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

I am running my town's 6-8th grade girls in-town (sub-travel) program. Teams drafted by the coaches. Needless to say, I think I will have plenty of fodder for the board.

 

So you're the commissioner??

 

Yup. It was my "don't boo, vote" moment.

 

Boy, are you in for some fun. Heheh.

 

He's the envy of every poster on this board. He can cost kids a scholarship.

 

Sixth-grade girls basketball. 11 players. I'm the head coach.

We're not good.

Our top two players are our point guards who don't listen, roll their eyes and constantly interrupt practice to be smart asses.

One of the girls' mothers is very hands on but she doesn't attend practice. Very loud in the stands, telling her daughter to make sure she gets her shots in and always sends a critique of my coaching and our team's play after each tournament.

We are a b-level school feeder team. We don't cut kids so we have 11 even though I would prefer 8. Thus, we dress 8 each tournament on a rotation basis. Loud Mom hates this as "you should be winning every weekend, not making the playing time even for the girls".

We beat the awful teams. Get blown out by the good teams. These are 11-year-old girls who like basketball but aren't obsessive about it.

I spend 15 hours a week volunteering for this team. Two hours of prep, four hours of practice and a three-game tournament each Saturday or Sunday.

Big step is coming tonight at practice. Mrs Ex said "put her in timeout" if Loud Mom's daughter acts up at practice. Which she will. That'll lead to all hell breaking loose.

How would any of you handle it?

One note of history. I'm only the head coach because they three coaches from the last two years quit because they couldn't handle Loud Mom and her daughter.

 

This will be my 5th year coaching the girls (2nd-6th grade) in basketball and 6th coaching soccer. At the advice of a friend who coached, I send the parents and e-mail at the beginning of each season that you cannot criticize decisions regarding playing time and that if you do, you will be asked not to attend games. I also tell them that if they have a playing time issue, they need to discuss it with me and not their child. I try to play all of my girls in every sport roughly the same amount of time, although in soccer, I started to remove players if they don't listen to instructions.

I'd tell that parent that if she doesn't like your decisions, she can remove her daughter from your team.

 

Update on the Starrville Stars:

1) Sophie is going to play all winter on a full fledged travel team (30-40 games, interstate trips for weekend tourneys). So no Sophie.

2) They got 4 new players to give them a working roster of 9 (10 including Broken Foot Girl who expects to be back about 1/3 of the way into the season).

3) Two of the new girls are forward/centers, which is good because virtually everybody who showed up previously was a guard.

 

Apparently, a coach last year was removed because he had four players stand in the corner while his daughter went one on one every fourth quarter.

I apparently get to decide the rosters for all of the teams. Which should be a joy.

 

Brief update on the St. Sissy Sizzlers:

1) The Catholic League girls season begins the first week of February after the boys conclude their tourney in mid-January. The Starrville regional semi-travel team the twins are on wraps up the end of February so there will be 3-4 weeks of schedule overlap, during which the twins will have basketball 4-5 days per week.

2) Right now St. Sissy has 10 girls who are definitely playing basketball, 2 "strong maybes" and 4-6 who are kind of thinking about it. (Of the potential pool of 18, StarSis has coached 12 on various teams). If they get 12, they CAN go to two teams; at 16, they MUST go to two.

3) If there is one big team, Sis will probably be the coach.

 

Turkey Day update on the Starrville 5th grade girls basketball scene: The Starrville Stars start games next week, and the league finally kicked out its schedule (9 days before tipoff -- this is pretty good for them). Action gets under way with games next Saturday and Sunday.
A few early tidbits from practice so far, according to the twins:
-- The team scrimmages against their 4th grade squad.
-- The league does allow pressing in the fourth quarter. Much time being devoted to learning a press break.
-- The league does allow zone defenses (the twins have never played zone before, but zones are prevalent in the Catholic League in which they'll play later in the winter). Although the twins have never played zone, they had no trouble discussing the differences between a 2-3 and a 3-2 and even get the concept of a box-and-1.

Looking at the schedule it's about as good as StarSis and the four St Sissy players (the twins and two others) could have hoped. Right now it appears there will only two weeks of possible schedule conflicts between the Stars and St Sissy in February.

StarSis reported the St Sissy situation is still on the borderline between one and two teams -- right now their headcount indicates 12 girls planning on playing hoops with several more maybes.

Given the normal frequency of injuries, illness, etc etc, they don't want to go with fewer than 6 players per team (or else you're in constant danger of forfeits / game cancellations if two kids get sick), but playing time issues can be a headache if your squad size is over 10. Ideally they can get a couple more girls "off the fence" and playing for sure, boost the squad sizes up to 7-8 players per team, and be good to go.

Sis says "it's probably 80% certain" they'll have two teams, but the final call won't be made until practices start in January and they see who really shows up.

Presuming there is a split up, StarSis says she's in line to coach the squad with the four Starrville Star double duty players -- the twins of course (both 'coaches daughter-QB on the floor' playmaking-defense PG types) and Sara, a shooting forward and Jasmine, a (!!) big center rebounding type -- and distribute the other players in a draft / playground pick-em arrangement.

(Sis has coached almost everybody in the potential player pool on various Panda/Squirrelly Girl teams so she says she's ok with however the teams are split up. Looking back on the Panda games, Sis says, "I don't really care as long as we have one decent size big girl so we don't get slaughtered by a big center.' With the twins on board for ball handling and press breaking, Sis figures she should be ok against pressing and trapping teams).

Because of travel/ transportation/ carpool situations, StarSis says the four Starrville Stars will almost certainly be on the same St Sissy team -- the powers that be at St Sis don't want both squads subject to schedule snags from the club team.

Anyway it all rolls into action next Saturday afternoon. Buckle up.

 

Let's just say that the roster process has not been seamless. I was told to evenly divide the players by class year and try to get relatively even quality. Due to the huge number of requests to play with friends/for a coach, we decided not to agree to any and offer refunds for parents who protested. There have been so many complaints, I'm worried about picketing at my house tonight.