Triple Threat Philosophy
"Skill Development, Community Building, and Elite Competition, all in Harmony"
Academy Programs
Triple Threat Basketball runs a girls development academy for players of every skill and experience level in Grades 3–8, in Victoria, BC.
Our academy is committed to creating a welcoming environment for every athlete. If your child is non-binary or transgender and is interested in participating, please reach out to Coach Rob to discuss your particular situation.
Night League club player, school-team player, or never played on a team before? Whatever your daughter’s background, she is welcome in our academy programs. We are not exclusive. For players who do belong to a club, we have designed the academy to complement and not conflict with those commitments — in fact, we highly encourage all of our players to play for their local club or school team.
Triple Threat provides Skill Development training sessions for players at U10 (Grades 3–4), U12 (Grades 5–6), and U14 (Grades 7–8).
Our travel teams, from U11 to U14, compete in leagues and tournaments in Greater Vancouver and on Vancouver Island.
Your Holidays Are Your Own
Triple Threat believes that family time is important. We will never schedule any practices or games on holidays, long weekends, or school breaks.
Coaching Services
Outside the academy, Coach Rob offers two services to the wider basketball community: private training for any player, girls or boys, at any age and from any club or school, and mentorship for volunteer, school and club coaches.
Rob Wighton
Coach Rob has over 35 years of experience coaching girls and boys ages 8–17 in both school and community basketball.
He's been involved in Victoria community basketball (Night League) for his entire career, working with a variety of clubs and sitting as a member of the board of directors. He received a Community Sport Hero award from Sport BC to recognize his contributions to community basketball in Victoria.
In the competitive phase of his career, Coach Rob coached multiple provincial top-10 Junior Boys school teams. In his younger years, he worked at various summer basketball camps in Victoria. He also spent 11 years as a high-level basketball referee working high school and college games.
Before launching Triple Threat, Coach Rob served as the Technical Director at Carnarvon Basketball Club, helping lead that club from 2018–2026. During the time Coach Rob was involved, Carnarvon grew to be the largest girls club in Victoria and won multiple Night League championships at U13 and U15.
While at Carnarvon, Coach Rob offered skill development and travel team opportunities to Carnarvon players. Now at Triple Threat, he offers those same opportunities to any player in the city.
Coach Rob coaches with technical depth and relentless positivity, setting realistic, individualized expectations. Above all, he builds a safe space where mistakes are part of growth, not something to fear.
At this point in his coaching journey, Coach Rob is finding development work with players in this age group incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. He plans to work with this demographic for the rest of his coaching career.
The Rest of the Staff
Coach Rob leads every session, supported at skill sessions by alumni and on travel teams by parent assistants.
Alumni
Staff at our Skill Development sessions include local high school players (Grs 9–12) who are graduates from Coach Rob's previous teams. They will also occasionally assist with our Travel Teams.
Travel Team Assistant Coaches
Each of our travel teams will have a Team Assistant Coach who is a parent of a player on the team. This Team Assistant Coach assists at all practices and games, and steps in when Coach Rob is unavailable (for example, at a tournament with multiple Triple Threat teams playing at once).
Travel Team Managers
Each of our travel teams will also have a Team Manager who is a parent of a player on the team. The Manager will coordinate carpooling to tournaments, and assist with team communication.
Our Values: Community, Continuity, Development
Players in all our programs are taught team building skills, interpersonal skills, and leadership skills. Those who are among the strongest in their age group will have the opportunity to receive extra training with the older age groups.
Occasionally a player from an older travel team will receive extra leadership opportunities for practice or gameplay with a younger team. All our travel teams practice together, cheer for each other, and collaborate with each other.
Continuity on our travel teams is incredibly important at Triple Threat. Working with kids at this developmental age, we are constantly building and layering skills on top of other skills. Keeping the same group of players together from season to season and year to year really allows us to accelerate their growth.
We build our travel team rosters to stay together. The goal is to keep turnover between seasons to a minimum. Adding many new players each season creates a hard learning curve for the new players, and the lack of continuity is unfair to the players who have stayed committed to the program.
Our Commitment to Travel Team Players
Our goal is for all our travel team players to play with us for multiple years. Players on our travel teams are guaranteed a spot on next year's team so long as they:
- maintain 80% attendance at practices,
- maintain 80% attendance at games,
- are a great teammate, and
- are receptive to coaching.
New Players Also Welcome
Our travel team roster sizes grow slightly as age groups progress, creating space for one or two new additions each year.
Player Safety
Every player's safety is treated as non-negotiable, not an afterthought. Our safety standards:
- All coaches pass a Criminal Record Check, including a Vulnerable Sector Check, before working with players.
- All coaches are trained in SafeSport and concussion protocol.
- All coaches hold Standard First Aid training. First aid kits and ice packs are on hand at every activity.
- We follow the Rule of Two — no coach is ever alone with a single player.
- For skill development sessions, parents are encouraged to stay and observe. We always ensure that at least a few parents are present at every session.
- For our travel teams, at least one female adult is present at every practice, game, and road trip — a parent chaperone or female assistant coach. On overnight stays, any player not accompanied by a parent is assigned a female chaperone.
- A parent or guardian is present at every Private Training session with players under 18.
- Coach-to-player communication goes through parent-copied channels or team group messaging — never one-on-one texts or DMs.
- Any issue, big or small, can be raised directly with Coach Rob or by email — every concern is taken seriously.
Who We Are
Triple Threat has a clear identity grounded in development, community and continuity. Our programs are designed to support our players through a multi-year process where they can learn age-appropriate basketball skills and strategies at the developmentally appropriate time.
Our travel teams compete with fierce joy, but not at the expense of community building and skill development.
Typically programs assign more junior coaches to the developmental levels. At Triple Threat, you have a highly experienced and passionate top-tier coach devoted to working exclusively with the Gr 3–8 age group.
Who We Are Not
Many academy programs build their primary philosophy and identity around winning. Triple Threat is not one of them.
Flaws in Winning-First Programs
- Unstable foundations. The top-tier players are constantly leaving to pursue even more competitive opportunities, while the culture of hyper-competitiveness drives the lower-tier players away from the program.
- Constant recruitment. A program built purely around winning has to constantly demonstrate that it can keep winning in order to keep recruiting new players, and gets caught up in the churn of roster turnover.
- Shortcut coaching. The pressure for immediate success leads directly to tactics and strategies that win now but aren't developmentally appropriate for the age group (e.g. full court zone presses). Development is neglected. Team building is neglected.
- Misplaced resources. Coaching resources get poured into the oldest age groups, and often more into the boys programs because those programs get the most attention. Development-aged girls often are neglected.