Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

Sunset Ridge’s Varsity Girls Basketball Team

By Barb, Sara and Heather

Interesting is an understatement; educational and fun for sure.  We can think of so many positive ways to describe our interview session last week with the Sunset Ridge Varsity Girls Basketball team.

Here is a little about the team and why we requested the interview. The team is made up of 6th, 7th and 8th graders, some of whom had played little if any basketball before this year.

The middle school, located in Northfield, Illinois, typically tries to field both a 6th grade team and a varsity team made up of 7th and 8th graders. Not this year though. They did not have enough girls to make up the two teams, so they combined the grades. And the coach had to do a bit of recruiting as well to assure the numbers necessary for one team.

Take 6th grader Julia for example. “I had really never played basketball before,” she said modestly. But she played travel soccer and the coach knew her to be athletic. So she was asked to represent her school on the team. She agreed because a few of her other 6th grade friends, also talented soccer players, had decided to play.

So not only was the team relatively young, but coupled with the fact that some of the team members were learning the game for the first time, it was not hard to understand why they started the season 0 and 5, losing some of their games by as many as 40 points.

Hence the interest in this team’s post-season story.

Fast forward.

The team, coached by teachers Ms. Mattera and Mr. Kolcz, won the remainder of their games and shocked the local junior high basketball world by making it to the finals of their conference.

You wonder: what was the reason for such a drastic turn-around? We explored this and a number of other questions with members of this impressive team, including Bailey (6th grade), Julia (6th grade), Fallon (6th grade),  Macallister (6th grade), Ayanna (7th grade), Brooke (7th grade), Liza (8th grade) and Gabi (8th grade).

Common themes surfaced during the interview that explain the team’s phenomenal finish: 1) The individual players improved their skills; 2) The team learned to work together; 3) The team finally experienced good coaching; 4) The team bonded together in a big way; 5) There was no pressure – it was FUN.

But the first question asked of these young ladies was why was it that it was so hard to field a team this year? Almost in unison and without hesitation they agreed that girls’ basketball was pretty much the laughing stock of the school.

According to returning player Gabi, “The boys’ team is always so good and the girls’ team is horrible, so who wants to play for a losing team that everyone always makes fun of? And the boys would always tease us that we were going to get crushed. We had no confidence.”

Hard to handle that this sentiment still exists but Brooke added, “I feel girls don’t really play basketball because they might feel that that sport is only for boys. They may feel that being on a basketball team will make them uncool especially because we are known for being so naive and girly.”

Continuing on, the girls discussed the point that contrary to soccer, they did not have the advantage of being introduced to basketball early on in their lives. While most of them had started playing soccer as young as 4 or 5-years-old, they had not been introduced to basketball until as late as middle school.

Julia added that, “had we started playing basketball as early as we started with soccer, we may have been playing travel basketball by this time and had more confidence with the sport.”

Finally, there was conversation as to how the staffing of coaches from year to year made quite a difference. One of the problems emphasized by Ayanna was that the 6th graders had a different coach from year to year. Had the school been able to find ONE good coach who could teach and excite the girls their first year, “it would have made a huge difference,” said Ayanna.

Here is the way the rest of the interview played out:

Q) While we were on the topic of coaching, we polled the athletes on the question of what makes for a good coach?

Some of their thoughts were as follows:

Bailey: “A coach who gives constructive criticism and doesn’t just say good job if I’m not doing a good job.”
Julia: “A good coach is committed.”
Macallister: A good coach supports us by helping us develop our skills. A good coach needs to be a good teacher.”
Fallon: “A good coach doesn’t focus on the bad.”
Liza: “A good coach is experienced in the sport.”
Gabi: “A good coach balances criticism by saying what is good.”

They all agreed that finally this year, the team had effective coaches.

Q) What were a few of your favorite memories from the season?

(Hearty laughter filled the room as they reminisced together.)

There were SO MANY answers to this question. Here are a few of the representative thoughts:

Gabi: “During practice our coach would be so funny because she would motivate us by saying ‘who’s going to get that last pork chop?’ So our team cheer in the huddle during games was ‘pork chop.’ No one, not even our parents understood what we were saying. We had great inside jokes.”
Julia: “ I had to guard a 6-foot tall player from another team and I didn’t even know how to play basketball.”
Bailey: “When we got our first win of the season in overtime.”
Gabi:  “I loved it when we distracted the other teams with silly stuff.”

Q) Why did you click so well as a team? What are the keys to good teamwork?

Fallon: “Really know your teammates.”
Gabi: “We trusted each other. You have to trust your teammates.”
Liza: “Our team worked so well together because we had fun.”
Ayanna: “You have to focus on everyone’s strengths, not their weaknesses. Also, every point we were scoring was the ‘team scoring, ‘ not just one person scoring. And we had no ball hogs.”
Macallister: “At the beginning, we were very divided by age. By the end of the season, we were together as one team.”
Fallon: “It really helped the 6th graders to have the 8th graders on the team with us. They were great leaders. We were happy that they had to combine all the grades into one team this year. We were lucky.”
Julia: “I had really never played basketball before. I felt good because everyone on the team helped me to get better. I never felt they were mad at me because I wasn’t as good. They only supported me.”
Brooke: “Yes, we all became close, as I said, and we worked together to make the best out of the game. We thought of the 6th graders as our little sisters and the 8th graders as older sisters. They helped everyone out with shooting and skills. The 8th graders really took one for the team and were always cooperative. We never had any problem with getting along. We helped each other in any situation.”

Interestingly, Gabi threw in, “Boys teams don’t become as close and they are way more competitive. It is so different for boys teams.”

Q) The final question of our time together focused on the topic of what makes for a good sports parent.

In essence, the team representatives collaborated on this response and offered these pointers: 1) “Be supportive of your daughters and not critical”; 2) “Don’t set expectations and be disappointed if we can’t live up to them”; 3) “Don’t come down on us when we lose.”

As a final unsolicited comment to close out the session, Fallon profoundly added, “Our school tries to form these communities that are supposed to bring us all together. And we all make bracelets or something like that. But the program doesn’t work. Sports do.”

Looking back on the season, the seven teammates agreed that it was full of reward. And despite the fact that there is a good chance that none of these athletes will pursue basketball in high school, the memories, the friendships, the lessons learned and their “we showed you” winning record/2nd place conference finish permitted them personal growth as well as growth as athletes.

No doubt, the Sunset Ridge Varsity Girls Basketball Team for 2012-2013 had something to prove and they proved it. But just as important, if not more important, their full experience as a team will forever set a standard that will be hard to match.

A note from the authors: Thank you to the players from the Sunset Ridge team who took the time to participate in the interview. We listened closely and we learned.

http://gameonsportscamp.com/2013/04/game-on-sports-girl-talk-interviews-the-sunset-ridge-girls-b-ball-team/">

Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

Filed Under:  

• Basketball
• Sports

View Original Post at gameonsportscamp.wordpress.com

View GameOnSportGirl's Full Profile