Basketball! Er, Wait. No.

After Sydney had so much fun playing soccer - during two different six week sessions - we moved on to basketball. Our Parks & Recreation Department has a four year old division for basketball.  It's an introductory league where they teach very basic fundamentals and then have short games for the kids to play.

It is held in the gymnasium of a local elementary school.  They have six-foot rims and kid-sized basketballs.

While not overly excited about Sydney did seem to be looking forward to it.  Until we got there.

The gymnasium was about the size of a regulation basketball court with very little room past what would be the out of bounds lines.  There are two hoops on each long side of the court. That means each half-court of the regulation court was its own smaller basketball court.  That means, with the two courts there for the kids to play on, with two teams on each court, four teams could fit in the gymnasium.  With the parents, siblings and miscellaneous onlookers lining the walls just barely off the court.

They had eight teams of kids there for our session.  (And, apparently, eight more teams for the later session.)  That means that during the "coaching sessions" during the first hour of this thing two teams had to share a half court and one hoop of the already small court (so a quarter court of the full thing).

For the actual games four teams would play first while the other four sat around and waited, obviously making the sidelines even more crowded.  Then they would play after the first four teams finished (and hopefully left, making it less crowded).  But we didn't make it that far to find out how it would work out.

Yeah.  It was crowded.  It was chaotic.  Small basketballs were flying through the air and bouncing all over.

Sydney did not like it.  With a bit of coaxing I got her out on the court with me. When I managed to get a ball she shot it and made the basket. She was still very apprehensive about everything.

Her friend Hunter was in the same session, though on a different team.  He came over and shared a ball with Sydney.  She seemed happy enough so I went over to get our coats and things and move over to where Anne has gone closer to where Sydney was playing.  This was all before the session officially started during the free (for all) time.

From Anne's description of things, as I was picking stuff up a ball came close to landing and hitting Sydney. And several kids crowded in on her in apparent attempts to chase down that ball (or others in the vicinity).  And Sydney freaked.

At that point basketball was over. She got very upset and was basically hysterical. She was scared and crying. She didn't want to be there and didn't want to play basketball.  We spent a bit of time trying to calm her down and seeing if we could get her out there again.  As things became (sort of) organized on the floor and the coaches started with warm-ups she still didn't want to go.

Her coach was very nice. He came over a couple times to see how she was and try to get her out. As the kids met each other he pointed her out and they all waved to her and said hello.  But nothing could get her to play basketball.

We finally called it quits. We turned her shirt back in. We apologized to the coach and let him know she wouldn't be back in the following weeks.  He was very understanding.

At the beginning of things one of the Parks & Rec guys spoke. He mentioned that the gymnasium was small and it was crowded and hectic. This was the first year they were doing this basketball program and it had been more popular than they anticipated. They already had plans for having it more under control and less hectic for next year.

Unfortunately, that doesn't do Sydney any good for this year.

Oh, sorry.  No pictures in this post. Sydney wasn't active long enough for me to get any pictures of her playing basketball.  But maybe in the spring out in the driveway. She said she only wants to play basketball there.