She's got game

When KidSports offered a basketball clinic for K-2 graders, I knew I had to sign Jennifer up! She loves sports and was disappointed she couldn't participate in basketball at the Y. So we were both happy that yet another chance to play basketball came up for her. Woo-hoo!

The basketball clinic is headed by University of Oregon men's bssketball star player A.D. Smith. You can read all about it here:
http://www.kidsports.org/clinics/kinderbasketball09.htm

There were other coaches there, for the different teams. Jennifer decided to be on the orange team. They practiced a bunch of different drills. There was A LOT of running. The kids got to do some free-play with shooting hoops and dribbling, but they also had to practice things like guarding, traveling and taking shots from different areas of the court.

When Jen started to just play and shoot hoops, I was blown away at how well she threw that ball. I mean, she REALLY threw that ball! I know she's athletic but I never realized my scrawny offspring was so strong! There were a lot of times she threw that ball behind the hoop. One time, the ball even got stuck up there and she had to ask one of the coaches to get it down for her.

After a lot of drills and trying different actions, she came to sit next to me for break. I asked her if she was having fun.

"Mom, it's so boring," she whined. "I want to play basketball."

"Well, Jennifer, you have to learn basketball before you can play basketball. You are doing these drills for a reason, you know? You gotta practice guarding and bouncing the ball around, so that when you play, you can do those things well."

I don't think she really got all that. Mostly, she was upset over not having free reign to just run around and shoot hoops. But I kept up the encouragement and tried to get her excited about being on a team and having a coach. Every time she made a basket, I cheered and clapped. I was really proud of how well she played. Not bad for a first day. She'd been so worried about making mistakes and playing bad, so I was relieved that she ended up playing so well. (She gets that from ME, ya know! LOL)

After practice, I took a picture of her with A.D. Smith:



She really enjoyed basketball and we're both looking forward to going to more practices. I'll have to start taking her to a park with a B-Ball court so she can play and shoot hoops all she wants to.