Well I did not get my promised weekend post in. But I’m back again.

Yesterday was the first day of try-outs. The structure, once again, is three days of an hour and a quarter each day. Players must attend two days. Yesterday was the first day of tryouts. In the end I had 16 players show up. The sixth grade tryouts, which were basically running concurrently to ours, had 30. I would have, honestly, thought these numbers reversed as kids would be more likely to try out when they’re younger and have never been rejected from a travel team before.

Rather than going 75 minutes, we only went 50 since I had to go to my school’s open house. So I did lose some considerable time looking at these players. Things also suffered since I was new at this. And running tryouts by yourself? It’s hard. Having a second pair of eyes would have been incredible as there wouldn’t have been nearly the same amount of downtime and I think the tryout would have run smoother. Let’s review what happened.

I pull up to the school at the same time as another car. As I am getting out my car (and taking off my suit jacket) I hear a dad talking to his son in the next car. It was really cute hearing the dad give his son advice. We end up walking the first couple of steps together and I smile at him and say that his dad was offering good advice. Kid seems nice enough. I later learn that his name is, I believe, Miles. (A note on names: In my little league dynasty I used initials as I do want to protect these kid’s right to privacy. I am simply going to use first names, sometimes with last initials, for this dynasty as I think using initials made the kids seem less kidlike and had a negative effect on the overall feel of the dynasty).

As I go to the gym, I meet a guy who works for the Park District. I also meet a step mother of triplets who’s very concerned. She tells me that one of her step-sons, whose name is Brian, just had an ankle cast taken off. She doesn’t think there will be any effects, but wants me to know. I smile and write down his name so it seems like I’m being responsive. I do feel for the kid, but also am not a psychic. If this kid is still recovering from the brake, as he no doubt is, and I will not be able to see his full skills, it will be held against him. I will try and estimate when he is being limited, but what can ya really do?

I started off by giving a short welcoming speech. I basically cribbed it from a website I found. It talked about working hard, listening, and not being nervous. I even did something I do for my students before a test and told a corny joke before we got started to try and loosen them up. Worked for some, and not so for others.

For our first drill, I divided them up into two groups. As I stated earlier, we are sharing a full size gym with the sixth grade team, so we used the side to side baskets for most of what we did. For the first drill, they are to rebound, outlet to me, run down to the other side, receive a pass, and make a lay-up. We do this one time and then the second time I give them a score from 1-5. Everyone ended up receiving a grade of between 3 and 5, including .5 increments. I am used to being handed a team. In that situation I’ve never bothered to rate my players, since they’re my players, and simply did the best I could working with them. So I expect, and hope, that my ability to instantly judge minute differences in skill. I mean it also doesn’t help that these are all 9 year olds and so many of them ARE close together in skill. As we run this drill, some kids are clearly worse than others. Of course, since I am doing the throw, some throws are better than others and so I get to see some kids adjust well and others have trouble. But it’s good information all around.

Following this we did 30 second lay-up contests from both sides. Players were encouraged to shoot with the right hand from the right side and the left hand from the left side, though some players needed more encouragement during the actual process. This took about a minute a player as it was 30 seconds to do the actual shooting, and then another 30 for me to record the scores and make sure the next two players were ready to go. It was at this point I thought of putting names with numbers so that also took some time. Players were instructed to count the number of baskets made by people at their basket. This started off strong, but by the end only a couple of kids were doing it. Notes were made about who was still doing the counting.

We then did a dribbing/defense drill. Players had to zig-zag dribble while another player defended. I was really just looking for footwork and body posture so I had the defenders hold their hands behind their back. Unfortunately, I did not make as careful notes during this drill as I’d have liked.

Finally, we ended with a semi-abridged version of lightening. Abridged because the time was up and I needed to go. This was actually helpful in that I could see them in a semi pressure situation not to mention getting a further sense of their rebounding and lay-up skills not to mention a beginning sense of their free throw abilities.

So what about the players? Well let’s start with the triplet’s, who I will refer to as the H triplets. One of the triplets, David (I think), was by far the best player out there. No one else was close. During the dribbling drill I switched his partner twice just because I wasn’t getting anything useful from his partner because he was so dominating. The kid could not make another shot the rest of tryouts and he’d make the team.

The problem comes with his brothers. Brian, of broken ankle fame, has an attitude that rubs me the wrong way. As for his skills, they are pretty middle of the road. He claimed not to be bothered by the ankle, but I dunno. As for the third brother, Scott, he was pretty middle of the road as well. The whole triplet thing complicates matters. Clearly, David is making the team. But then what to do about the other two? This is not a charity, but I do not want to start the season by making a politically intemperate move with the parents. I see no real way I could take two of the three and not the third, unless the third was noticeably worse than other players. One of the three? Seems more doable. But I dunno. I hate triplets.

Most of the other kids didn’t make a huge impression on me one way or another. Miles, who I think is a good kid, doesn’t seem to have the talent. Then there is the case of David 2. David 2 did every little thing asked of him, but displayed no real talent I could find. I’m looking for a reason to take the kid, as kids like that can help glue a team together, but right now his athleticism doesn’t seem to warrant his making the team. I have marked down 6 kids who I need to see a little more of, but I think would be likely candidates.

There is also the case of Asher. Asher, unless he blows my socks off, is one of two kids who I just can’t see making the team. And I feel bad for the kid, because he reminds me of me at the age. Tall and with no real control of his limbs who tries hard. He could benefit from some instruction, which I’m guessing he’s never really gotten, and lots of practice. I will be finding a way to make sure he hears about the lots of practice part at some point. But, again, Asher is not likely to make the team.

So heading into Day 2 I’ve got perhaps ¾ of a basketball team. Tonight my plan is to start with zig-zag dribbling, without a defender, and asking the dribbler to switch hands each time. We’re then likely to do a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 drill, emphasizing passing. We’ll do a “hot shots” drill where there are three different stations at each basket (we’re going to use all three tonight to speed this up) and they need to make as many jump shots as possible in a minute. We’ll conclude with some 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 depending on how many kids show up.

I should have another update for you tomorrow on how day 2 went.