First Basketball Game

Elijah came home from school a few months ago asking to play on a basketball team, so we signed him up for YMCA basketball. Two practices, a team T-shirt and group picture later, he had his first game.

Elijah's team is the Heat and they have 8 players. Four of the players are 6 year olds and 4 are 5 and it is obvious who is who. The six year olds dribble with ease and shoot at EVERY given opportunity. The 5 year olds are expert defenders, shuffling from side to side with their hands up, but if the 6 year olds ever follow the coach's advice and pass to the 5s, they inevitably drop the ball and there is a mad scramble as 8-10 little bodies go scampering across the floor to reemerge with the ball.

Some questions I had going in-
1. Q- How do you determine when a 5 year old is traveling and what do you do about it? Most of them hold the ball and run until the coach reminds them to dribble.
A- The ref blows his whistle for the player to stop (if he's not dribbling), and tells him to pass the ball. I guess the message is that if you can't dribble yet, become an expert passer.

2. Q- Will any of them really make any baskets? The baskets are 8 feet high.
A- There was one "Shaq" on each team. They don't keep score but my guess would be that our Shaq- Christian- scored about 5 baskets. The other team's Shaq- Brady- scored probably 3 or 4.
If you know Elijah, you could probably guess that he had no idea what the score was nor did he care, and while the other kids were asking the coach "who won... did we win?" he was busy eating his poptart. He did prove to me today though, that it is possible to enjoy a sport when you're not very competitive.

3. Q- Quaters? How long will they play, and will Elijah be disappointed about not playing as much as the 6 year olds?
A- Four, 5 minute quarters I think- although the last two seemed to go a lot more quickly than the first two. They started with a jump ball for each quarter and Elijah got more than enough play time. In fact, twice he asked to go back to the bench citing injury as the reason. Truth be told, I think he was having as much fun hanging out with his buddies on the bench as he was on the court. At one point their team made a basket and the coach turned around to high five the 3 boys on the bench. They were so involved in whatever they were laughing about that they didn't even notice the basket. Coach just smiled.

Their coach is great. He has been really encouraging to Elijah, telling him that he's improving a lot. He works with him one-on-one quite a bit and Elijah really listens and follows his directions- well, until something more entertaining comes along.
So that was our day.

We'll keep you posted on his athletic development. :)