Six years ago, we started an intramural program on Saturday morning to try and get more boys not just acclimated to basketball practice and fundamentals, but also to playing "games".Thankfully, we have many people; my wife, the high school basketball players, the assistant coaches and even some parents who volunteer their time on those Saturday mornings. I arrive at 8 AM for the first group which begins at 9 AM. We will leave at around 12:15 after the final group. During that time the volunteers have taken time out of their Saturday mornings to help us with our program and have worked with boys 4 years old all the way to 8th graders.
During each groups hour, we give 5-8 minutes of free shooting. The reason behind this is that most boys don't have access to a gymnasium and appreciate shooting in the gym. Then from that time we do group fundamentals and then into stations. In those stations, the boys are taught passing, shooting, defense, dribbling, and pivots.
Each boy gets a Henryville Basketball t-shirt. Those boys that do not attend the day of or after the shirts are passed out, my wife (an elementary teacher at HHS) researches which class they are in and I hand deliver those shirts as soon as time permits. Each boy goes onto a mailing list in which we send them holiday and birthday cards to remind them that we appreciate their efforts in coming to our camps.
Below, I have posted some of the emails I have received recently about our intramural program. They have been copied and pasted straight from the email that I received. If anyone ever has an idea how to improve our intramurals, I will listen, and even better any time anyone wants to volunteer to help on Saturday mornings or even take a team to play at the local Nolan Fieldhouse...that would be wonderful.
I hope the emails give you a better insight on some of the issues I have to deal with as head coach at HHS.
"I want to thank you and your players/coaches for taking the time to help my son. I know he isn't very good now, but I love that you do this for the kids."
"I wanted to thank you for sending the birthday card to my son. He thought it was pretty cool. Thanks again."
"My son did not get his shirt (I received this email after this boy got his shirt, but the person emailing didn't know it; we try as soon as possible to get shirts to any one who paid, but usually it takes time to find time to do this). I paid for the basketball camp and he attended only three sessions. After the third session I decided it was a total waste of my money and his time. I didn't feel or see the helpers doing any teaching to the boys. (Please see above as this is not true) It seemed to me that the entire time the kids just "played" with the basketballs and the coaches were just looking over them. (Kids DO play basketball and the coaches DO watch over them) The practices that the kids did at the beginning of the morning alse seemed to just be to pass time by. (Unfortunately while we are working on group fundamentals, time does pass by) I did not see one time that any of the helpers or coaches take time out to work one on one with not only my son but several other kids as well. (Absolutely not true) I am glad I had an opportunity to see that this program was not affective, so that I won't bother to waste my money on it again." (The (e)ffectiveness can always be debated)
"I think you should play more games (We are working on that possibly next year) and have less fundamentals (disagree completely). The kids really need to be able to play the game of basketball and not have to worry about pivots and passing. Get it and go."
