Mandatory AAU Basketball Spring 2024 Rant - Weekend #3 - Communication Breakdown

One basic rule I've developed in my old age is proper communication is key.  I'm certainly no angel when it comes from a failure to communicate, but I've noticed more and more people just omitting massive facts.  

This weekend was going to be another of the "home and away" tournaments for the girls.  I would take Maja up to Scranton, while their mother would take Millie and two other girls down to Philly for their weekend tournament.  Seemed simple enough.  

The plan began to unravel on two Fridays ago, when Maja mentioned they submitted her times/jumps for a track & field invitational almost an hour away.  Good news was, she had already spoken with her AAU coach, and that allowed everyone enough time to schedule afternoon//evening games for Saturday.

That seemed like it was going to work.  Millie's mom would take her down to Philly Friday night.  Maja would take the team bus Saturday to the meet, and I would run her almost an hour north the Scranton for those games.

Then Tuesday came around and Millie casually drops that she too submitted her throws for the meet and got in.  Luckily it was on the way to AAU practice and she could drop it on her coach with some time to negotiate later times.   Now, my side of the transportation remains the same (per the schedule, I need to be an hour and ten minutes away by 3:00pm).  Once Millie's schedule came out, there was no way she would make her 1:35pm game, but 3:00pm was possible.  

Communication folks!  

I normally have some comments regarding basketball officiating, and don't worry, they'll be showing up.  My first rant has to do with track & field officiating and organization, of lack thereof.  

While I must limit my rants regarding basketball based on the fact I never played, and am learning the rules every game, even at this point, I ran four years of track during high school, I helped volunteer and organize the meets I wasn't participating in. 

For an invitational, where qualifying times are submitted, and lane assignments deteremined A WEEK BEFORE, it shouldn't be too hard to organize the kids by heat, take their times, document them, and get the next heat going.   Case in point, when the final call for Maja's intermediate hurdle race was made, appropriately, they were setting up the first of three heats for the 4x100 relay.  

TWENTY-NINE MINUTES LATER she finally started her race.    If it was the beginning of the season, or a bunch of 7th graders, I might understand, but it's May, most are JV 9th or 8th graders, and everyone knows what's going on.  

The field events suffered a similar breakdown, as everyone who ran the boy's shot put, migrated across the complex for the boy's discus, even though there was a perfectly competent team assigned there, and they just breezed through 17 girls in their event.  That left one poor high school volunteer at shot put, and the girls had to wait 30 minutes. 

With these delays, Millie had to leave at least 35 minutes before the Javelin was supposed to happen, and she JUST got to the facility in time to play at 3:00pm.    I simply had to wait for Maja to finish her high jump and we were on our way, with 15 minutes of wiggle room.  

Millie: 6 out of 18 in the shot, 7 out of 16 in the discus.

Maja:  4th in the high jump, massive PRs in the 100m hurdles, 300 hurdles, and triple jump.

Millie's weekend:  The theme for the weekend for Millie's crew was height differential.  They were forced to play teams with a four-inch height advantage on average.  Yet they finished the weekend 4-0 in the A Pool, including a close game that went down to a steal and a lay-up at the last second.  Unlike the last tournament, everyone was there (save Millie for the first game.) 

Maja's has fewer picture and more text:  Guess who didn't show up for the 3:35pm game?  If you guessed the other team, you'd be right.  Times and locations for the tournament, which, by common courtesy, are usually finalized by Thursday night, seemed to constantly change, and the other team didn't confirm with the app on Friday. 

So we waited... and waited... and luckily our program contact was on site, who got us a 9pm game with them, after our 7pm game. 

The first game wasn't even close, as the girls jumped out to a 21-0 lead after four minutes and the coach called off the dogs.  61-19.

Second game, the other team did show up... and it felt like competition they faced in 7th grade.  65-15 win.  

Sunday morning, fearing a schedule change overnight, I was right.  Our 1pm game had been moved to noon, against the winner of a different pool.    This team, from Long Island, was pretty decent, and kept the game within 6 or 7.  One of our new players buster and an and one at the buzzer to end the half at 28-18, and people never looked back.   48-31.  

The final game was against another pool winner, and it was another 21-0.    Everyone coasted, tried different positions, practiced new plays, and they walked away with a 61-14 win.  

While I mentioned the spontaneous schedule changes, and generally poor organization, I did bury the lead:  Maja's group is 9th grade (15U), and they decided to move up to 10th grade (16U) for this tournament.  

I know when the girls go to the big showcases in Atlantic City and elsewhere, they'll get their buts handed to them, but right now the biggest competition they've faced is the Varsity team every Tuesday and Thursday night. 

(EDIT: One addendum I’d like to add.  One addendum I’d like to add since we were stuck on site at a small Catholic school for seven hours, we got the Watch a lot of the other games and I can safely say, as the referees on site for that timeframe or some of the best I may have ever seen.  I could count on my hands the number of missed calls. They kept control of the game. They were consistent.  This is  the fifth year AAU and I can safely say that I’ve never seen that happen before.  It was a pleasure to watch, Even if some of the actual game results were not.  I might collectively give that group to the first a I’d never give any referees.

*Now, the Sunday refs were a D+ and a solid B, at different sites.