Winter Sports

Last winter was challenging for many reasons, one of which was that I realized that boys with energy to burn who don't burn it get themselves into trouble. So I vowed to try a winter sport this year. David has always loved playing basketball in the street in front of our house (our neighbors have a hoop that all the kids on the street use), and this is the first year that he was old enough to play basketball with the Upward program. If you aren't familiar with Upward, it's a national sports program hosted by churches aimed at training kids in skill, attitude, and good sportsmanship. It's very well organized and offers different sports depending on the location. They also offer cheerleading, which Katy has been desperate to try, so we signed them both up.

They've each had a handful of practices and I was impressed with all they were learning, but the first games this past weekend blew me out of the water. They line all of the kids up behind a curtain, turn out the lights, turn on the smoke machine and the spotlight, and the announcer introduces them one at a time by name in a "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" type voice. At half time they have a lesson about good sportsmanship (or related topic).  And then the methods of teaching the kids the game were really cool. Each kid wears a velcro band representing his position, and the ref was actually teaching the kids and high-fiving them as he blew the whistle (explained what they did wrong, why they can't do that, etc).

For the first game, we all 6 went to both David and Katy's games (and there was a 3 hour break in between), but we won't usually do that. It was too much to try to keep the Littles happy on the sidelines for all that time. But it was worth it to be there for the first time. David made the first basket of the game!! (after almost making a basket for the other team)  And I happened to catch it on video!! He loved the whole thing and was so excited.

And Katy's reaction after she was done was that she LOVED it, and can't wait until the next game. I was also impressed with how many cheers they knew.

In this case, the videos explain it better than I could, so here you go: (David is #14, and Katy is the one in the middle but no ponytail. She cheers for older kids, so the game is a little more intense)