You know you are in trouble when... Brett ends up being the Young Men's Basketball coach.
As with most things in my Young Men's church calling, if I don't do it, it doesn't get done. Pretty sad, but it appears to be my reality.
Last week I barely got enough boys to our first basketball game by driving around the neighborhood "recruiting" deacons and teachers. Apparently even though the only thing Priests talk about is playing basketball, they are all talk and no action when it comes to putting a Young Men's church basketball team together. So myself and the other counselor in the YM's Presidency acted as the coaches for the team last Saturday and we ended up with 6 boys, one to spare. The final score 40 to 4. Our team being the score of 4.
After scoring only 4 points, the boys decided they needed to practice, so even though we don't have a Basketball coach, I scheduled a practice at 6:30 pm on Wed. We announced it in church and surprisingly enough, the boys showed up to practice, however I was the only leader. Having no basketball skills of my own and honestly not knowing enough about the actual rules of basketball to talk intelligently about it, we ended up playing 3 on 3 and worked on getting rebounds.
Fast forward to today. Still no official coach, but I called the other YM's counselor to verify he would be there, which he stated he would. I picked up a few boys on the way to the church and arrived about 10 minutes before the game started. The referee came over to me an asked if I was the coach and if I would fill out the roster. Looking around and still being the only leader from my ward, I took the paper, filled out the boys names and numbers and turned it in. Next we had a prayer and then started the game. We had more boys show up this week than last. We actually had 8 boys. So here I am with 8 boys by myself. I chose 5 of them asked them if they wanted to play "man to man" or zone coverage (some basketball talk I learned last week). They choose man to man and I sent them out on the court. A few minutes into the game, the other YM counselor showed up. The team did much better than last week. We scored 11 points this week. The ending score was 11 to 24, but better than the 4 to 40 beating we took last week. Even though we didn't win, the boys made progress. Progress not perfection. Little by little.
