Welcome to Basketball 2014 - Games in Huntsville Building

Dear Coaches and Young Women Presidents,

This year we have many new Coaches and New Young Women Presidencies.  We hope you will enjoy this blog in the place of meetings. Please check the leader tab and make sure your information is updated.  If it is not you can get a hold of me (Wendy McKay) and I will update your information.  If you have any concerns or complaints we are always at your disposal.  You can find our contact info under the leader tab.

This year every team is made up of multiple wards to allow the small wards to still participate.  We know this takes a little more coordination, but some wards had 1 or 2 girls who really would like to play.

We really encourage Coach autonomy, as this is their calling, with support from the presidency.  We hope you will give your coach a little time during opening exercises to address the girls and interact with them at the beginning of each sporting season.  It is also encouraged and a great idea to give your Coach an opportunity to hold a clinic for one of the YW activities so that she can get to know the girls and they her, as well as learn something about the current sport.  This kind of scheduled activity will give confidence to the less athletic and younger girls so they won't feel shy about joining the team.  Athletic activity is an important part of being a well rounded and healthy person, especially today with all of the screen time available.  

Coaches,  even if you are not fielding your own ward team, you are still responsible for driving your Young Women athletes to and from the games.  If two or three coaches are there you can rotate as head coach for the game, or Co-coach as you decide.   This is a calling that is only for a few weeks in the Fall and a few weeks in the Winter and hopefully we will be having a few Co-ed games this summer as well.  

Young Women Presidents... What we need from you:

1.  Please assist your Coaches in getting the Eligibility Form with the name and parent signature of each girl in your ward (and any nonmember's that may play with your team) filled out.  It is easiest to do this during opening exercises.  Even if only 2-3 girls want to participate, it will cover everyone should they decide to come to any Young Woman or Co-ed event during the year.  You can hand it over to the coach to gather the signatures of those not at church, or you can hand it to them when it is filled out, to be delivered to us at the first game.  You can work that out between yourselves. 

All forms can be found under the Forms Tab or at:  www.utahareasports.org.

2.  Please provide the Cell phone number of each athlete (young woman) to your Coaches so that they can send out a reminder text the afternoon of each game and arrange to drive them over.

COACHES, what we need from you...

1.  Please provide a ride to and from each game for your athletes. Please don't ask the parents to get the Young Women to their games unless they were going to watch anyway, unless you need extra drivers.  

2.  As you pick them up, please check that they have appropriate, modest attire & tennis shoes on. No sandals, heels or flip-flops.

3.  If you are on a team with other wards, we encourage each coach to coordinate with each other to ascertain whether you will have enough girls to make up a team.  We need five girls to play, and under five will be a forfeit.  Please contact the Coach of the ward you are playing with if you will not be coming at all,  so they don't go to the trouble of picking up all their girls and driving over with less than five.  It is a 30+ minute round trip for those in Liberty and they need fair warning so they don't make the trip over. 

4. Please bring the Eligibility Forms filled out to your first game.  The forms are good for the whole year.

If at all possible, after a forfeit, we will allow all the girls who show up to play a game.

Thanks so much for your help! We so appreciate you!

Pauline & Wendy
(our contact information is under the Leader Tab above)

Please REMEMBER... modest T-shirts with higher necklines, modest long shorts

and Tennis shoes. No flip flops, sandals or heels, will not be allowed for the safety of the girls and the wood floor.

Please try to arrive 10 minutes early to have enough time for pennies and line-up. If the other team forfeits and your team shows up we will still try to play for fun.