WORTH THE RISK? Youth basketball clubs find ways to play on BY DANIEL ZIOLKOWSKI
ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL ZIOLKOWSKI
N
ot one athlete, coach or parent knew what awaited them when they walked into a gym for a basketball tournament over the summer. But the rapid growth of the club basketball scene throughout Wisconsin and the increased presence of college coaches at those events meant most were willing to take the risk — in the middle of a pandemic. Some tournaments went above and beyond to assure the safety of the players and their parents, intent on creating a safe environment for kids to win back a sense of normalcy. Others ignored or barely enforced mask mandates and social distancing protocols. I attended a high school fall league event at the Center Court Sports Complex in Waukesha in suburban Milwaukee, which also hosted club tournaments throughout the summer. While there were temperature checks at the door and signs that asked people to wear masks, no one stepped in to enforce those rules. Players walked around freely without masks and sat together to watch games, and there was no limit to the number of fans coming in through the single entry point. Yet parents came in droves to watch their sons and daughters play in fall leagues, which essentially offer a preseason for high school programs. The demand for competition is even higher in the summer for Amateur Athletic Union events, when the NCAA allots multiple time periods for college coaches to actively recruit high school athletes. “If you want to play basketball and you want to be serious, to get that college level or further, it’s something you have to do,” says Jason Coker, president of the Evolution Basketball program and head coach of the girls’ varsity team at St. Joseph’s High School in Kenosha. “We’ve sent several kids that had never gained interest through
their high school program, but did through us, that are playing in college.” The summer season was in jeopardy from the moment the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association shut down high school season in midMarch due to the coronavirus. Erica Cook is the program director of Wisconsin RAP, which operates primarily out of New Berlin and fields teams from the Milwaukee area. Instead of having open gyms running five-onfive games, Cook and the coaches sent out videos of driveway drills. Players won rewards in the form of merchandise for becoming “video champions.” The club expanded to holding team practices at local parks and in the yards of players who had outdoor courts at home so they could stay outside. Coker and his Evolution squad were the primary users of a Kenosha gym for much of the summer. Jasin Sinani, a senior at Oak Creek High School who played for RAP this summer, started playing club basketball in sixth grade. His goal from day one was to play Division I college basketball. Following a strong junior season, Sinani gained some interest from NCAA Division II and III programs, but knew he needed a big summer if he wanted to hear from bigger schools. On top of all the program’s drills, Sinani worked out with a private trainer and played on the half court in his backyard. “During quarantine I changed my focus onto working out, whether that was in the weight room or on the court,” Sinani says. But practices and drills don’t earn scholarship offers if no one can see what they’ve developed. So after roughly two months of deliberation, programs emailed parents to gauge their comfort level with starting a season. Of the 130 responses to RAP’s parent survey, over 80% wanted to “move forward with some sort of
season.” Evolution saw similar results within their program. “I’d say we lost maybe 10% to 15% of our players on our teams because they just didn’t want to come back with COVID. Everyone else was like, ‘Man, let’s go, let’s play,’” Coker says. Some other clubs saw similar reactions. Matt Bredesen is a head coach for teams from ages 15-17 of the Wisconsin Swing of Waunakee, as well as a teacher and boys’ varsity coach at Janesville Parker High School. Swing didn’t officially sponsor teams, but didn’t have a hard time filling out rosters and “got everyone” they wanted at their tryouts for next year. “What we ended up doing for the teams who wanted to keep playing, which was 10 of the 11 high school teams, was getting our own insurance and covering it,” Bredesen says. The coach also noted the importance of basketball for a lot of the kids goes beyond earning scholarships to their mental and physical health.
PLAY 53
