7th Grade AAU

Today was the final weekend of Meg's AAU girls basketball season.  They have played every Sunday since the beginning of November.  Meg has been on the fence as to whether she likes it or not.  She is also playing with the high school girls soccer team in an indoor league on Sundays as well, so there are some weekends that she is exhausted by Sunday night.

Last Sunday was my coaching debut as the 7th grade girls coach.  When I offered to coach at Milford this year, I didn't realize that it would also include this league.  Since I had to be there anyway and had helped at a practice and in a couple of games, I didn't mind.  After last week's games, however, it took all I had to go back this week.  Our first game was against a very talented, well practiced Warsaw team.  We were completely overmatched and the score stated that.  I wasn't discouraged.  This team had beaten everyone else by wide margins except for the first place team.  From powers beyond my control we had not had a practice since late October and the girls had not played in two weeks.

After that first game we talked about what we needed to work on before we met our next opponent - help defense, communicate better, etc.  As they headed off to get a snack I was completely taken aback by several of the parents.  One was screaming at her daughter for not rebounding, and another let her daughter know that they were not running the offense and that cost us the game.  While several of the girls were hanging out with me, one of the Dad's even took the other six girls into a side gym to teach them a new offense.  By the time I caught wind of it and headed in to see what he was going on, it was almost time for our second game.

At first I was embarrassed and then I was frustrated.  Both my Dad and Doug had said several times that there was nothing that we could have done to change the outcome of the game.  We played a more equal opponent in our second game and won by two.  Still didn't run our offense, but we did help on defense, press and communicate better.

It really did take all I had to go back today.  I was very anxious, but I tried to remember that no matter how much I didn't like what that Dad did, his daughter was the one who had to really hate it.  Thus, we met as a team and talked about the offense before the game, and more importantly started off with a positive attitude.  It was a win or go home tourney, and I am proud to say that the girls listened, worked on what we needed to, played aggressively and we won our first two games.  One of the refs even told me that he thought I did a great job with the girls.  We did eventually lose in the semi-finals by three, but when we were down, we never gave up and almost pulled out the win.

I realize that it is never about winning or losing at this age.  It is about gaining experience.  On my team all ten girls played equally, all felt that they were an important part of the team and eventually just ignored the jerk sitting in the front row screaming at them throughout the game.  Life is a learning experience and I hope that they learned this season that it isn't always about winning or losing.  Sometimes improvement and being a team player is the goal.  I do wish, however, that I could follow that Dad around at his work tomorrow and scream at him every time I think he screws up or doesn't make the right decision.  Maybe then he could understand how his daughter or her teammates felt.  Proud of the girls for playing hard and getting a couple of wins under their belt, and even more proud of myself for keeping my mouth shut and doing what is best for the girls no matter the criticism.