YCA Sports Banquet

Last night was the YCA sports banquet. I had the privilege of bringing my basketball guys up one at a time and blessing them.

With my teams I don't give the traditional MVP, Most Improved, etc awards. I choose a character trait/gifting that each of them has and lift that up and encourage them to continuing developing it and using it.

This is me honoring Luke. I gave him the (Brave) Heart Award because he always played and practiced with tons of heart and passion.

As I worked through these God showed me how I need to be doing this more with everyone around me. Especially with those nearest to me. Too much of the time I find what is wrong.
What if we all continually encouraged those around us in how we see God developing them and using them?

Game Time!

Beginning this afternoon we have 3 individual basketball games (2 King HS, 1 YCA), a basketball tournament (YCA), and a soccer tournament (King HS) - between now and Saturday evening.

That's somewhere around a dozen games in the next 48 hours (and oh yeah it's gonna be lovely weather for those soccer games!) . . . we're blessed to be able to have fun watching our kids!

Need something to do in the next couple of days?

Basketball . . . and Growing Up

I haven't talked much about my basketball team at YCA of late, but a couple of things have stood out lately.

We kind of went into a funk during the holidays, and then right after. Coaching a sport gets much tougher as the season wears on - practice can get monotonous, nerves can get fragile (especially mine!).

And then early last week I starting really loosening up practice and having fun . . . and then I put in a new offense that is much more free and open (think NBA) than the offense we were running. And the kids responded awesomely. Last week we pounded two teams . . . and I must note that my Luke set his personal best by scoring 24 points in one game we won 40-23!

The principal here is, when you get in a rut, try something new! (More later in another post.)

The second thing, and the thing I was most proud of was at practice yesterday. I was running behind and got there 15 minutes late. But instead of just goofing off, a couple of the older players had organized everyone, gone through their warmups, and were doing some drills . . . all on their own!!! I was so proud of them. I didn't do anything but sit and watch for about 15 more minutes and let them do it!

It's awesome to see growth in young lives! (Or, old lives for that matter!)

YCA Baketball Team -- 1-0!

Thanks to those of you who prayed for the young men on my Hooks baseball team this Fall.

I told you then that soon I would tell you more about the YCA Middle School Basketball team. We played our first game last night and won! They did awesome!

Here are the names of those boys and I would be grateful if you would ask God to pour Himself out on them and their families:

Dylan T.
Grant B.
Hunter B.
Hunter F.
JJ Jones
Luke B.
Nathan J.
Peyton P.
Ross B.
Tucker G.
Walker G.