The Buchman Way: Go Purple!

Eww, yes, I said purple. The only reason I would ever cheer for a purple basketball team is because a cute little blonde wore a purple "jersey" every Saturday morning for six straight weeks.

It was a big debate whether or not to sign Reese up for Y basketball. She fell in love with the sport while attending a local camp last spring hosted by our high school boys coach, but what she seemed to love most about it were the drills and the organization, definitely not the last 10 minutes that was spent scrimmaging every session. So, the debate - Coach Kinnamon's winter camp or Y ball (Saturday morning 5-on-5). When we asked her, she immediately voted for camp...girl is not into competition AT ALL. We didn't want to force her to do anything she didn't want to do, but at the same time, we wandered if forcing her is what she needed to get over that fear (we have to do this quite often with her). As the sign up deadline approached, we still didn't know what to do. Then, I received a phone call from my friend, Melisa, about 24 hours before the deadline asking if I was interested in coaching a team with her. They were in somewhat of the same situation with their daughter about not wanting to play. Melisa said her daughter, Mallorie, agreed to play if she were her coach. And since Mallorie's daddy and Reese's daddy coached tball together, why shouldn't the mommies coach bball together? I wasn't sure how to respond to her...I'm not one of those people who thinks they can coach just because they played in high school. Melisa must have said some pretty convincing words or maybe guilt just got the best of me, whatever the reason, I agreed....

So, how do you teach 5 and 6 year old girls how to play basketball?! Thankfully, Melisa was awesome! Such a great leader and knew how to make everything so fun for the girls. I still wasn't sure what I had gotten myself into, especially after our first game when one of the little girls said she wanted to go play on the other team because we weren't very good. She was right, we weren't very good, but we definitely came a long way during those six weeks of practicing every Friday night and playing every Saturday morning. And I may or may not have suggested to Melisa about mid season that we should start rewarding the girls with money if they make a basket....at the rate we were going, we knew wouldn't be out much, if any. Some assistant coach I am. That was definitely a challenge the girls were willing to take though! And just as I thought, I think we, actually Melisa, only forked over about $4 in three games. Told you we weren't very good :)

Once our season was over, I was happy with both decisions - that I decided to coach and that we made Reese play. I love each and every one of the girls on our team! We couldn't asked for a better group or parents. And they best unexpected part was all the extra love....I thought I was the one that was supposed to make them smile and feel special. I will never forget it!

And as much as Reese would have liked to have quit after the first game, she toughed it out and learned to love a little friendly competition, even showed a little spunk, created some steels, and fouled the last game (girl's already got the skillzzz!). So proud of her progress!

They line up like this to figure out who they are guarding.

This is what happens nearly every single time a girl dribbles the ball down the court....instantly bombarded by every (almost) everyone on the court, even their own teammates :)