More Basketball

January-February 2016

So... not to disrespect basketball season, but it's tough to take pictures and they only played like 8 games and really, before we even knew it, the season was wrapping up.  

I think he learned a lot ad hopefully has some fun.  I can't wait to see how much he grows before next season and how it affects his playing ability.  

After his last game all the teams in the Under 8 level gathered behind the gym at the little park area for a potluck lunch celebration

Completely random sweet moment of the girls.

Everybody ate pizza and cupcakes and, well, junk and then each of the teams gathered with their coaches for awards.  Peter coaches presented them each with a participation medal and a special certificate acknowledging something special the child brought to the team.

Peter was deemed the "SUPER DRIBBLER" because, as he basically played the postion of point guard most of the season getting the ball down the court and then dribbling around with it (forever) until finally passing it to somebody on the inside who could take a shot.

It was a good first season.

Peter's First Basketball Game

January 2016

Peter has always been tall.  He's always been big for his age in general, but especially these past few years, he's just... tall.  One would never guess he is usually one of the youngest in his class since he is normally one of the tallest.  So I guess I've always assumed eventually I would have him try basketball.  First of all he's generally super competitive and seems interested in trying every sport ever invented, but also, since he's so tall, it just seemed like a good fit for him.

The thing is with basketball though, is generally they don't have programs for kids until the get a little older.  I started putting Peter in baseball and soccer literally just as soon as there were introductory programs available, which in his case, was right after he turned 3.  Apparently that was super young.  I don't know, it didn't seem that young to me at the time as he is my oldest child and in any case, since he's been able to move himself around the house (which if you will recall started something around like 4 months of age) I've had an interesting time trying to keep him busy.  The kid just overflows with an abundance of energy.  And to keep things interesting, the older he gets, the MORE energetic he seems to become.  So at this point I'm likely to sign him up for anything I can find if it fits in the budget and I think it might help him to burn off some steam.  In any case, I guess there were Start Smart Programs for Basketball back in San Diego too, but they weren't for kids as little as 3.  I don't know if they started at 4 or 5, but by age 4 we had Lucy and Peter was coming out of a particularly emotional soccer season and at age 5 we were adjusting to kindergarten and Mommy working again so we'd taken the fall off from soccer and it never even occurred to me to look into basketball as an option that year.  But this year it did, and I was happy to find that the rec league here for military families had a nice program.  (I don't particularly care if he plays with other military kids or not, except for the fact that the mil programs are generally VERY affordable and I do appreciate not blowing a lot of money on registration etc if it's the first time one of the kids is going to try something new.  It's like with baseball, he played t-ball "on-base" for a couple seasons and then once we saw that he really was into it, we moved him to our local city league for a more competitive program.)

Anyway, so as it turned out, Peter was pretty good.  He has a good dribble, which he does with his right hand.  This is noteworthy of course because he writes with his left hand and in soccer is very left foot dominant.  He has a decent shooting ability.  They lower the baskets for the 6-7 year olds, which is nice.  It isn't that he's particurly accurate at this point, but when compared to a lot of the other kids in his age group he's got decent form and is strong enough to actually get the ball up to the hoop.  

You might not think that's actually a problem for some kids, but trust me, even at ages 6 and 7, in a recreational league, it really really is.

And also, his team is co-ed.  Ordinarily I think this is great, but I'm just not sure basketball is the best sport for that mix.  Let's face it, taking a basketball to the face or finger HURTS.  The boys tend to be over zealous and a bit aggressive (at least mine is) and I noticed a lot of the girls shying away from the ball rather than going for it, because they didn't want to get hurt.  I don't blame them.  And I'm not saying girls might not play with just as much zest and hurt each other.  But I guess I just don't blame those girls at all.  If Peter was going to chuck a basketball in the general direction of my face, I'd shy away too.

The games generally went well for Peter.  He got the ball a lot.  He hogged the ball a lot, dribbling around the outside, well, a lot.  He also spent a vast portion of the season passing the ball to the little blond girl who he apparently thought was cute.  

He also scored one of two baskets for his team in that first game.  It would be the only basket he scored all season I believe.  But don't despair for him, I think all totaled, his entire team made a grand total of maybe 10 baskets the entire season.

Pretty sure this was his basket. :)