One of my dreams has been (falling alongside the goals of the greater BSA) to start up a girls BSA basketball team. The boys have been less than enthusiastic, and not one of them has recruited a sister or cousin or neighbour. I'm smiling, because they are going to have such a learning curve; the girls are coming out!!
I want to shed a little light on how challenging this commitment will be:
NB* I am not the full-time coach, but agreed to get the ball rolling (literally?) while on ‘leave’.
Day 1: I came to the courts with 3 female Zambian coaches (one played ball in Germany, one recently returned from Namibia after traveling with Zambia's Under 20 National team, and one is not a basketball star but is a wonderful leader). To my horror, not ONE girl came to the court to join the team. Needless to say I unloaded on the people who were recruiting, and my ultimatum was that I'm giving four days, & if no girls show interest, we have failed.
Day 2: Flip-side; I had 5 girls and I was the only coach!
Day 3: I knew I would be the only coach for the day, so I made a last minute SOS call to my friend Alinafe. Day 2 I had had a few problems with translating...my Nyanja isn't so great, & a couple of the girls didn't speak any English. Thank goodness Alinafe could help; we had our all-time high turnout- 8 girls. I never would have managed without him. (He’s also recently committed to being the Head Coach)!! Woohoo.
Day 4: I was disappointed because we dipped back down to 4 players. And I was again the only coach. Heart-wrenching note: I wanted to start a team register so I asked the girls to record their names, ages, & the name of the school they attend. Three of the four girls couldn’t write. They are aged 11-17 and my heart was broken. I still haven’t decided how we get those girls into better schools…but this is Lusaka (where they say the literacy rate is much higher than in reality- I believe).
Day 5: No one pitches...none of the 4 coaches I had recruited, and not one girl. (Granted, Alinafe did come by later…so he’s still in my good books)!
Day 6: Back up to Alinafe coaching, & 5-7 girls.
The Youth Basketball League had a meeting with all of the teams last Saturday. I thought it the perfect opportunity to introduce the wavering girl’s team to the whole league. Guess what- success! Five girls showed up, and they all became much more serious/ interested in playing. Now I'm overly optimistic & have no idea what will happen at the courts today*smile*. Though there should be 2 coaches, with me coming in after work. I'll most certainly keep you updated on our progress...I hope these girls create a space in my heart like my BSA boys have. I keep telling myself not to expect too much, or to be too optimistic because things never play out too easily here.
A friend at Right to Play donated a full kit for the girls, so now all we need are hoops...then we'll start the photo ops!!! Yeah, that’s probably the biggest feat of all- our only hoop taken down in December 2006 with the promise of a full court going up. Alas, it’s March 2007 & we’re still trying to patch the court so the hoops will come up as soon as possible. So that feat- we have two teams training for basketball without a court- we’re doing something right!!! The numbers are bound to go up once we have the full court (and of course our game will improve substantially).
With all of these struggles & frustrations, why am I so excited about the upcoming season? Must be the kids…
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