Hoopster

As we continue to have Joshua try out different sports and activities (so far he's done soccer, tee ball, gymnastics, and swimming), this session we did basketball for him.  It's held at the Olathe Community Center, and his sessions are on Saturday mornings.  The first half of each lesson is practice and training.  I've been impressed, as they are actually teaching them real basketball things, instead of doing silly activities that aren't all that relevant to real skills.  On the first day, they were learning jump stops and bounce passes and other things.  The coach is pretty good, and I've been impressed with how she runs everything.

The second half of the 50-minute session is an actual game.  Even on the first day, they did this.  All the kids were broken up into four groups and assigned a color.  Joshua and four other kids, Chase, Cooper, Willow, and Langley were on the orange team.  After some discussion, they determined their team name would be the Cheetahs.  The game is a four-quarter, four-minutes-per-quarter game between two of the teams, with the other two teams playing on the other court.  It's three-on-three, so they rotate players between quarters to ensure as close to equal playing time as possible.  They rely on parents to volunteer to coach the teams during the games.  Langley's dad, Chase's dad, and I all volunteered.  Only one coach can be on the court at a time, so we just rotate out each quarter.  Joshua has done really well and was probably the best player on his team, usually making a few baskets each game, even though he hasn't really played much basketball before.  Here you can see him right after he shot a shot that went in right after I snapped that picture, and then another time where he was about to heave up a longer shot (I don't think that one went in though).  But I'm most proud that he's a really good teammate.  It's not surprising, since he's a great sharer in general, but he's more than happy to pass the ball to a teammate who has an open shot.

Saturday was the last day, so the kids got their participation medals.  Langley couldn't make it on that day, so here are 4/5 of the Cheetahs: Joshua, Chase, Cooper, and Willow.

Afterward I wanted to get a picture of Joshua by himself, and he kept holding the ball in front of him.  I wanted to be able to see his medal, so I told him to hold it on his side like the grown-ups do.  He was all about that, and was happy to pose and tell me, "Look, Dad.  I'm holding the ball like the grown-ups do!".  He enjoyed it overall, and he was pretty good at it, so I think we will do it again next year.