What Goes Around Comes Around

Last Saturday after Jack's basketball game I was talking to our Youth Sports Coordinator for our church. I told I got involved in this for 4 main reasons.
1. To give back to the church
2. To spend time with Jack. Something he and I could do together.
3. I like working with kids.
4. I care and I want to teach these boys the basics on how to play a sport.

In talking with our coordinator I confessed that I just did not think that Jacks coach did anything when came to teaching the boys. I realize they are young but you can take a concept and teach them that concept. Again, they are young but all you want to see is progression.

I made mention in the conversation that there seems to be quite a progression in the quality of coaches this year. He agreed but very politely told me that there were two that he was not so sure about and would probably look elsewhere next season. I was taken back by that because I promise you. Everyone I have met has been the salt of the earth types. REAL NICE GUYS! I think that was because he was not talking about a guy.

Let me preface this by stating what you are supposed to center on in coaching in UPWARD Basket ball. You get a coaches hand book and in it it tells you that you are teaching the game of basketball but in reality you are teaching the word of the LORD through youth sports. You support the refs the other coaches and teams. And I have been so pleased from what I have seen from other coaches. When one of my players makes a good shot or makes a good pass they yell out...WAY TO GO 44 or AWESOME PASS 13!!I do the same thing. These kids all know one another. We are there to have fun and play a game.

Yesterday before our game starts I go over to the other coach and it is a woman! Wow I thought. I have seen some woman assistants but never the ONE AND ONLY COACH. The kids wear wrist bands so they know who they are supposed to be guarding. I think they do that through 3 grade. You are not aloud to play any zone defense and you cannot call plays.

In our pregame discussion she asked me what colors I was going to put on my two best players. I told her RED and BLUE! In addition to that she told me who her two best players were and I reciprocated. You see you are supposed to match your best kids with their best kids.

ISSUE #1- Mismatching Kids
Well I thought something was odd when the kid who she pointed out to me was her best player was not wearing RED or BLUE. You see that is something that we as coaches are not supposed to do either. Purposefully create mismatches against the kids. The color wrist band she had him wearing was matched up with probably my least skilled player.
I also noticed that with the number of players she had that kid should have sat out two periods using the substitution system the UPWARD league has set up. He sat out one. The last period. And that kid had skills.
I gotta hand it to my boys though they hung in there with defensively. One little guy came up to me and said. "Coach, I am doing the best I can but he is killing me" My response "All I can do is ask for your best and you are doing it so in my book you are doing AWESOME"

ISSUE #2- Play Calling
Now it was not obvious that the other team was calling plays. The coach was not barking out orders and the point guard was not walking up the court holding up 3 fingers or anything. BUUUTTTTTTT
Their movement was too swift and their passing was too crisp. In some cases the kids were passing to a point and then a kid would appear out of nowhere and get the ball and shoot and score before my guys had time to react to anything. These kids were a little to sharp for 2ne and 1sr graders. It was obvious something was fishy. I noticed it and of course I heard it from the parents as well. The parent comments were like this...Was it just me or was that team a little "advanced"

Issue #3 No ZONE defense
Again nothing was obvious here but it was clear that they were NOT playing man to man defense. There were WAY TO MANY times that one of their players would intercept one of our passes. It would be from players who were not where they were supposed to be. If you are guarding who you are supposed to be guarding then you should be nowhere near that pass but LOOKY HERE you just happen to show up and intercept ANOTHER PASS. The other coach did nothing to stop it. If anything I think she enjoys the fact that she has figured out a way to beat the system. Like I said it is not OBVIOUS but something is fishy.

Issue #4 Aggressiveness
The whole game my team was getting knocked to the floor. Some of my guys are very little even for their age. But all of my kids have heart. They get up and get moving. This other team we are playing would run into players to knock the balls loose. You could see elbows flying to help get position. Again, the other coach did nothing about it. The refs you ask? Well they had two high school kids being the ref. These are great kids..giving up their Saturdays to do this. But they turned a blind eye to it for the most part.

Halftime roles around and Assistant Coach Tracey takes the boys out to get some water. Believe it or not our team has caught up and might be up by a bucket. I finally had my two best players on the court for two consecutive periods and we made up ground FAST!! Tracey was out there with the boys when the coach from the other team said to Tracey- WOW...ya ll are by far the best team we have seen. Well we have not lost a game to this point. We have 3 blowouts and one close win. But this one can go either way. Tracey responded with ya ll are the best we have seen. The other coaches response...oh this is the worst they have played all year. They are going to hear it from me I am NOT PLEASED.

Tracey told me this when she got back and my thought was...she does not really understand what we are doing here.

So its halftime and we have our devotional and prayer. Then we have few seconds to talk to our team before we hit the floor. My team (while not shooting the best they ever had) was playing the best defense they had all season. Their arms were up they were moving around good stuff. So Tracey I got them all fired up and off they went.

The kid they that is most aggressive has been on Jack for the whole game. Jack is taller that the other kid so Jack easily out rebounds him and Jack is better than he is. So this kid does what he can to get Jack off of his game. He elbows him when he is taking shots or gets him in the back when he rebounds. Again, for some reason the refs are not doing anything about it.

Then this happens- Jack makes a bucket over little aggressive boy and that is all he can stand so while Jack is running back to the other side of the court the little boy goes out and trips Jack. When Jack hit the floor you could hear it. I did not see this happen but Tracey did. She was pissed. Jacks on the floor trying to be brave but that gym floor burn on his knee hurt. You could see little tears building up. I went out there and got him and brought him over to the bench. I subbed in another player for a portion of the game.

Tracey looked over at me and said I have had enough of this. I knew what she was thinking. I said, it's time go ahead and tell him.

She got eyeball to eyeball with Jack and she said Jack, it is time to use your size boy! You clear the lane with your elbows and shoulders and you give that kid a taste of his own medicine.

He looked at her not really sure how to respond so he just said...um o...kay mom.
After she left I sat next to him and I said, Look Jack it is not right to coach you to hurt someone. That is not what we are doing. We want you to protect yourself out there. The refs are not really helping you so you gotta help yourself. Do you understand. Hey said yeah I know what you want me to do. He asked me, why didn't mom say what you said? Then I got close to him and I said...Because mommy upset right now.

I will say this. The kid realized the error of his ways the last two playing quarters because Jack was all over kid. PAYBACK IS HELL!! Jack even bolled over the kid on the way to make a basket. If it where a foul it would be on that kid because he was not set he would just get in front of Jack.

Once Jack started getting as physical as that kid it was over! That kid had nothing he could do to stop Jack. And Jack kept his eye on him no more sneak attacks from the back. One specif occasion was priceless. The last time he tried to stop Jack and it ended with Jack scoring a bucket and him laying on his back the kid looked up at the ref and the ref did nothing. He then looked over at me. And I couldn't help it. As the kid ran by me I said, You probably need to think of a back up defense besides elbowing.

At the end of each game the boys line up and you do the good game , good game, good game and low fives. Well Tracey is getting our stuff together and I am getting our boys in line for the after game good game bit and I look up and the other team is GONE! What the heck? Everybody does this. Not her she was gone.

Yeah..this has GOT to be one of the coaches that is not going to be asked back.