Spent Saturday in Crookston for KoKo’s Pacesetters basketball tournament. Talk about grueling. We arrived there around 9 am and didn’t pull out of UMC until after 7 pm.
KoKo and the girls were not exactly in the basketball frame of mind. They have been practicing for softball for about three weeks now. Intermittently, they squeezed in a few practices, usually in the evenings after softball.
Nevertheless, the girls opened up with a major defensive battle – really a battle of who could make more errors – in a 2-3 loss to Crookston. You read that right. 2-3.
The first three ‘games’ were actually 16 minutes games. They played each team in the pool (Crookston and Waubun) in this format.
The girls were able to then beat Waubun handely.
But it didn’t stop their coach, who also is a varsity coach in the RLF school district, and who happens to be, for whatever reasons, one of the more pompous people I know, from remarking, “We set the game of basketball back several years.” Wouldn’t that reflect on the coach too? What about Crookston? They managed to only score 3 points? Wouldn’t it have more to do with the insanity of this tournament rather than the ineptitude of the girls, who did hustle and work.
Next the girls battle Frazee and beat them as well.
That set up a match with what was “the Evil Empire,” Thief River Falls. They actually hand pick their traveling team. KoKo’s team was made up of all but two of their junior high players. No handpicking went on there. If you can make it, be there because we need you. I also heard that TRF had been practicing three days a week. But that could be hearsay.
The girls promptly fell behind 0-10 after a lackluster effort. In fact, the girls were so out to lunch that one girl got a rebound from TRF and turned around and shot . . . at her own basket! Now that would not have been so bad if it were not for her teammate, who got the rebound and shot again . . . at her own basket! Unfortunatley, she made the shot.
Then she realized her error. Had her father not stood up and screamed – loud enough for the whole gymnasium to hear – “Don’t you cry!” (Hello, therapy!) she might have burst out into tears. Who could blame her?
However, about four minutes into the second half, RLF rallied to cut TRF’s lead to 7-10. KoKo drained a great shot to get things going. However, the girls steam ran out and they ended up losing by 10 or so.
After that there was a good three hour wait until their final game.
We lounged out on the lawn in front of the gymnasium.
But when it game time to play, the girls were just not into it. They got pummeled by Clearbrook/Gonvick. When it was all over, no one was really sad to have it over.
What ever happened to the offseason?
This is one reason I am glad KoKo is heading off to South Dakota to spend June with her grandfather and cousin in the Black Hills. Who cares if she misses the summer sports excel program and some summer softball games.
She might recall some of that, but she will never forget spending a third of the summer with her grandfather.
When did sports become so all important?
The last I checked, our school funding never hinged on our summer lifting attendance or conference championships. However, I do believe they hinge (however foolishly!) on test scores. Yet, we don’t work a fraction as hard on those as we do on athletics, which, are really meaningless.
Here’s my point – there is a family in RLF who have three athletic daughters. One is going to be a senior, one a sophomore, and one an eighth grader. The sophomore is going to be a phenomenal basketball player. The senior is a fine player in her own right. She works and hustles and never is in trouble outside of school. The eighth grader might be the best of them all.
The family decided to not have the girls be in any spring sports. Instead they run an asparagus farm in the spring and the girls can help them with that and just enjoy being kids this spring. Or God forbid – focus on homework.
When the basketball coach found out about this, she remarked, “Well, that’s good for YOU,” implying that her precious basketball team (which never seems to make it past the first or second round of the playoffs anyway, despite her rigorous (read “INSANE”) offseason conditioning program) might suffer because of this.
And it’s not like it will matter for the poor senior, for there is a freshman who comes from a well-connected family. She is going to be moved up to varsity. That means she will likely cut into the playing time of the senior, who has done nothing but work her tail off for the program.
Gotta love those real life lessons sports teaches kids. Favoritism, envy, disgust, cruelty. Just love those lessons.
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