Week Five of Winter basketball is here, and as coach, vice-president of the league, and a plethora of other duties, it's time for a solid rant before talking about the games.
First, an absolute truth: adults suck.
We've done our best to accommodate coaches and parents with a plethora of options. Most of the time people do range for innocent inquiries, to the "nice a-hole" who knows small doses of pestering me in a passive-aggressive way keeps them on my radar.
But despite our best inquiries with the players and coaches on our 7th/8th grade division, we made an adjustment to last year's game schedule to let them play early, and to avoid a number of conflicts in the girls' divisions. No complaints, possibly even a few sighs of relief. We only needed to make one adjustment with a parent who had two kids at different schools at the same time. No problem!
But despite some of the coaches actually being on the school district coaching staff, it came out as a complete surprise that the Jr High team tryout results had been posted and *dum dum DUM* practices, schedules, and games happened to fall right on the three hour block of their games.
An IT developer at my company has a mantra, "Sometimes problems disappear on their own." I was hoping for that, but over a third of the kids in the division being affected for most of the season (and coaches demanding 7-8 player teams) I kept flipping schedule blocks from the girls division to try to find the best fit.
All it proved to do was complicate my family's schedule and piss off my wife, and that's before everything went public.
On Sunday, I ran our travel team's game ball over to the nearby rec center and got a tasty bit of news. The conflicting schedule? All the players that couldn't make it? It wasn't the Jr High team with issues, it was just the 8th grade team. One of the 8th grade coaches and all the teammates were going to leave their 7th grader friends out to dry.
It's the second time somebody selfish screwed over an entire division, and now we just have a policy to reveal the originator of the outside conflicts. Needless to say, there's a ruckus among the Middle School parents, a ruckus among 5th/6th grade Boys "elite" players' parents, and grumbling among the 5th/6th grade Girls' parents and coaches for the shift, announced yesterday morning.
Back to our regular rant.
As scheduler, I pieced together back-to-back games for the girls in the middle of day, intermixing two age divisions. Unfortunately, our plans fell through, but we were done early and could go to a semi-pro (ABA) game of the local Wyoming Valley Clutch
Maja's team (the Bucks) is certainly the team to beat in the 5th/6th Grade Girls division. Their opponent, the Rocket's had blown out a decent team before Thanksgiving, yet the Bucks returned the favor with a 27-8 rout. Maja is one of three good point guards on the team, so she doesn't have to do anything extraordinary, just prey on the weak or slopppy ball handlers with a dozen or more steals.
Millie's team (the Spurs, the one I coach) followed that up with a game against the Bulls in 3rd/4th grade Girls. A little scouting from parents of the team said we should win our first game of the season. We did so running away, 24-8 (12-4 each half).
Millie was simply a monster, playing lights out defense and even hip tossing the opposing guard during a jump ball. Her outside shots and passing selections weren't too shabby either.
Now, last year on Maja's travel team, Coach Chuck spent a ridiculous amount of time drilling into the girls the concept of simply looking at the basket when you get the ball. We've spent ridiculous times of the Spur's time reinforcing that concept so they know (a) where everybody is (b) if they can move closer to the basket and (c) if they can take a shot... or find someone closer who can.
I thought this was falling on deaf ears until my assistant coach's daughter caught a pass, looked up at the basket, and realized she had a wide-open path to the hoop. For the first time EVER, she drove at the basket and made a lay-up.
I thought her dad was going to tear up on the bench.
Better yet, another girl (Mc) ,who had been a wallflower on the team, and finally showed some emotion in practice when she was wide open and no one would pass to her, took another pass from Millie and did the same thing, from the never used left side of the court.
I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, but dang it, something's getting through to them.
With a comfy lead, we started on our project to get everyone to score a little late. Hopefully we can work on that next time.
The Wyoming Valley Clutch are a mixture and young and old dudes from the area, but they put on a good show with a serious blowout of Oneota.
Sunday was a wash, with Maja missing travel team with a stomach bug and possibly a migraine. Their team avenged last year's team with a 35-8 thrashing of Wyoming Area.
And to leave this post on a positive note, I reached out to the Bulls' coach and invited them (some or all) to our Thursday night practice . The Bulls didn't look bad in the game, they looked like a team that hadn't practiced together that much. I did realize looking at the practice schedule that their Monday practice time kept getting cancelled due to holiday vacations and school functions.
For my effort, everyone appreciates this gracious gesture, but in the end, it's pretty selfish. We get to scrimmage with at least 10 players, and I'd rather win close games that blowouts.... it's better for the kids on both sides.
First, an absolute truth: adults suck.
We've done our best to accommodate coaches and parents with a plethora of options. Most of the time people do range for innocent inquiries, to the "nice a-hole" who knows small doses of pestering me in a passive-aggressive way keeps them on my radar.
But despite our best inquiries with the players and coaches on our 7th/8th grade division, we made an adjustment to last year's game schedule to let them play early, and to avoid a number of conflicts in the girls' divisions. No complaints, possibly even a few sighs of relief. We only needed to make one adjustment with a parent who had two kids at different schools at the same time. No problem!
But despite some of the coaches actually being on the school district coaching staff, it came out as a complete surprise that the Jr High team tryout results had been posted and *dum dum DUM* practices, schedules, and games happened to fall right on the three hour block of their games.
An IT developer at my company has a mantra, "Sometimes problems disappear on their own." I was hoping for that, but over a third of the kids in the division being affected for most of the season (and coaches demanding 7-8 player teams) I kept flipping schedule blocks from the girls division to try to find the best fit.
All it proved to do was complicate my family's schedule and piss off my wife, and that's before everything went public.
On Sunday, I ran our travel team's game ball over to the nearby rec center and got a tasty bit of news. The conflicting schedule? All the players that couldn't make it? It wasn't the Jr High team with issues, it was just the 8th grade team. One of the 8th grade coaches and all the teammates were going to leave their 7th grader friends out to dry.
It's the second time somebody selfish screwed over an entire division, and now we just have a policy to reveal the originator of the outside conflicts. Needless to say, there's a ruckus among the Middle School parents, a ruckus among 5th/6th grade Boys "elite" players' parents, and grumbling among the 5th/6th grade Girls' parents and coaches for the shift, announced yesterday morning.
Back to our regular rant.
As scheduler, I pieced together back-to-back games for the girls in the middle of day, intermixing two age divisions. Unfortunately, our plans fell through, but we were done early and could go to a semi-pro (ABA) game of the local Wyoming Valley Clutch
Maja's team (the Bucks) is certainly the team to beat in the 5th/6th Grade Girls division. Their opponent, the Rocket's had blown out a decent team before Thanksgiving, yet the Bucks returned the favor with a 27-8 rout. Maja is one of three good point guards on the team, so she doesn't have to do anything extraordinary, just prey on the weak or slopppy ball handlers with a dozen or more steals.
Millie's team (the Spurs, the one I coach) followed that up with a game against the Bulls in 3rd/4th grade Girls. A little scouting from parents of the team said we should win our first game of the season. We did so running away, 24-8 (12-4 each half).
Millie was simply a monster, playing lights out defense and even hip tossing the opposing guard during a jump ball. Her outside shots and passing selections weren't too shabby either.
Now, last year on Maja's travel team, Coach Chuck spent a ridiculous amount of time drilling into the girls the concept of simply looking at the basket when you get the ball. We've spent ridiculous times of the Spur's time reinforcing that concept so they know (a) where everybody is (b) if they can move closer to the basket and (c) if they can take a shot... or find someone closer who can.
I thought this was falling on deaf ears until my assistant coach's daughter caught a pass, looked up at the basket, and realized she had a wide-open path to the hoop. For the first time EVER, she drove at the basket and made a lay-up.
I thought her dad was going to tear up on the bench.
Better yet, another girl (Mc) ,who had been a wallflower on the team, and finally showed some emotion in practice when she was wide open and no one would pass to her, took another pass from Millie and did the same thing, from the never used left side of the court.
I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, but dang it, something's getting through to them.
With a comfy lead, we started on our project to get everyone to score a little late. Hopefully we can work on that next time.
The Wyoming Valley Clutch are a mixture and young and old dudes from the area, but they put on a good show with a serious blowout of Oneota.
Sunday was a wash, with Maja missing travel team with a stomach bug and possibly a migraine. Their team avenged last year's team with a 35-8 thrashing of Wyoming Area.
And to leave this post on a positive note, I reached out to the Bulls' coach and invited them (some or all) to our Thursday night practice . The Bulls didn't look bad in the game, they looked like a team that hadn't practiced together that much. I did realize looking at the practice schedule that their Monday practice time kept getting cancelled due to holiday vacations and school functions.
For my effort, everyone appreciates this gracious gesture, but in the end, it's pretty selfish. We get to scrimmage with at least 10 players, and I'd rather win close games that blowouts.... it's better for the kids on both sides.
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