Elevate your (Basketball) Game

After taking a couple of weeks to step back from our U14 Basketball season this year, I am finally ready to take time to reflect on it.

Before I even get into the season itself, let me share some praise:

1. First, I had a lot of fun coaching this year, something that I’d been missing. Coaching with a colleague that you already get along with makes the time commitment to the sport easy.  JJ and I had the best time together, sharing our prior basketball experiences, drills, coaching styles, laughs and oh so much more.
2. Second, we had the most amazing BBC parent and team parents. I have never seen such support for an U14 team. Our parents came out to every home game, most made it to our away games, and a handful came to our tournament in Ottawa. I was in awe of their unwavering support, the way that they encouraged all the boys, not only their son, and the way they supported JJ and myself. They supported our decisions during practice, on the court and off the court. That respect and kindness meant so much to us. Thank you.
3. Third, and perhaps the most important, was our team of boys.  They were great, fun-loving and hard-working basketball players.

JJ and I have both coached many teams in our time. We’ve taken our share of school buses, coach buses and trains.  We’ve brought home championships and taken kids to tournaments. We’ve also had heartbreak and faced loss.

Let me put into perspective something about our team – at the beginning of the season, only 2-3 boys were taller than my measly 5’3″. This does not favour well in basketball, especially when you face monsters who are 6′ at the age of 13 or 14. This was one challenge that we could do nothing about except wait for time to pass and pray that they got taller.

We’d won almost all our games during the season (except for three in total, two against St. Mikes and a one-point loss to Sterling Hall) and were headed into the quarter final game having beat that team by 15 points during the season. We weren’t overly confident (read cocky), but excited knowing that this match would be something we could win after all the skills we’d gained over the year and knew we had a good shot at the semis and finals.

And then the game happened – we just couldn’t seem to get a play going without getting called for a foul, we’d go for a loose ball and get called for fouling, or we’d get called for traveling. Now before I digress into a pit of fury about these calls, I will tell you that we lost in the final seconds of the game 33-31. JJ and I stood there stunned. Our boys were stunned as well, but their disbelief immediately melded with their sadness as the realization that their season was over slowly sank in.

No one lost their temper. No one got called for a technical. No one screamed at the referees.  No one was ungentlemanly or un-sportsmanlike.

Yes, we had boys cry. Yes, we had parents who were in disbelief. Yes, we as coaches were dumb-founded but we knew that our boys were looking to us for our lead. We held our heads high, we told them truthfully just how much they meant to us, just how proud we were of the way they played, that they never gave up, and they kept playing regardless of what was happening. We told them that they had grown as players and as boys and that they contained strength of character that was to be respected and admired.

We loved our time with this team and we hope to see them on the court again very soon.