooting percentages means a deterioration in quality. That starts at the top, where players who are both pure shooters and All-Stars or All-Americans stand out like some kind of circus act. Remember Memphis? The Tigers, despite their No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, busted most people's brackets by overcoming a severe foul-line deficiency to make the national championship game. Then they missed four out of five free throws during a crucial stretch and blew their chance to cut down the nets.

And don't even start with the NBA.

Well, Nordland first learned his craft in a time when shooting actually was an art. In 1957, he was the lanky leader of a Minneapolis Roosevelt team that won its second straight state high school title in his senior year. In the championship, Nordland who averaged 27 points per game that season made 19 of 20 free throws to set a state record that was tied fifty years later by Ellsworth's Cody Schilling.

Nordland went to Stanford, but suddenly realized his one-dimensional skills and quickly lost confidence in his shot. After three varsity years on the bench, he played pickup ball for a while back in the Twin Cities after college, but gave up the game in the mid-1970s and didn't think much of it again until 1989. He was 50 then, working in California as a computer programmer, when he decided to shoot around on his lunch break. That day, he claims, his old form came rushing back. ''Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish,'' he says in a voice as smooth as his shot.

The rediscovered passion prompted an obsession. He researched techniques, watched practices and games, and concluded that most coaches have taught and are teaching the wrong way to shoot. The classic square-your-feet-to-flick-the-wrist method does not work, Nordland says, the way his does. ''They end up sabotaging good shooting,'' he says. ''That's why so few ever figure it out.''

He preaches an open stance for optimum power, almost poised like a boxer, and a relaxed wrist on the follow-through to maximize the strength of the legs on the jump and the arm on the release. He talks about the magic of inertia and even trademarked the key to a good shot he calls UpForce. He stresses that every player can become a great shooter by following his simple techniques.

Now he's nearly 70, having produced two DVDs, written numerous online newsletters at swish22.com and traveled all over the country to teach coaches and players about his method. He's desperate for a big break, a way to latch on to a prominent client so he can broaden his recognition and, of course, make some more money along the way now that he's made this his full-time mission in life. He says he's met plenty of agents, players and coaches at the highest levels of the sport, but they usually don't return his calls.

People are listening, though, even if they're not multimillionaires. Nordland was back home recently for eight four-hour clinics at the Colin Powell Youth Leadership Center, a sparkling facility in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Kelby Brothen, who coaches youth teams at the Powell center through a nonprofit called Urban Ventures, was 35 when he first watched one of Nordland's videos. He wanted to learn a better way to teach his players how to shoot. He said it took two weeks to rid himself of bad habits he picked up as a kid.

''Many coaches don't know how to teach it or don't want to spend the time on it. They think, 'The players won't change anyway,' or 'Why mess with their shot?''' Brothen said. ''I never had a coach spend a minute on the techniques and principles of shooting with me as a player.''

Nordland, as long as there's an audience, will spend as much time as it takes. ''I can do this for anyone,'' he says.

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On the Net: http://www.swish22.com Dave Campbell can be reached at dcampbell(at)ap.org
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. )

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