Sunday, April 21, 2013

Wow how times have changed.... for the better and not bitter!

wow it's been a while since I added to this. I knew when I made this blog, it was more about getting my thoughts out. I read it and see lots of frustration. Justified frustration, but still lots of anger to get off my chest.

I'm glad I did. SOOO much has changed.

My player is now in 9th grade and on her 4th AAU program. Sounds like a lot jumping around and disloyalty. But we had to find the right fit. Recurring theme. But we've got the right fit now. More on that in a bit.

The last 2 seasons, she played for a smaller club that has a good reputation but is better at developing the younger kids. Problem is that when the younger kids get older, the find opportunities to play with middle and high school teammates on other teams.

Anyway, before the season, the club announced they were going to take the best 20 older girls (there were only 20 on the 2 older girl teams but the split was 13:7) and form 2 teams of 10: Freshmen/Sophomore and Junior/Senior. Some girls would have to play up. And the 6 tournaments they has scheduled were all College Showcase Tournaments.

That didn't sit well with me because my daughter needed time on the court to get better and take that next leap. (She's improved a lot since my last blog post. Got to keep working those fundamentals.)

She made varsity her freshmen year and the coach recommended a different AAU program that was forming a new, developmental team. My kid was dead set AGAINST switching programs AGAIN. And oh good lord... throw into that mix being 14 years old and trying to act like she's 25.

Anyway, I kinda tricked her into going to one workout with the new program and she was hooked. Didn't want to admit it, but she was hooked bad! Fresh scene, new teammates she gelled with instantly, and a chance to start!

First tournament game came and she went OFF! Hitting threes and playing solid defense. Confidence shot up. The team doesn't have a fully developed point guard (the current one is more of a slasher to rim and is developing her leadership) so my kid got thrown into the roll. Struggled a bit a first but started doing some impressive ball handling.

She played her old AAU team from 2009 today (except they added some older girls to the team) and took it to a new level. Played very aggressive and disciplined. Scored 15 and again was tough to get past on defense. A few of the parents we knew came up to me ans said "wow she really improved". A few others said "we knew that was there all along and just needed the chance".

Now how much of that was opportunity and how much of that was her maturing and believing in herself? Hard to say.

But now we find ourselves in a new roll: Being the parents of the best player on the team. You get a lot more attention. I'm determined to stay humble. I talk about the things Emily struggled with and the potential you can see in all our team. Our "developmental" team is starting to be a team that's hard to beat. We'll still only win maybe 30-40% of our games this year. But we're becoming that scrappy team that play solid disciplined ball and you can't sleep on.

So we're enjoying the positives right now. Hopefully that trend will continue. Hopefully I'll post more than every 2 years. Attending a college showcase is a nightmare at times. Worthy of it's own blog!

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