Saturday, January 17, 2009

Today I witnessed the hilarity of first grade sports...

That's right folks. H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S! Today was Jacob's first Upward Basketball game and it was so fun to watch. If you are not familiar Upward basketball, here is a little, very little, insight.

Several hundred children of varying ability playing the game of basketball.

This is Jacob's first year to play. Paul and Jacob's friends dad, Jeff are the coaches and so far they are having a great time. What I like about Upward is the effort to keep things fair. Every child plays the same amount of time. They wear colored wrist bands to match players for man to man defense. They quietly and discreetly have a system to match players on an ability basis too.

So anyway...

Jacob's team, the Puma's, had their first game today after only two practices. It started off pretty good and once the boys got the hang of the "real game" it started to get real funny. The boys ran half the court with the ball, not dribbling of course. As soon as they would come to an open area they would shoot the ball! It did not matter how far away or close they were to the basket. One time Jacob had a "fast break"...as much as you can have in a first grade game...and he dribbled about three steps past half court and pulled up for a jump shot...took the shot...and of course he fell WAY short! I could not help but die laughing! It was so funny because the look on his face was one of, "I can't believe I missed that!" He snapped is finger while swinging is arm in front of his body and saying "darn". Then took off down the court to see what he could do about defense.

All in all, we did pretty good, we only scored one goal for the other team. Not bad for a group of boys who have never played before. So I'll keep you posted on the evolution of the Puma's Upward Basketball team.

Oh and by the way...we don't keep score...officially anyway.

Jaguars 8 - Pumas 7...unofficially..