We just finished a whirlwind of a basketball season for Brenson, and I wanted to post about it while the details are still fresh in my mind.
There are a lot of good things that came out of this season, even if it didn't go how we had hoped. Honestly, it was a little painful at times. Brenson grew tremendously as a player, although the commitment ended up being a little more than we bargained for.
Last year, Brenson played for the Sequoyah Eagles through the Claremore Rec League in the INBC. We were happy with that experience, so we decided to sign up with Claremore Rec again. This time, he was placed on a team called Swish, coached by a man named Larry who had played basketball in college. Coach Larry was tough on the boys. He didn't accept excuses and pushed them to their limit each practice. I don't think I went to a single practice where there wasn't a boy crying at some point (although never Bren). Brenson came into the season right off of Cross Country, which really worked in his favor. While many of his teammates were nearly collapsing on the court running "suicides", Brenson was able to hang in there pretty well.
Swish Number 2!
On Swish along with Brenson were two other homeschooled boys, a boy Bren played with last year, a boy Bren had gone to elementary school with, and a few boys from Claremore Junior High. Overall, the team was highly inexperienced. Bren has a good bit of natural talent and athleticism, but several of the boys on the team did NOT. They were completely shut out their first game.
Coach Larry realized very quickly that he was going to have to get the boys a ton of playtime if they were going to ever win a game. Early in the season, he began signing Swish up to play in weekend tournaments in addition to the INBC games.
It was hard to watch the boys lose game after game after game, but I think in some ways it was good for them. Bren fought hard every single game.
Bren's fan club!
There were several weekends that the boys played 4 or 5 games. It was a lot. One such weekend was on Brenson's birthday. They had a game in Mannford at 8:00am that was their INBC game, followed by three tournament games in Tulsa that afternoon.
Brecklyn and Bri went to the Mannford game to cheer the Swish on!
Bren would typically score about half the points in each game.
He would also get the majority of the rebounds and almost always play all the minutes.
Official Swish Photo
OK Swish 2023-24
While we felt that Coach Larry was exactly what Brenson needed to push him and toughen him up a bit, there were certainly things about Larry that we didn't love. One thing was language. Sometimes he would let words slip that were completely inappropriate, and I didn't like that at all. Additionally, he ended up being banned from the league when the boys had one regular season game and the post season tournament left to play. He was involved in an incident during his daughter's game, and then wasn't permitted to be present at all for the remainder of the season. Chris stepped up, took a quick (required) training, and coached the boys at the end of the season. It was very disappointing, and even after it happened Coach Larry continued to act in a way that lacked integrity. I think Swish ended up finishing the INBC season 3-5.
Coach Larry has a private team (also called Swish) that he was trying to get off the ground as a competitive basketball group. About a month ago, Brenson tried out for the team and made it. However, after the way the season with Coach Larry ended and after more consideration, we decided we won't be playing with the competitive team. In some ways, we are disappointed, but overall we are at peace with the decision.
The boys had all grown to really look up to Coach Larry. He was tough, but he was also encouraging and very affectionate with them (and several of the boys really needed that). Since the season ended in a rough way, Chris and I decided to invite the team over for pizza one evening to celebrate the boys and how much they had grown as players and as a team throughout the season. We didn't know what the response would be, but all eight team members attended. We were pleasantly surprised!
Connor's mom, Amanda, brought these cute basketball cake pops :-).
We invited all the parents to stay, and even though some of the boys were dropped off, we had several parents stay, too. The boys immediately started a pick-up basketball game!
Joseph, Connor, Bryceson, Grayson, Hunter, John, Beckham, and Brenson
Brenson and Hunter were in kindergarten together.
Joseph's sister, Petra, came to the party, and she and Bri hit it off.
Bryceson's baby brother and Mom, Megan, and Hailey (Hunter's Mom and sister)
Joseph's Dad, Chris, and Grayson's Dad visiting
Brooke, Brecklyn, and Emmitt (Connor's brother)
Amanda (holding Annie), Megan, Hailey, Chelley, and Tiff
We spent a lot of time together at practices and games (especially since we had so many), and it was really nice to get know each other better! I felt like Connor's mom, Amanda, and I really clicked. Connor and his siblings are homeschooled, and they love to travel like we do. They ended up staying probably an hour after everyone else left. Amanda and I visited while Connor and Bren jammed on their guitars. We hope to have a playdate with them in the near future!
This was certainly a season of growth for Swish as a team, but for all the boys individually as well. Chris and I are pretty sure that we won't be going back to Claremore Rec for Brenson next year, but we have no idea what we're going to do. We would love to find him a team he could grow with over multiple seasons, but we're not sure what that looks like yet. For today, we are thankful for the growth he experienced this year, and for this group of boys that were able to play together.
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