What would you do?

[BillyMac]

Originally Posted by Adam

7th grade is 7th grade ... Many places refer to it as Jr. High, many call it middle school.

Originally Posted by JRutledge

The school that I attended was called Edison Junior High School when I started 7th grade ... to know it is the same thing.

It's not a big deal but I want to clear something up.

Adam is right, seventh grade is seventh grade. But, depending on the set up of the grade system in the school, and the makeup of the teams, some seventh graders can be much better prepared for organized basketball than other seventh graders.

It looks like JRutledge attended a junior school with grades similar to what I attended back in the 1960's, and used to teach at, and coach at, up until about twenty years ago. Junior high was grade seven, eight and nine.

Back then it was very difficult for a seventh grader to make a junior high team with eighth, and ninth, graders trying out. If there was a seventh grader on my junior high school team, and I don't recall more than one, or two, he was probably a very talented seventh grader.

Now, here in Connecticut, all ninth graders are in high school settings, no more junior high schools, instead we have middle schools of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.

The seventh graders that I was referring to may, or may not, be anything like the seventh graders in the original post. The kids that I was talking about attend Catholic middle schools. These schools have a very competitive "varsity" teams that consist of mostly eighth graders, and talented seventh graders. The less talented seventh graders play on the "junior varsity" team, playing in a league that combines both competition, and instruction. If you're a seventh grader on a "junior varsity" team, then you probably are not very good, because, if you were, you would probably be on the "varsity" team.

These are the seventh graders that I was talking about, some of them playing organized, competitive, basketball for the first time, and often being confused about some of the simplest rules, especially with the pressure of fans, coaches, officials, a scoreboard, etc., especially in the first weeks of the season.