A Short Season

J had just started his last year of Biddy Ball this month. I was turning in articles to the local ink pad newspaper for 3 weeks and this week was to be the tournament. Until J told me yesterday that the tournament at Arlington was canceled and the season had ended. No end of the year medals. No end of the year pictures. Nothing. But a 5 game biddy basketball season. Unreal.

S had participated in two years of Biddy Ball, one year she didn't play, and the season was a lot longer than this. The people who ran biddy ball for our town even had a concession stand. Then they left the school district a couple of years ago and their kids left this year. J had three different coaches the three years he played. M (the family who ran the biddy ball league), S (who left to coach the HS girls BB team), and the new M, who moved in from Carrie Nation's city. S still supplied the team with uniforms.

This has been one disappointing year when it comes to basketball in this area, yet, the school district wants us to promote youth sports. How can you when last year they held basketball camp for all but the incoming 6th grade? But then, I did hear later that it WAS held. Only if J was in baseball would we have heard this news. It wasn't in the papers; there was no flyer sent home from school; it was only by word of mouth. J didn't have basketball camp last summer for the first time in a long time! We were all disappointed. We told him that he should go to Tennis camp. He was reluctant at first but after a week really enjoyed learning a new sport.

I'm not sure if he'll be doing Tennis Camp this year, but I think that he should since basketball has been such a let down for him. The other problem is that J can shoot, but he is always a bench starter. He doesn't score a lot of points. Not quite sure what defense he should be playing, but I've noticed this year he has done much better. Maybe the reason is the new coach or the old coach helping out. But things were looking better this year for him.

For the last two years our team had been undefeated. Until this year with both losses coming from the Carrie Nation team. I know that next year Anthony and Harper will be combining. Anthony has a lot of good scrappy players on their team. It makes me wonder if J will go out for basketball at all when he's a seventh grade student. I can only hope and that he's not just a bench sitter.