All Sport Academy - How Good Do You Want To Be Today?

A few months ago I offered to help put together a competitive cheerleading team. Knowing absolutely nothing about the world of competitive cheerleading, I figured it would be an ideal addition to the many things we do here at ASA (I type that as I’m rolling my eyes thinking, “what on earth did I get myself into”…). The coaches organized a tryout and after all was said and done we had 17 girls on the newly formed ASA Dragons Cheerleading squad, ranging in age from 7 up to 14.

Again, I know nothing about this sport, I’ve only seen it on TV a few times when they have the High School Nationals on ESPN or wherever they usually broadcast it, but when they started we were all pretty excited about getting this group up and running. The plan was to do a couple of competitions this year, workout over the summer and hit it hard next year. So, the girls started working on their routine, their tumbling, their movements, etc. and week after week they slowly started to come together. The first competition came and the coaches didn’t feel that they were quite ready, so they decided to pull out of that one and focus on the next, which was three weeks out. With a little over a week to go they were pretty worried that the girls were still not quite ready, but they were really close, a few more good workouts and maybe, just maybe, they’d have things down. Then, one evening I get a phone call to tell me that everything mysteriously came together and not only were they ready, they were going to be competitive.

The day of the competition arrives and they come to the gym to do a couple of run throughs before heading down. As they went through I could see that something was different, they were really sharp (or so I thought, what do I know about this stuff!). After the run throughs they got together and discussed directions, found out who needed things done with their hair and basically took over my office to set up the Dragons’ Beauty Shop. Hair straighting here, bow tieing there, etc., etc., etc. Keep in mind, I have two boys and no sisters, this is all very foreign stuff for me and I was feeling a bit closed in by the crowd that was gathering in my not-so-big space.

Kelly and I jumped in the car and drove down so that we could be there for the first competition. My wife has been to these things before, so she was prepared, I was not. This cheerleading competition thing is a whole ‘nother world and I’m not quite sure I’m fully comfortable with it all just yet (but I’m working on it…). Anyway, we got there just as the Dragons’ group was starting so we grabbed seats and watched. The first two teams were OK, but I figured that our girls would be better. Then, the Dragons hit the floor. I’ve watched them do the routine a number of times, I’ve heard them yelling their cheer even more (so has everyone within a two mile radius of the gym!), but I never thought I’d witness them perform as well as they did on Sunday afternoon. It was just amazing to watch and for those two and half minutes we were all on the edges of our seats enjoying what months of hard work can produce. In the end they placed second to a much larger and older squad (it appeared that all their girls were the same age as the Dragon’s oldest girls). There was much talk (and still is) about how we felt we outperformed them, but the bottom line for me is that 1st place or 2nd place doesn’t really matter, what matters is that they came together as a team, had an outstanding performance and they certainly made us proud…

I just need to find a room for them to do their hair in next time!

Last weekend I saw two last second shots during basketball games, which I find to be one of the most exciting things in all of sports. Here they are:

1). The situation was, with a few seconds on the clock, his team down by one point and two free throws, this kid sinks the second of the two to tie the game. With nearly no time left the other team throws the ball in (deep), a player grabs the ball, pivots and throws up a shot that falls in to win.

2). Another tie game, around 15 seconds left, player takes the in bounds pass and dribbles up the court, holds the ball for the last shot, he drives to the corner and launches a shot just before the buzzer. As the shot goes up, you see the official running towards half court blowing his whistle. He said the kid was fouled and gets two free throws, with no time on the clock. They clear the floor and put this kid on the line for his two free throws. He calmly sinks the first one, the near capacity crowd goes crazy and his teammates mob him on the floor.

Both were equally exciting, both were equally important to the players and fans, but as similar as they sound, they couldn’t have been farther apart in about a million ways… The first game was the ending of the University of Minnesota vs. Indiana game in the Big Ten tournament last weekend. I was watching TV and my wife called me in to see the ending, since I’m from Minnesota she knew I’d like to see it. Obviously it was a big college game in front of a television audience and a few thousand fans and the win sent Minnesota to the semi-final game of the tournament. The second game was the championship game of the St. Barts Rec basketball league in East Brunswick. The league is ages 3rd grade thru 8th grade, the player involved I believe is in 4th grade. It was nothing less than amazing to see this kid check the clock, dribble around, then head to the corner for his last-second shot. Anyone that’s ever played any level of basketball knows that we all do the 5-4-3-2-1 shoot drill with our friends a million times over our “careers” and I could see him doing it in his head. What was really amazing about it though was seeing him step up to the line, block out the crowd (I’d say there were 100+ people in the gym, all screaming) and calmly sink that first free throw. It was sports in it’s purest form…

After that game came the championship game we came to see, the girls 3rd - 8th grade championship. I love going to this particular gym, it’s small, but cozy and it’s named after my wife. OK, no, it’s not named after my wife, but the gym and my wife have the same name and I like that. Anyway, the girls warm up and they call both teams to the center of the floor, they all take a knee and the say a prayer (it’s a Catholic school, it’s what they do!), then they start the game. What I love about this league is they play six minute quarters and regardless of what’s happening on the floor they switch players after three minutes. I’ve watched two games there now and in both games there were fast breaks that were stopped because of the three-minute horn. The game was close, as all good championship games should be, but in the end our buddy Katie’s team came out on top. It was a wonderful afternoon away from the gym and there was some really great basketball from a bunch of young kids played. The winners of the tournament got a really cool sweatshirt that they’ll be able to wear proudly to school or anywhere else. If I’m not mistaken, both teams climbed into cars and went out for pizza together. You can’t beat that deal…

One of the great things about working in a place like All Sport Academy is working with kids. I was talking to a bunch of the guys that came in today from North Brunswick for their rec evaluations and I commented to someone how much fun it is working with young kids. He says to me, “You have to love kids to work in a place like this…” I spent the better part of the morning wandering around chatting with the guys (they were between 7 and 12 years old) about their positions, how exciting it was that baseball is here, what their favorite teams are, who their favorite players are, etc.

So, I’ve had a few conversations today about kids and what’s important to them, how they think, what they like and then I read this article:

Connecticut Boy Applies for WVU Football Job

You have to read the article to appreciate what this kid did. It’s really amazing and I hope I can keep track of him to see where he ends up coaching. That’s a young man with a future…

Hats off to the Mike Garrison, President at West Virginia University, for responding to him. It was a simple gesture, but that one simple gesture made a kid that was already a fan, a fan for life. Nice work Mr. Garrison, for a University President to take those couple of minutes to respond to Joshua was a really amazing thing.

Don’t you just love stories like this? Sure beats steroids, robberies, forged birth certificates, parents fighting officials and coaches and teams spying on other teams doesn’t it?