Basketball

Pre-Game

Going for the rebound.....mama is gonna teach her to box out. :)

When Bethany is on the bench, Mallory joins her for some Gatorade.

For the past couple of years, Bethany has been asking to play basketball, and this is the first year she has been old enough. There is a program here called Upward. The kindergarten students have their own division and there ended up being only two teams, so they play each other each week. She loves it - especially because she has been having special practice sessions with Daddy, and sometimes Mommy. She has come pretty far in a short time with dribbling, passing, and understanding the rules. Upper body strength is an area that needs some work so that she can shoot better, but she still tries. Unfortunately, the facility that operates this program is a church that is anti-Mormon and refuses to let anyone from our church coach. They say we're not Christian. We decided to let her play anyway, and hopefully our family can prove through our actions, attitude, and sportsmanship that we most definitely are Christian. We have decided that we are going to go to the local YMCA with several other parents and ask to restart the league that used to operate there. We'll even be in charge if no one else wants to be. Our main reason for this is not because of the prejudice we've experienced (along with a few other families from our ward), but because we strongly disagree with their basketball philosophy regarding young children and that this league is too expensive for many families ($55 per kid + $12 for game shorts). They assign members of their congregation to coach who don't understand basketball, in many cases, and then when the children show up on gameday they are thrown out there to just wing it....with no coaching of skills, fundamentals, or basketball rules. Their facilities are unavailable for practice to her age group. We feel like her age group needs mostly practices, rather than just games. So, maybe by next year we'll have another option available to the local kids.