Quote:
Originally Posted by stiffler3492
Clarify this for me, Mark. This organization-by-school is only used at the 3rd and 4th grade level? And coaches acknowledge the fact that their kids had more fun playing with their friends, but they expressed their concern about blowouts?
Maybe it's just me, but at that age, it should be about learning and having fun, not winning and losing.
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It was used only at 3rd & 4th on the boys side as an experiment. On the girls side, it was used at all grade levels. The "blowout concern" came about mostly from the 3rd and 4th grade coaches (both boys and girls teams) because they said it made the losing team members feel really bad and there was even some crying. In fact, a few of the girls wanted to quit the program after getting blown out. Remember, this is only 3rd and 4th grade kids. BTW - at that grade level, if a team gets up by 20, we take the score off the board plus there's no backcourt guarding at any time.
Putting the girls together by school wasn't much of an issue at the higher grades because they all attend one of two middle schools and we didn't do it at the HS level because they attend only one HS (except for a handful of girls that attend private schools - they were mixed in with the other kids).