Middle School Girls Basketball -- I love this game!
We have now arrived at my favorite time of the school year: Girls Basketball. That bizarre combination of hairspray, teamwork, badly (yet fasionably) tied shoes, pure competiveness, and that ever-surprising bottomless reserve of aggression. I'm starting over this year, the team I coached for the last two year's having since graduated, and the new 7th grade class is as raw as onions. Yet, maybe the team that went from 0-9 to 7-3 and second-place in the division was equally as raw.
I really like coaching. Teaching without the crap. You talk while I'm talking? Run a lap. You're not paying attention? Run a lap. You screw up a drill? Five push-ups. It's great. Besides the obvious management perks, there is the same pride in development, the guidance and inspiration. I take athletics seriously: It's a vehicle for teaching critically important values -- trust, cooperation, honor -- that too often get scant attention in the room of 33 kids five years behind grade level.
Plus, my small forward for the last three years, now a high school freshman, showed up today and knocked down 2 of 3 from behind the arc outside in the wind and seriously, I got a little teary-eyed.
Besides keenly-honed skills, she comes bearing a job offer: Coach at her high school. Role-reversal. I taught you how to write and move off the screen, how to analyze point of view and defend the passing lane, and now you bring me job opportunities. "They need your resume," she says. I tell her not a problem, and then she looks at me, then at the floor, then back at me: "Um, can I ask you... what's a resume?"
See, sports brings all levels of knowledge to the athlete.
Probably going to say yes -- begin my ascent into the Div-III women's basketball coaching ranks -- but first I need to wrestle with the idea of working for some abysmal charter school. Maybe if I do it for free? No shit, that's worse. They'll need to pay me way more than I'm worth, and I'll use the funds to buy equipment at my community school and that will make it okay.
I really like coaching. Teaching without the crap. You talk while I'm talking? Run a lap. You're not paying attention? Run a lap. You screw up a drill? Five push-ups. It's great. Besides the obvious management perks, there is the same pride in development, the guidance and inspiration. I take athletics seriously: It's a vehicle for teaching critically important values -- trust, cooperation, honor -- that too often get scant attention in the room of 33 kids five years behind grade level.
Plus, my small forward for the last three years, now a high school freshman, showed up today and knocked down 2 of 3 from behind the arc outside in the wind and seriously, I got a little teary-eyed.
Besides keenly-honed skills, she comes bearing a job offer: Coach at her high school. Role-reversal. I taught you how to write and move off the screen, how to analyze point of view and defend the passing lane, and now you bring me job opportunities. "They need your resume," she says. I tell her not a problem, and then she looks at me, then at the floor, then back at me: "Um, can I ask you... what's a resume?"
See, sports brings all levels of knowledge to the athlete.
Probably going to say yes -- begin my ascent into the Div-III women's basketball coaching ranks -- but first I need to wrestle with the idea of working for some abysmal charter school. Maybe if I do it for free? No shit, that's worse. They'll need to pay me way more than I'm worth, and I'll use the funds to buy equipment at my community school and that will make it okay.
posted by Kilian Betlach at 6:49 PM
2 Comments:
i love basketball too! and today i'm going to be a basketball manger.
Talk to "Coach Brown". He coaches Frosh hoops up in Ukiah.
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