Eagles players giving back to Lil’ Dribblers
The Southern Boone Eagles girls basketball team spent a number of Saturday mornings on the court.
Not working on their own game. Working with Primary and Elementary girls to improve their basketball abilities – and reinforcing how much fun it is to play the game.
According to Eagles girls basketball coach Tony Phillips, the Eagles team has hosted the Little Dribblers for two years now.
Skyler Beeson leads young players in a dribbling demonstration during halftime of a recent JV game.
“We had five sessions, each lasting about 90 minutes,” Phillips said. “Then we have the kids come out on the court during halftime of a game and show their parents what they have learned.”
The key, Phillips said, was making sure that the little players were having fun.
“We want them to associate the word ‘fun’ with the word ‘basketball’ when they are done with this,” Phillips said. “We spend about 50% of the time working on dribbling and ball-handling skills and the other 50% of the time they are playing games with the high school players, learning some new dances – having fun.”
Seniors Emma Anderson and Skyler Beeson organized this year’s sessions with Anderson developing the “practice schedule” and Beeson leading the young players in drills. The rest of the Eagles team members would pair up with younger players to help them.
Anderson said a key to the sessions was the music.
“We played music – and when it stopped – that was time for them to pay attention to us,” Anderson said. “We had a lot of fun with them, we played ‘Run, Rabbit, Run’ and games like that where we could run around the gym. We just have a lot of fun.”
~ Find out more in today’s Journal ~
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