Baksetball Started

We got an email late yesterday afternoon that Courtney’s basketball game was cancelled due to construction at the school, and all her games that were scheduled at that school have been moved to another school. The new school is probably the farthest Arlington school away from my house. I don’t know why it was so last minute – was the construction unplanned? Bah.

Her coach decided to go ahead and have practice. Her game was scheduled at 7:30 but they have to use an outside court to practice so he set it from 6:15 to 7:15. That was fine with me because Rebecca’s game started at 8:30 and I was already unsure how I was going to get her there. Courtney’s coach’s niece, who stays with them maybe always or maybe just for the summer I’m not sure, is on Rebecca’s team. So Coach Corey had told me to bring Rebecca to Courtney’s practice, since Nylah would be there too and they could just practice with the big girls. So they had their practice, then we went over to where Rebecca’s game was and watched the game before hers.

We sat with Corey & Keisha (his wife) (their daughter is Amari who is on Courtney’s team, so those two were having fun during the little girls’ game too). Rebecca’s team has had only had one practice, and I think they spent that practice shooting only. So the first quarter was really rough. The girls had no idea where they were supposed to be, even on simple things like taking the ball out of bounds. It was hard to watch. At one point, Corey was yelling "Nylah! Get down the court!" and the coach screamed "Nylah! I’m your coach!" I thought I was about to get in the middle of something! He muttered under his breath, "Then coach, dammit!" I was not impressed with Rebecca’s coach. I appreciate that she’s volunteering her time which was something I wasn’t willing to do, but on the other hand she did volunteer so I would appreciate if she didn’t do it half-assed. The coach has this high pitched voice and when she tries to get loud, she just gets shrill. The girls couldn’t hear anything she was yelling. So after their game, Corey told me again to bring Rebecca along to Courtney’s practices so that at least she & Nylah wouldn’t be embarrased in their games! He works on more fundamentals than just shooting. Oh he also told me that Courtney could ride with him & Amari either from their game to Rebecca’s, or the other way, however the times fall. So that is nice.

[David had already told me not to count on him in June. He’s teaching 5 hours of calculus a day and has to use the evenings getting ready for the next day. His classes will be done by July 4.]

Once the first quarter was over, they kind of started improving. Rebecca especially was playing really good defense. She got the concept of how she was supposed to guard her girl. She complained after the game that she was guarding their best girl (she was!) and I told her that must mean her coach thought she was the best defender. They don’t show the score on the scoreboard in that age group (that is probably more to keep fights from breaking out among the parents than to spare the little girls’ feelings) but I think they lost 10-4. It wasn’t horrible.

Her jersey is way too big, so before the game she was tying up the corner with a hair band so it would look cute. She told me "Looking good is usually the most important thing to me, but during the game the most important thing is winning." My little princess.