(Not) Ballin

As 2008 wraps up, so does the beginning portion of my basketball season. Last week I attended a meeting with the city Athletic Director, and one representative from each of the 10 middle schools. We discussed the who, what, when, where, and how of the reincarnation of middle school sports. Our city has not had school teams for about 20 years, and it has now been brought back, officially. I have coached my schools' teams for the past 3 seasons, but this semi-renegade league was not sanctioned by the city's athletic department. There are several differences now that things will be official. The season will have a set schudule and be better organized, games will be after school not during school, and there is a whole lot more red tape. My team has been practicing for about 3 weeks at this point, and at the meeting I recieved a cease and desist until I could verify that all of my students had updated physicals on file at the school. This turned out to be more of a problem than expected. While all students legally need to have an updated physical when they start school and also by the end of their 7th grade year, only one of my 13 student-athletes had an updated (within 13 months) physical on file. The remaining 12 either had no physical on file, or a physical that was 4-8 years outdated. Considering that a former student of mine (who is a beast) did not play football this year because he couldn't get a physical, I am getting a bit worried about my season. I learned that the season only lasts one month - mid January to February vacation, but we play a game or two every week. I am excited at the prospect of playing that many games, as in the past we have had longer seasons but played less games. With the season starting only one week after our 2 week winter recess, I am a bit nervous that I won't be able to get my students up to speed, and also that I won't have enough students with updated physicals to even play. Not practicing for 3 weeks after practicing for 3 weeks is very disheartening. I am trying to be optimistic about spending this extracurricular time with my students, but I worry that situations out of their control may ruin things for all of us.