Sideline Chatter: Basketball Getting Ready

Sideline Chatter: Basketball Getting Ready

Those familiar sounds you may have been hearing of late? The bouncing of basketballs; the pounding of dozens of teenage feet hustling their way up and down an indoor gym; the coaches' whistles announcing yet another change of direction on the latest fitness drills. 

Mercury vapor lights are on well after dark now, so even if you haven't heard those telltale sounds, you know basketball is in the air.

Girls tryouts began a week ago Monday, a mandated two-week break after the end of the soccer season, a date set by the Vermont Principals Association, with the boys beginning a week later.

For most kids who played both sports, and their families, it was a welcome break, almost a return to normalcy. Evening meals could actually be enjoyed together. Homework could be completed at a relatively early hour, leaving time for a favorite TV show, and maybe even a decent night's sleep.

But now practice for the longest of high school sports seasons is underway. Following roughly a month of practices, most girls teams will begin their schedules on or about Tuesday, Dec. 4, with the boys again to follow about a week later. Between now and then there will be innumerable drills: "suicides" for fitness, lay-ups, rebounding, free throws and other skill-building exercises; each designed to help the kids be the best they can be. Nobody ever felt good about blowing a breakaway lay-up opportunity or missing a foul shot in crunch time.

Our kids and their coaches will put themselves through a lot in the coming months: hours of sweat, toil, and maybe some tears; long bus trips leading to very late nights, and weekend practices and games. Those of us on the sidelines would do well to appreciate these sacrifices, for our local teams will bring us some of the best entertainment of the year. Enjoy!

The photo of a triumvirate of Chelsea senior girls that appeared in the Herald a couple weeks back reminds us that there's a quality nucleus of talent up Route 110 for first year girls' varsity coach Russ Wilcox.

Those three seniors—Samantha Thrasher, Andrea Loeffler, and Steffie Gould—are joined by a number of very good underclassmen. Division Four girls hoop will again have its fair share of talented clubs, not the least of which should be Blue Mountain, Wilmington. and Danville, but it would surprise no one if Wilcox and his charges earned a trip to the Aud this winter.