Organizing Basketball (1st semester, senior year)

In the first semester of Senior Year I decided to organize basketball once a week after school. The reason for this was so that people who were interested in trying out for the basketball team in the second semester. I thought that this would be beneficial for everyone. The benefits would come from the likely varsity players being able to start to get to know everyone’s playing style, so team-play would be better. As for the kids that were not likely to make varsity, i.e. newer people to the sport, it was a chance for them to better themselves in the off-season.

            As I was the organizer for the basketball I first decided on a day that would be best. However, everyday after school the gym was being used for an already organized activity. So to solve this problem I decided to have the basketball be from 5pm-6:30 pm, since the gym was only taken at this time on Mondays I just chose to do it on Thursdays; there was no particular reason for this, I just picked a day.

            During the first few Thursdays the organization proceeded as follows. We would all shoot free-throws to choose the starting 10 people. We then proceed to play a game of 5x5. This game then went to 21. Then the losing team would take the substitutes that hadn’t played. As there were usually around 12-14 people this worked really well. However, after the first few weeks the gameplay changed. Instead of changing teams we just had the not starting people sub on for a few people that were already playing. There would be substitutes every 5 minutes. This limit was set in place so substitutes wouldn’t go off then try to come back on after a minute. However, people tended to wait a few extra minutes after the limit and just sub on for players that were tired. The points per game weren’t really kept track of after this change, however, nobody minded as the important thing was to being playing basketball in a team environment. Once we changed to this method we easily gained an extra 15 minutes of playing time. With the previous method there was too much time being spent organizing the teams between each game

            Overall, I’m glad with the way that the organized basketball worked the way it did. The process was pretty good, and it’s clear that it improved over time. I think that it was definitely helpful for the off-season, as well as just being fun. The organized basketball ended around the time that basketball tryouts started and it was fairly clear who had been athletic during the off-season, whether from the Thursday basketball, or from doing something.