Youth Basketball: Holiday Tournament or Family Trip?

In late November, my daughter's AAU coach wanted to add one more tournament to the schedule and asked our preference for entering one of three tournaments. One tournament was Dec 13-18, a holiday tournament Dec 28 - Jan 2 or a Feb 18-20 tournament.

We replied that we would be away during the holidays, so we would rather the team play in the early December or the mid February tournaments.

After assessing the responses from the parents the coach decided to enter the team in the Holiday Classic tournament from December 22 - January 2.

Crazy Youth Sports Parents Series

Again, we had a decision to make. My daughter had two basketball tournaments over Thanksgiving weekend that superseded our trip to visit family in Iowa. Again, my wife and I sat down and discussed the situation. We decided to rearrange our holiday schedule to accommodate the tournament and family. Instead of going to Philadelphia from December 26 - Jan 3, we decided to go December 22 to December 27.

Again we did this to set a good example. We think that it is very important to keep the commitments you make and we want our kids to learn this lesson. Sure it would have been easy to tell the coach we are not available and the coach would have been fine with it. We do not want our kids to think that it is OK to skip a class when they get to college because they do not feel like going or call in sick to work to go hang with friends. We also wanted to show that family is important too.

The Main Point

Family and keeping commitments are both very important.

We think that our decision to change our holiday plans to participate in the AAU basketball tournament communicated three things to our kids:

1. You keep the commitments you make.
2. You make sure that you work family into your schedule no matter how busy you are.
3. You remain flexible.

Cross-Over Dribble Drive

Games 1 - 2 (The kids played in 189 games from March 1 when I started the blog to December 31)

CC played in the Holiday Classic Tournament. Her team went 5-0 to win the Tourney Championship. (the event that started December 28), the day we got back from visiting family in SE Pennsylvania. CC scored 7 points in the first game, 4 points in games two and three and 2 points in the finals for a total of 17 points. She also had 20 steals and 4 assists in the tourney. Her AAU team remains undefeated against 4th grade teams winning 3 tournaments.

CC's team also played a 5th league game. Three games in one day. They won easy, 19-4. CC had 2 points.