Confessions of a basketball coach/mom

So, this year we decided to let Kaylie and Blake play basketball through the Evans Rec. Center. It was really fun to watch them play and reminisce about the good old days with Dad as my basketball coach in the GLVRA league in Niwot. Don't ask me what GLVRA means, cause I have no idea...that's just what my jersey always said! : )

I decided to coach Blake's team because they were desperate. Dad, I'm truly sorry for times that I didn't pay attention during basketball practice! Have you ever tried to teach 5 and 6 year olds something that's totally foreign to most of them!? Well, if you want an experience like no other, let me suggest teaching them basketball. It is like herding turtles! I will admit that I came home from Wednesday night practices some weeks wondering what in the heck I was thinking when I'd signed up to do this. A lot of the parents remarked that I had the patience of a saint, but little did they know that years of teaching primary had prepared me for this. My kids were soo cute! I was so proud of them. Blake is a pretty good basketball player, when he feels like being a part of the team. He made the very first basket in our first game! By the end of the season, the kids were actaully doing really well. In our last game everyone on the team made a basket. In fact, for a few kids, it was their only basket all season! Now that it's over, I actually find myself missing those kids. Jackson is already expecting me to coach his team next year because he'll be old enough to play and by then, I'll probably have forgotten my frustrations and sign up to coach again. Maybe that's why the time between seasons is such a long time - it gives us time to forget!

This is the first year that either of the kids played basketball for an organized team, but Kaylie really has a natural talent for the game. She did awesome! I'm hoping that she'll want to continue playing and hopefully she'll get comfortable enough with the game to get a little more agressive...she was always afraid to steal the ball from the other team because she didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings or have anyone mad at her! She definitely didn't get THAT trait from me! I wasn't known as the "nice" one when I played basketball.

During the basketball season this year, Kaylie also participated in a basketball skills program called TriStar. It is a skills program that tests her ability to shoot, dribble and pass. This is the second year that she's participated in this program. The first level of the competition is against other kids at her school and she took 1st Place! There are different levels, depending on the kids' ages, but she scored the highest score of everyone, even the boys! That's my girl! : ) Needless to say, we were so proud of her. Last year she actually made it all the way to the state finals, but they were held on a Sunday and so she chose not to participate. This year she didn't continue on past the city finals, but that's alright! There's always next year, right!?