Basketball, basketball and .... more basketball

This is the time of year when basketball consumes our lives! This week, I watched 7 games, six of them in a 24-hour period. Our son, Josh, plays on his school team and we travel to every single game. Because we're a 1A team, that means a lot of distance driving. This week, we went to Ogden. The picture at left is David and I with the two other parents, Rick McCloskey and Fern Caka who also travel to every game. We're often the only fans at away games, but we cheer as loudly as possible!
Josh is a jumper, I secretly think of him as "Tigger". He gets tons of rebounds and usually gets the tip at the start of the game. He loves to steal and typically scores 10-12 points a game. David and I LOVE watching him play. Can you believe the kid who is deliberating fouling Josh in this photo threw a big fit when the foul was called on him? Kellie took this picture and said, "Mom, I have a picture of that foul." We offered to show it to the kid, but he didn't take us up on it. :)

Our girls all play on Jr. Jazz teams through the city, their games are all on Saturdays and I coach Alissa's team. This week, Jenna played a double-header, a game at 8am and the second at 9am. They won the first game by a miracle shot in literally the last second that tied the game and sent them into overtime. It was awesome! Jenna is a scrappy player who will go after every ball. She ends up on the floor a lot; the coach loves her aggressiveness.
On Saturday, Kellie scored 14 of the 24 points for her team - she's go the lay-up down which is more skills than most 6th graders her age have. She and her friends have been playing basketball together since third grade.

My little team that Alissa is on goes by the name "Viper Monkeys" ( I know - tough girls!) Half of them are in their first year and just learning to dribble, so we don't worry too much about the score, just about passing the ball around and guarding our man and trying to dribble without traveling. As one of my little girls said when I told her she couldn't dribble with two hands, just one, "But that's hard!" Alissa is one of the tallest girls in the league, so she enjoys rebounding and shooting over everyone's head. She has also mastered the lay-up and scores lots of baskets.

I have been coaching my girls in basketball since Jenna was in third grade. I can't play basketball myself, but when the city called me and said Jenna wouldn't be able to have a team since they couldn't find a coach, I volunteered. Being me, I headed to the public library and checked out videos and books on coaching basketball. After five years of coaching, I'm still not a great dribbler myself, but I know how it's supposed to be done and I can teach the kids to do it!