Seeking a better basketball experience

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rec basketball will never be perfect. Despite the best efforts to balance the teams (pre-draft evaluations, requiring parents to note practice day conflicts, etc) you will always have kids who have game conflicts (especially when the league won't tell you before the season what days games are). Our 5GG team got destroyed this year b/c our 2 best players had conflicts for between half and 3/4 of the games.

Rec games are on Saturdays or Sundays. If your kid has conflicts for most Saturdays or Sundays, its unfair to the other players and coach to sign your kid up to play.

Please, we are talking about rec basketball. Most kids have all kinds of priorities weekends that create conflicts. Most kids are happy just having the opportunity to play with their friends and if some of their friends don't make all the games...well, welcome to life when you have to balance priorities.

Sorry, disagree. Rec sports are important to the kids and coaches who play them. Princess Larla dropping in twice all season for fun is obnoxious.

We are talking rec basketball, not CYO, not travel and not AAU. REC. it is about fun and playing with your buddies. Your coaches comment is hilarious in how naive it is. Most rec coaches are fine with travel kids practice participation becaue they know they don't have to explain what 5 out is or what a diamond and 1 press or any number of things a tec coach has to repeatedly tell/coach rec only kids.

Are you upset said travel players take your kids playing time but isnt at practice.. Sorry that's what rec is about. Playing with your friends. If you don't like it, coach your own team and don't let travel players on it. Good luck with that.

Wow, no, that's not what rec teams are for the kids who aren't travel players. If this is the attitude that travel families are going to have "this is just for fin, it doesn't matter", then travel players shouldn't be allowed on rec teams. Way to ruin the experience for all the other kids. Your snooty a-hole of a kid doesn't belong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and coaches don't seem to grasp that rec leagues are developmental at the elementary ages. The referees aren't going to call every travel or three second violation or every foul. You would be there all day and the kids wouldn't have fun.

Screaming "Travel" about opposing players when you are on the sideline of your 3rd grader's game makes you the AH.

That part doesn’t bother me. It’s the ridiculous imbalance in what are supposed to be evenly distributed teams

It is very hard to make evenly balanced teams.

Kids want to play with classmates or be on a team with a friend.
Practice days, times and locations don’t work for everyone.
Parents request a coach that their kid liked in the past.
Some new players are absolutely terrible, while others are natural athletes that immediately pick it up.
Some teams work well together and gel and improve over the season, others don’t.
Kids grow and improve from before the season until the end.

All those things can contribute to wildly different teams.

Has to be something you can do. Been to too many games where the end score is 50 to 6.

We'll it depends. Are there enough teams to break rec into divisions. Thus, you have better teams in the top division, average in the next division below and terrible teams in a lower division. My kids leagues have coaches submit evaluations on their team talent level compared to others. Then the county runs seeding games in December to make sure a coach didn't sandbag his team. Generally, after 5th grade, everyone knows which teams are good and which teams aren't.

Why are there pre-set teams? Most leagues do a skill evaluation and a draft.

For a number of reasons. Mostly it starts off way back in 3rd grade when the county puts kids on teams generally based on the school you attend. There is obviously some logistical reason for this so parents can coordinate carpooling and the kids might already be friends. After that year, you generally stay on the same team as you did the year before that unless you request to move to a different team. So by the random aspects of life, some teams will be good year after year because they players are good and stick together. Thus, the county has teams placed into a variety of divisions based on competitiveness.

There is always been talk of doing evaluations or assessments and having some type of draft or something like that but that generally is too much work (because it would be all volunteer - county staff isn't doing that) because you are talking about 250 boys and about 200 girls per grade, if not more. Then multiple that by 5 grades and you talking in excess of 2000 kids that need to be assessed. Where would you find the gym space for that? It is hard to find gym space for FFX tryouts that can fit 60-90 kids in it. No place can accommodate those numbers at the Arlington rec level.

Arlington kids play through the county? That's insane. Fairfax County has local leagues. I thought only Falls Church had its own league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and coaches don't seem to grasp that rec leagues are developmental at the elementary ages. The referees aren't going to call every travel or three second violation or every foul. You would be there all day and the kids wouldn't have fun.

Screaming "Travel" about opposing players when you are on the sideline of your 3rd grader's game makes you the AH.

That part doesn’t bother me. It’s the ridiculous imbalance in what are supposed to be evenly distributed teams

It is very hard to make evenly balanced teams.

Kids want to play with classmates or be on a team with a friend.
Practice days, times and locations don’t work for everyone.
Parents request a coach that their kid liked in the past.
Some new players are absolutely terrible, while others are natural athletes that immediately pick it up.
Some teams work well together and gel and improve over the season, others don’t.
Kids grow and improve from before the season until the end.

All those things can contribute to wildly different teams.

Has to be something you can do. Been to too many games where the end score is 50 to 6.

We'll it depends. Are there enough teams to break rec into divisions. Thus, you have better teams in the top division, average in the next division below and terrible teams in a lower division. My kids leagues have coaches submit evaluations on their team talent level compared to others. Then the county runs seeding games in December to make sure a coach didn't sandbag his team. Generally, after 5th grade, everyone knows which teams are good and which teams aren't.

Why are there pre-set teams? Most leagues do a skill evaluation and a draft.

For a number of reasons. Mostly it starts off way back in 3rd grade when the county puts kids on teams generally based on the school you attend. There is obviously some logistical reason for this so parents can coordinate carpooling and the kids might already be friends. After that year, you generally stay on the same team as you did the year before that unless you request to move to a different team. So by the random aspects of life, some teams will be good year after year because they players are good and stick together. Thus, the county has teams placed into a variety of divisions based on competitiveness.

There is always been talk of doing evaluations or assessments and having some type of draft or something like that but that generally is too much work (because it would be all volunteer - county staff isn't doing that) because you are talking about 250 boys and about 200 girls per grade, if not more. Then multiple that by 5 grades and you talking in excess of 2000 kids that need to be assessed. Where would you find the gym space for that? It is hard to find gym space for FFX tryouts that can fit 60-90 kids in it. No place can accommodate those numbers at the Arlington rec level.

Arlington kids play through the county? That's insane. Fairfax County has local leagues. I thought only Falls Church had its own league.

I'm curious to see why? It is county facilities they are using. It generally avoids the middle man (community entity) in accessing practice spaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rec basketball will never be perfect. Despite the best efforts to balance the teams (pre-draft evaluations, requiring parents to note practice day conflicts, etc) you will always have kids who have game conflicts (especially when the league won't tell you before the season what days games are). Our 5GG team got destroyed this year b/c our 2 best players had conflicts for between half and 3/4 of the games.

Rec games are on Saturdays or Sundays. If your kid has conflicts for most Saturdays or Sundays, its unfair to the other players and coach to sign your kid up to play.

Please, we are talking about rec basketball. Most kids have all kinds of priorities weekends that create conflicts. Most kids are happy just having the opportunity to play with their friends and if some of their friends don't make all the games...well, welcome to life when you have to balance priorities.

Sorry, disagree. Rec sports are important to the kids and coaches who play them. Princess Larla dropping in twice all season for fun is obnoxious.

We are talking rec basketball, not CYO, not travel and not AAU. REC. it is about fun and playing with your buddies. Your coaches comment is hilarious in how naive it is. Most rec coaches are fine with travel kids practice participation becaue they know they don't have to explain what 5 out is or what a diamond and 1 press or any number of things a tec coach has to repeatedly tell/coach rec only kids.

Are you upset said travel players take your kids playing time but isnt at practice.. Sorry that's what rec is about. Playing with your friends. If you don't like it, coach your own team and don't let travel players on it. Good luck with that.

Wow, no, that's not what rec teams are for the kids who aren't travel players. If this is the attitude that travel families are going to have "this is just for fin, it doesn't matter", then travel players shouldn't be allowed on rec teams. Way to ruin the experience for all the other kids. Your snooty a-hole of a kid doesn't belong.

So when I say "travel" players, I'm not restricting this to just travel basketball players but kids that play travel sports from hockey to lacrosse to soccer, etc. Sorry for the confusion. The divisions are set up so that the more competitive and athletic kids play against each other in the top division. These are all kids that play other travel sports but might not be quite good enough to play travel or AAU basketball. While less athletic kids play against kids of comparable level. This way you don't have the really good athletes tool on less athletic kids. This way it is fair competition.

Arlington does restrict travel players to 1 a team and certain restrictions on playing time. So as I said, in Arlington, Rec is for playing with your friends against comparable skilled teams. Arlington can get away with this because they have up to 4 divisions of 8 teams and a waiting list of kids wanting to play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rec basketball will never be perfect. Despite the best efforts to balance the teams (pre-draft evaluations, requiring parents to note practice day conflicts, etc) you will always have kids who have game conflicts (especially when the league won't tell you before the season what days games are). Our 5GG team got destroyed this year b/c our 2 best players had conflicts for between half and 3/4 of the games.

Rec games are on Saturdays or Sundays. If your kid has conflicts for most Saturdays or Sundays, its unfair to the other players and coach to sign your kid up to play.

Please, we are talking about rec basketball. Most kids have all kinds of priorities weekends that create conflicts. Most kids are happy just having the opportunity to play with their friends and if some of their friends don't make all the games...well, welcome to life when you have to balance priorities.

If you're committing to a team, you should commit to a team. Just because it's "just rec basketball" doesn't mean that the kids don't rely on their teammates being there. It's the worst when you have a team where five people don't show up and the five kids who did show up don't get any rest. It's not fun.

I've coached for 10 years, I've never had a kid complain about playing too much. I've had kids ask for a timeout to rest when there was only 5 players but I've never heard them say a word about playing the entire game. So your point is silly and not reflective of the real world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rec basketball will never be perfect. Despite the best efforts to balance the teams (pre-draft evaluations, requiring parents to note practice day conflicts, etc) you will always have kids who have game conflicts (especially when the league won't tell you before the season what days games are). Our 5GG team got destroyed this year b/c our 2 best players had conflicts for between half and 3/4 of the games.

Rec games are on Saturdays or Sundays. If your kid has conflicts for most Saturdays or Sundays, its unfair to the other players and coach to sign your kid up to play.

This. One of our best players only made maybe 1/3 of the games because he’s in two other leagues. So selfish. Just don’t play VYI and let the team have a player who will actually show up.

[Anonymous]

Not trying to change the subject but does anyone in this thread have any suggestions for lower level travel teams for a 10 year old girl? My daughter has been with Burke BB for 2 years now and I think we are ready to move on. She’s very athletic and serious about BB, but still needs to refine her skills. I understand tryouts have already happened, but if I could just have some idea of what clubs to even look into for the future, that would be great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP coming back to this thread for the first time. I am sad to hear that this is apparently a pervasive problem. We saw more bad behavior this past weekend, particularly on the part of a top team coach and one of their players who is going to seriously hurt other kids if the refs don't get things in check. It's just ridiculous. Basketball seems to bring out the worst in people.

Was this a CYA girls team? Coach's kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and coaches don't seem to grasp that rec leagues are developmental at the elementary ages. The referees aren't going to call every travel or three second violation or every foul. You would be there all day and the kids wouldn't have fun.

Screaming "Travel" about opposing players when you are on the sideline of your 3rd grader's game makes you the AH.

That part doesn’t bother me. It’s the ridiculous imbalance in what are supposed to be evenly distributed teams

It is very hard to make evenly balanced teams.

Kids want to play with classmates or be on a team with a friend.
Practice days, times and locations don’t work for everyone.
Parents request a coach that their kid liked in the past.
Some new players are absolutely terrible, while others are natural athletes that immediately pick it up.
Some teams work well together and gel and improve over the season, others don’t.
Kids grow and improve from before the season until the end.

All those things can contribute to wildly different teams.

Has to be something you can do. Been to too many games where the end score is 50 to 6.

We'll it depends. Are there enough teams to break rec into divisions. Thus, you have better teams in the top division, average in the next division below and terrible teams in a lower division. My kids leagues have coaches submit evaluations on their team talent level compared to others. Then the county runs seeding games in December to make sure a coach didn't sandbag his team. Generally, after 5th grade, everyone knows which teams are good and which teams aren't.

Why are there pre-set teams? Most leagues do a skill evaluation and a draft.

For a number of reasons. Mostly it starts off way back in 3rd grade when the county puts kids on teams generally based on the school you attend. There is obviously some logistical reason for this so parents can coordinate carpooling and the kids might already be friends. After that year, you generally stay on the same team as you did the year before that unless you request to move to a different team. So by the random aspects of life, some teams will be good year after year because they players are good and stick together. Thus, the county has teams placed into a variety of divisions based on competitiveness.

There is always been talk of doing evaluations or assessments and having some type of draft or something like that but that generally is too much work (because it would be all volunteer - county staff isn't doing that) because you are talking about 250 boys and about 200 girls per grade, if not more. Then multiple that by 5 grades and you talking in excess of 2000 kids that need to be assessed. Where would you find the gym space for that? It is hard to find gym space for FFX tryouts that can fit 60-90 kids in it. No place can accommodate those numbers at the Arlington rec level.

Arlington kids play through the county? That's insane. Fairfax County has local leagues. I thought only Falls Church had its own league.

I'm curious to see why? It is county facilities they are using. It generally avoids the middle man (community entity) in accessing practice spaces.

Fairfax County is much larger than Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rec basketball will never be perfect. Despite the best efforts to balance the teams (pre-draft evaluations, requiring parents to note practice day conflicts, etc) you will always have kids who have game conflicts (especially when the league won't tell you before the season what days games are). Our 5GG team got destroyed this year b/c our 2 best players had conflicts for between half and 3/4 of the games.

Rec games are on Saturdays or Sundays. If your kid has conflicts for most Saturdays or Sundays, its unfair to the other players and coach to sign your kid up to play.

Please, we are talking about rec basketball. Most kids have all kinds of priorities weekends that create conflicts. Most kids are happy just having the opportunity to play with their friends and if some of their friends don't make all the games...well, welcome to life when you have to balance priorities.

If you're committing to a team, you should commit to a team. Just because it's "just rec basketball" doesn't mean that the kids don't rely on their teammates being there. It's the worst when you have a team where five people don't show up and the five kids who did show up don't get any rest. It's not fun.

I've coached for 10 years, I've never had a kid complain about playing too much. I've had kids ask for a timeout to rest when there was only 5 players but I've never heard them say a word about playing the entire game. So your point is silly and not reflective of the real world.

The kids aren't going to complain to you, dummy, but they're tired and they tell us how tough it was on the ride home. They would NEVER complain to the coach.

[Anonymous]

DP here.

OP- it’s everywhere. It’s in Burke Basketball too, although some posters will deny it. We have had coaches yell extremely inappropriate things at the kids, referees just phoning it in because the parents are aggressive, and kids punch and shoving kids- and then the coaches laughing about it.

I want to say the older the kids it gets better- but I actually think something happened with Covid where the dad coaches are just super aggressive. Before Covid- it was a lot more relaxed. After Covid- it’s like the parents don’t know how to just have fun. It’s all about winning and not about skill development.

I’ve overheard coaches at the Burke basketball games tell kids to just reach and steal balls and shove kids around because fouls aren’t being called. And honestly- they aren’t.

But that’s a terrible thing to coach and it’s disappointing to see it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rec basketball will never be perfect. Despite the best efforts to balance the teams (pre-draft evaluations, requiring parents to note practice day conflicts, etc) you will always have kids who have game conflicts (especially when the league won't tell you before the season what days games are). Our 5GG team got destroyed this year b/c our 2 best players had conflicts for between half and 3/4 of the games.

Rec games are on Saturdays or Sundays. If your kid has conflicts for most Saturdays or Sundays, its unfair to the other players and coach to sign your kid up to play.

Please, we are talking about rec basketball. Most kids have all kinds of priorities weekends that create conflicts. Most kids are happy just having the opportunity to play with their friends and if some of their friends don't make all the games...well, welcome to life when you have to balance priorities.

Sorry, disagree. Rec sports are important to the kids and coaches who play them. Princess Larla dropping in twice all season for fun is obnoxious.

We are talking rec basketball, not CYO, not travel and not AAU. REC. it is about fun and playing with your buddies. Your coaches comment is hilarious in how naive it is. Most rec coaches are fine with travel kids practice participation becaue they know they don't have to explain what 5 out is or what a diamond and 1 press or any number of things a tec coach has to repeatedly tell/coach rec only kids.

Are you upset said travel players take your kids playing time but isnt at practice.. Sorry that's what rec is about. Playing with your friends. If you don't like it, coach your own team and don't let travel players on it. Good luck with that.

Our rec league doesn't allow travel players, for this reason.

Our league is travel or rec, not both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rec basketball will never be perfect. Despite the best efforts to balance the teams (pre-draft evaluations, requiring parents to note practice day conflicts, etc) you will always have kids who have game conflicts (especially when the league won't tell you before the season what days games are). Our 5GG team got destroyed this year b/c our 2 best players had conflicts for between half and 3/4 of the games.

Rec games are on Saturdays or Sundays. If your kid has conflicts for most Saturdays or Sundays, its unfair to the other players and coach to sign your kid up to play.

Please, we are talking about rec basketball. Most kids have all kinds of priorities weekends that create conflicts. Most kids are happy just having the opportunity to play with their friends and if some of their friends don't make all the games...well, welcome to life when you have to balance priorities.

If you're committing to a team, you should commit to a team. Just because it's "just rec basketball" doesn't mean that the kids don't rely on their teammates being there. It's the worst when you have a team where five people don't show up and the five kids who did show up don't get any rest. It's not fun.

I've coached for 10 years, I've never had a kid complain about playing too much. I've had kids ask for a timeout to rest when there was only 5 players but I've never heard them say a word about playing the entire game. So your point is silly and not reflective of the real world.

The kids aren't going to complain to you, dummy, but they're tired and they tell us how tough it was on the ride home. They would NEVER complain to the coach.

Oh, okay. You kid must not like to compete and play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP here.

OP- it’s everywhere. It’s in Burke Basketball too, although some posters will deny it. We have had coaches yell extremely inappropriate things at the kids, referees just phoning it in because the parents are aggressive, and kids punch and shoving kids- and then the coaches laughing about it.

I want to say the older the kids it gets better- but I actually think something happened with Covid where the dad coaches are just super aggressive. Before Covid- it was a lot more relaxed. After Covid- it’s like the parents don’t know how to just have fun. It’s all about winning and not about skill development.

I’ve overheard coaches at the Burke basketball games tell kids to just reach and steal balls and shove kids around because fouls aren’t being called. And honestly- they aren’t.

But that’s a terrible thing to coach and it’s disappointing to see it.

NP here. I’m 100% with you re: Burke. My son is in 8th grade and has played with Burke since he was in 2nd or 3rd grade and sportsmanship by coaches and kids has decreased while the aggressiveness has increased. We too have had a coach who behaves inappropriately and it was awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rec basketball will never be perfect. Despite the best efforts to balance the teams (pre-draft evaluations, requiring parents to note practice day conflicts, etc) you will always have kids who have game conflicts (especially when the league won't tell you before the season what days games are). Our 5GG team got destroyed this year b/c our 2 best players had conflicts for between half and 3/4 of the games.

Rec games are on Saturdays or Sundays. If your kid has conflicts for most Saturdays or Sundays, its unfair to the other players and coach to sign your kid up to play.

Please, we are talking about rec basketball. Most kids have all kinds of priorities weekends that create conflicts. Most kids are happy just having the opportunity to play with their friends and if some of their friends don't make all the games...well, welcome to life when you have to balance priorities.

If you're committing to a team, you should commit to a team. Just because it's "just rec basketball" doesn't mean that the kids don't rely on their teammates being there. It's the worst when you have a team where five people don't show up and the five kids who did show up don't get any rest. It's not fun.

I've coached for 10 years, I've never had a kid complain about playing too much. I've had kids ask for a timeout to rest when there was only 5 players but I've never heard them say a word about playing the entire game. So your point is silly and not reflective of the real world.

The kids aren't going to complain to you, dummy, but they're tired and they tell us how tough it was on the ride home. They would NEVER complain to the coach.

Oh, okay. You kid must not like to compete and play.

Not the PP, but yeah, that totally makes sense that a kid who does not like to compete and play is…competing and playing. Good Lord. I just thank God my kids’ coaches are not this dense.