[BillyMac]

The very first year that my daughter played basketball, after taking dance lessons for several years, she played on a town recreation team, that insisted on man to man defense, at all times. My daughter had good basketball instincts from the get go, so when her teammates would get beat, she would drop off her man to help on defense. The officials kept telling her that this wasn't allowed. She kept on questionning me about why she couldn't help her teammates. This league also, for some unknown reason, didn't shoot foul shots. If you were fouled in the act of shooting, your team got the ball back. My daughter, as I said earlier, had some potential, she would often get offensive rebounds, and quickly shoot the ball and score, so her opponents would simply foul her when she rebounded, or shot, the ball. Again, as an official, I got a lot of questions from her.

The next year, at my suggestion, she tried out, and made, the town travel team. I'm not a big fan of travel teams, especially when there are same age school teams available, but thank God, she made the travel team, because if she didn't, she would probably go back to dancing, which for you with nondancers in your family, is very expensive, and boring to a "basketball Dad" like myself.