Basketball

Junior Husky basketball starts today with Cale's first practice. I anticipate that we will be much busier for the next several months. This year, Andy is coaching the 4th/5th grade team that Marcus is on and Ewan is playing for the first time, too.

I'm getting lots more information about the basketball program this year, thanks in part to my chiropractor-Dr. John. Since he has found out that we are involved with the BB program, he talks BB with me at every appointment. He told me two stories about Cale that I'm going to share with you for your enjoyment.

1. A compliment? At 2nd grade player evaluations, Dr. John was standing next to the coach of the travel team-Paul. Paul says, "do you see that red-headed kid over there?" (The only red-head there was Cale) "that kids really makes me angry!" (Actually said something a little more colorful) "He never scores well on player evals, so I don't think to draft him. Then, when we play his team, he's always making shots, getting the rebounds, taking the ball down the court. He just makes me so angry!"

I guess it's nice to know that Cale makes that kind of impression on people?

2. The draft. The second grade draft was last Saturday. The coaches get together and try to pick teams in a way that the teams are as evenly matched as possible. First round, coaches get their kid, because chances are that if you are coaching, it's because you have a son in that grade. Second round, each of the coaches picked a travel team kid. These kids have scored higher on the evals and you can assume they would be a strong player to have on the team. Round three begins the drafting of the rest of the kids. You would think that the coach would just go down the list and pick the next highest scoring boy. Nope. The first coach up looks at the list and picks the 10th kid down. Cale. "I want this one." "Are you sure?", asked the moderator (my chiropractor). "Is he the red-head?", asked the coach. "Yes.", the moderator replied. "Then he's the one I want."

The coach was quite thrilled to have Cale on his team as he told Andy when he talked to him later with practice times. He likes they way Cale plays and goes after the ball. They are going to work on good shooting technique with him which will be good for Cale. Because you know, when his parents try to teach him, they are wrong, but the coach is always right.

(And now, a bonus story from today. It is taking me forever to type this since I am on my phone. I have been working on this post since yesterday.)

3. Travel teams. The Junior Husky basketball program also supports travel teams for grades 2nd-5th. Andy and I both think its silly for this age, but kids try out for them all the same. We both think that Marcus and Cale could have made the travel teams this year, but we have other things going on-scouts, karate, our jobs, life-and didn't want to spread ourselves too thin. We told the boys that you don't have to be on the travel team to be awesome, be awesome on the team you are on.

Well, today at the book fair, I was stopped by the 2nd grade travel team coach, Paul, from story #1. Pretty sure he was following me so he could catch me to talk. He wanted to see if we would consider letting Cale play on the travel team. He also said he still had to ask the board if he could add another player, so I'm not sure how this will all play out. The practices and games so not conflict with the in-house games and Cale would have a chance to play with his little friends that I know he thinks he is as good as. But, we don't know what Marcus will think. I know marcus scored higher on evals than some of the kids that made his grade level travel team, so, in theory, he could have made the travel team to. I guess we will see. I'm not too sure how this will play out. Mostly for this season I just want the boys to all learn some more about the game, grow in their skills and have fun playing with their friends.

To be continued...