Tough first season of basketball for Nathan and Jared. This was their first time to play on a team, and unfortunately, their teams weren't great. Jared's was 9th of 10 teams, with a record of 3 wins and 6 losses. They did advance to the 2nd round of the tournament. So they were 4 and 7 for the season.
Nathan's team was 6th out of 6 teams, with a record of 1 and 8. They won their very first game, against the number 5 team in their league. But their best game was the first round of the tournament. They lost 29-22, but it was really close until the last quarter. Nathan played hard and scored 9 points or so in that last game. The other team wasn't expecting the game to be so close.
Jared was one of the less skilled players on his team, although he showed good improvement through the season. He only got to participate in 1 of his 2 practices a week, since one of them was on Sunday afternoons (during church AND just on our worship day in general). I specifically requested NO SUNDAYS on his registration, but I guess they missed that part or couldn't work around it. Anyway, Jared had fun. He wasn't too eager to get in there and get the ball. But he was pretty good at guarding his man. He did score 2 times, although I never got either of them on video.
Nathan is a good shooter. One funny story here - The other team got a technical foul called on them, which means that Nathan's team got to shoot 2 free throws without any other players. They also get to pick who shoots the free throws. The point guard on Nathan's team was up at the line, getting ready to shoot. Nathan reminded his coach that he (Nathan) was the best shooter on the team.
"Coach! Coach! I'm a better shooter!" :) The coach switched out shooters, and Nathan did make the shots.
Way to speak up for yourself Nathan!
(Alex and I got a kick out of Nathan's boldness. Is that the right word?) I also felt a little sense of pride there, thinking about how I was also the one picked to shoot the technical foul shots for our team when I played. Must be hereditary...
Just like Jared, Nathan seemed pretty timid about getting after the ball at first, but he greatly improved through the season. He was pretty tough by the end. It was fun to watch them play.
I didn't get very good videos. Basketball is hard to capture the play AND I was usually dealing with 2 or 3 other restless kids (Owen, Weston, Savannah). Here are a couple short videos of Nathan scoring.
This was probably the most aggressive Jared played all season. He's number 5 with the blue shoes.
I made some sugar cookies and snickerdoodles for the players on both Nathan and Jared's teams. I also ended up putting together a last minute gift for Nathan's coaches. They got jelly beans and gift cards.
(It was my first experience with royal icing for the cookies - kind of a lot of work. It was easier to just pipe the black icing on orange colored snickerdoodles.)
Well, it was fun to watch the boys play and to improve. HOWEVER, I didn't imagine how frustrated I would feel about playing time. Nathan was one of the better players, so he got quite a bit of time. His coach was pretty good about fairness in time for all the players. But for Jared, I was frustrated. For most of the games, he got to play about half of the game. That's okay, except that a couple of players on his team played nearly ALL of the game EVERY game. That's hard to explain why some kids get to play the whole time and some have to sit out half the time. What do you say when they ask you why they were sitting out so much? This is 2nd grade basketball. (I understand about playing time with older kids, but these are 7 year olds! It's not about winning. And we all paid the same amount for our kids to play...)
I remember one game (the assistant coaches were running the show) - Jared only played 9 of the 28 minutes. Not even half the game. And the very last game (which also was run by the assistant coaches coincidentally), Jared's team was down by 10-15 points. That's not a difference that can be made up in the last quarter. Not even close to winning. But who sat out most of the 2nd half? Jared and another poor guy. And 2 of the players played the whole game. I kept thinking they would pull them out just the last few minutes and let those that had been sitting out play. I nearly went over there to ask the coaches to put those kids back in the game. I wasn't brave enough to make a scene, but I was fuming inside. Instead I just yelled from across the court, "Come on! Put them in!" (amidst all the other noise during play). Alex thought he was going to have to hold me back. Luckily (I guess), they didn't hear me. Or they chose to ignore me. I think they knew what they were doing - but I don't understand why they were being so unfair. I mean, did they really think we were somehow going to make 15 points in the last few minutes to win the game? (AND the kid who was supposed to be the star player kept getting called for walking...) Anyway, let's let everyone PLAY the game and have fun. You can't have fun sitting on the bench.
I was mad the rest of the day. I hope I can handle these sports. This 2nd grade basketball left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Thank goodness this season is over.
I was proud of the boys for their effort - I did enjoy watching them play.
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