yes, another kids coaching story (Update: 2016-17 edition)

Sis called and said the St Sissy parental gossip chain indicates they may be up to 13 players with a 14th on the brink. That's the magic Go Number (14) for two teams.

Still no sign of any additional coaching volunteers.

 

With school back in session, the Christmas trees being dragged out to the curb, things are starting to heat up fast in greater Starrville 5th grade girls basketball:

1) The Starrville Starrs regional team returns to practice tonight with StarSis on the sideline as an assistant coach and Head Coach Phil back at the controls. Tonight Sis will attempt to reinstall her revolutionary offensive concepts of the point guard neither freezing in paralysis immediately after crossing halfcourt nor dribbling head-first into the corners. We will see how it goes. The Starrs have two games Saturday morning, against two of the worst teams in the league.

2) With 13 players considered firm and 1-3 as "possibles," St. Sissy has decided to proceed on the presumption they will have two teams for the season which begins practice Jan. 15 and games Jan. 28. Right now only StarSis has signed on to coach, and only one person ... uhhhm ... ahhmm ... uhhhm ... ME ... has volunteered as an "assistant coach," so splitting into two teams presents additional logistical problems.

Basically there has to be a come-to-Jesus moment among the assembled parentage that if there are going to be two teams, at least a couple more people need to step up as coaching volunteers. Of course the nightmare scenario now is they'll get 6 of them.

Note of additional intrigue: One of the fence-sitters is a 5-6, 150-pounder (Shaq-like dimensions for fifth grade) whose older brother recently signed a D-1 football scholarship (and was HM All-State in hoops).

Supposedly her family has it all mapped out that she isn't going to play hoops until 7th grade, but scuttlebutt has it she's thinking about jumping the gun on that schedule.

She's never played organized basketball before, but she's shot around in the driveway with big bro, and the twins report from gym class, "she can't really shoot, but she's rougher than hell."

 

A brief (yes) update on the continuing Starrville hoops opera:

1) Sis stepped into practice Wednesday night with the Starrs and worked on three or four offensive concepts and the new play they ran at the scrimmage two weeks ago. Most of the really infuriating and unnecessary turnovers (such as unforced 10-second calls) are gone.

2) Saturday morning the Starrs played the two tail-end teams in the league and crushed them in running-clock routs, raising their record to 3-2, good for third place in the 8-team standings. Next week they play one of the two unbeaten teams as the Starrville Regional League heads for playoffs next month.

3) Official sign ups for St Sissy are under way until the end of the week. The school AD has told StarSis that two teams are now pretty much a lock.

But Twin A and Twin B report from the mean streets of the classrooms themselves that they think "19 or 20" players may come out altogether. This would actually put the possibility of three teams onto the table. Signup deadline is Sunday but Mr. AD thinks he should know by Friday.

 

Figure I won't start another club volleyball thread this spring, but thought I'd give a brief update on DaughterQuant's exploits ...

During one of the non-tryout tryout clinics (don't ask) the coaches of her club's top team (which went to nationals last year) and second-tier team told her she was borderline for the former but a lock for the latter. As things came to pass, she was offered a spot on that second-tier team (which is still a level up from where she'd been playing), and they had their first tournament this weekend. They were seeded third in their pool, which turned out to be unusually balanced. They won only one of six sets and finished fourth, but their total point differential was -12. They could just as easily have won three or four sets and finished second, perhaps first. Shuffled off into a bronze consolation bracket yesterday, DaughterQuant's team won rather handily in straight sets in both of their matches. They have practice today, and I suspect serve-receive is going to emphasized juuuuuust a tad.

 

If there's enough interest I suppose the volleyball thread could be brought back up. Or maybe this could just be the catch-all youth sports thread.

Sis-16, the oldest of StarSis's four girls, is now concentrating pretty much exclusively on volleyball. After a pretty much disastrous season last year on an abysmally-run club team, she seems to be doing OK this winter.

She tried out for two clubs, made them both, and ended up on what seems to be a reasonably stable team.

The suspense is pretty much over as far as her development is concerned. She'll probably start as a junior this year for Starrville High, but she is really in no way any kind of college prospect, except maybe as a D-3 walk-on. So she's only playing club to stay in shape and sharpen up for the HS season next fall; she's not trying to impress college recruiters.

And now that she's 16 and hanging out with hipper and hipper friends, she doesn't really want the entire extended family hanging around all day for every tournament. Which is OK; I remember when I was 16 too.

So I only get volleyball updates on about a weekly basis, not Day-to-day.

 

Back to basketball.

In the las 24 hours, StarSis has gotten a flood of emails, snail mails and calls on the St. Sissy situation and the developments are:

1) There will be two teams. Apparently as of tonight (Thursday) there are 18 girls locked in with four "possibles."

2) Another dad, "Kurt," has stepped forward to coach; he'll take "Team B." He was an "assistant/ associate" coach of the rec team that "split off" from the Pandas/Squirrels last season (Kerri's Koalas).

Apparently there's some clique politics at play here; it appears he's been busy organizing "his squad" for some time and kept it on the DL to many of the parents. In some ways it's a continuation of last year's soap opera.

Supposedly "Kurt" has called several parents and leaked rumors that StarSis is "trying to discourage kids from playing for St. Sissy" (the old public/parochial school clique thing).

Which is hilarious -- StarSis herself was one of the greatest athletes in school history, and still (30 years after graduating) holds the school career records in assists, free throw shooting and total games won, and between siblings and children is part of a family which has attended the school for 68 student-years. And has an assistant coach who first stepped into a St Sissy classroom in September 1964.

Anyway, "Kurt" has a daughter and a niece (both fairly good) among the player pool, so the "family connection" situation is pretty much a wash with StarSis and her twins.

Of the player pool of 14 "free agents," 9 have been either Pandas or Squirrelly Girls, and several parents (most of them) have specifically requested to play on Sis's team. It may come down to who will "agree" to be on Kurt's team.

Of the 5 players Sis hasn't coached before, 3 have never played team basketball before. (Still no word if the 'big girl' is coming out; she's apparently still a 'maybe.')

Monday and Tuesday, "evaluation sessions" (aka "tryouts," but they're not supposed to be called that) will be held at the St Sissy gym and the players will be divvied up between the two teams, supposedly "equally."

Sis had been approaching this whole process with a very modern, very Zen, non-judgmental, non-competitive attitude, thinking only of the best for all the girls, but "Kurt's" finagling, fiddling and funking-around with the process, including the gossipy phone calls, has ticked Sis off pretty good. "I want the teams to be equal, but our team is gonna be more equal," she says.

Thursday is the first of three (!) practices before the first game Jan. 28. Let's hope the Pandas/Squirrels remember at least some of their playbooks.

And oh yeah, the Starrville Starrs are still playing too. Game Saturday and practice next Wednesday.

Actually the Starrs have practice Monday too, but it's already been cleared with Coach Phil that the four St Sissy players are going to show up a half hour late and only walk-through the final hour of practice.

 

LOL ... Kurt may find himself athwart forces he's not capable of opposing.

 

Well, the "one big happy family" stuff seems to already be defunct. Apparently a lot of the backstage politics from the "Kerri's Koalas" episode of last winter have carried over.

Another factor is that the athletic director is now the school gym teacher. (Previously parents had been doing it on a volunteer basis.)

This could be significant for a number of reasons:
1) the AD is not an old family friend/classmate/ fellow parent of anybody in the drama;
2) the AD has no child of his-her own in the mix;
3) the AD is not likely to be over-awed with anybody's status as a school athletic legend;
4) the AD will not be familiar with Sis's history of working with this group for 4 seasons now;
5) the AD will be unaware of the history of off-court maneuvering by the Kurt/Kerri's Koalas contingent.

However to balance all that, Sis has been a member of the school's Education Council (effectively the board of trustees) for 10 years. They have hiring-firing authority over school personnel.

So it's not real likely the AD is going to make any rulings which will really screw Sis and her group.

 

The team selection/division sessions Monday and Tuesday night should be a real hoot.

It's all a bit hazy/nebulous as to how exactly it's going to be run, but the general plan apparently is there will be two workout sessions observed by the AD and both "coaching staffs."

Final decision will be made by the AD; supposedly "requests" (demands?) by individual players/parents will be "taken into consideration" but not necessarily granted. (The AD may live to regret this.)

Although the school's athletic policy book states, "The teams will be divided by the coaches as evenly as possible on the basis of talent," which seems to imply the coaches must reach some kind of consensus decision.

One suggestion is a simple playground pick-em style draft (after each coach gets their two automatic family picks). All done out of sight/sound of the kids, of course.

Another is the AD will impose a completely arbitrary split: maybe just lining everybody up by height, or alphabetically by name, and then counting off 1-2-1-2, etc etc.

Considering this entire group -- both teams -- is only going to get five total practice sessions before game one, I think as senior consigliere/ assistant coach I may suggest this option; instead of wasting two whole practice slots (3 hours of practice time) trying to micro-analyze the team breakdown, we probably should be able to get it done in a half hour and get to work on our team stuff.

Really, as long as each team has a couple of point guards/ballhandlers and a couple kids who can rebound and defend a big center (even if that only means fouling them once in a while), they should be OK; after that the breakdown is more or less just hair splitting, or maybe clique-appeasement.

Of the 9 former Pandas/Squirrels (and their parents) Sis says as far as she knows she's on good terms with all of them -- she doesn't know of any who would refuse to play for her. (She does know at least a couple would definitely prefer to play for her, but isn't sure if that would extend to refusing to play for Kurt.)

Although it is becoming apparent there may be some backstage drama going on Sis may not be fully privy to.

Kurt is definitely known as the more "hardcore" Bobby Knight-style coach. Apparently some parents are not really enthused with that and may prefer Sis' more cool-and-collected approach.

Sis says she figures she'll be happy with any combination, once again assuming she gets at least one decent inside player (the hard experience of the Panda/Squirrel seasons shows you can have fun all season long with a team full of pint sized speed demons, but if you have nobody who can slow down an opposing aircraft carrier, you'll still get steamrolled).

The final factor may be that the AD must also oversee team divisions in two other grades. He's probably up for any idea that gets the whole headache out of his hair a day or two sooner.

 

Reminder: If you are going to coach youth basketball, don't pregame with vodka and weed in the parking lot.

Coach caught drinking vodka and smoking weed at school, Lawrence County sheriff says

 

Uh, yeah, that hadn't been my plan. I've already been told, if they smell even a trace of liquor on my breath, I'm finished.

 

Piling out of the StarFam SUV caravan after the morning road trip to Pumpkin Corners for a Starrville Starrs matchup with the unbeaten Chuckers, at 3-0 one of two unbeatens (Elk Acres, who bombed Starrville in the season opener, the other at 5-0) in the Starrville Regional League.

The Starrs at 3-2 are the only other team over .500 in the 9-team league (Well, check that; there are a couple at 2-1 and one 2-0).

Armed with my scouting report from the previous week on the Chuckers, Coach Phil cooked up a defensive game plan that overplayed their two star point guards drastically to their right sides, effectively completely stonewalling their offense.

Twins A and B, the best defensive players, are assigned tag-team duties on what amounts to a switching box-and-one that steers the point guards left, to their weak side, then snaps a trap on them.

Coach Phil's daughter Annie slipped on ice late last night, sending her to the ER for overnight observation (word is she should be fine in a day or two) and sidelining both father and daughter for Saturday's game. One of the team dads, Dave, handles coaching while StarSis stands in as co-associate coach.

No matter. The "gimmick" defense totally strangles the PC offense. The Starrs offense is sluggish and struggles to score, but the defense throws a stone cold shutout for three quarters and a 16-0 lead.

The fourth quarter opens up into basket trading and the Starrs steam away to a 26-10 win. The four St Sissy players on the roster score four points each.

It's a nice win but Elk Acres has actually clinched the title: the best the Starrs could mathematically do at this point would be tie and they got butt-kicked by 24 head-to-head.

So at this point it's mainly about building up momentum for the tourney. The Starrs have two regular-season games left: a below-.500 bunch next week and 3-1 Great Rivers early in February. Then the Prez Weekend tourney which could mean five games in three days.

So now back to team-selection preseason drama for St Sissy. One way or another, that's supposed to be done by Tuesday.

Then (gulp) three practices and the season is on.