Nov21
K-3 Upward Basketball
Every Thursday, from 10/24/2024 to 01/16/2025, 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Registration is OPEN for 24-25 season
For information please contact:
Upward League Commissioner
Justin Miller
or
North Main Pastor & Upward Coordinator
Melissa Hickman at
or (office) 724-332-7813.
The registration link is: https://registration.upward.org/UPW87177
Online registration will be open until October 8th and the cost is $85 plus an optional $14 for basketball shorts or cheerleading mock turtleneck. There is a sibling discount of $15. We strongly encourage everyone to register online (makes our lives much easier) but in case that is not your cup of tea, I attached a registration form that you can fill out and either drop off or mail to the church. We do have scholarships available for families in need. If you need a scholarship, please contact me for more details.
Players must be at least in kindergarten to participate and we are not allowing basketball players to “play up”. However, if your 3rd grader decides to play for their school team, we will allow them to play in our 4th grade league so they don’t miss out on the action.
When registering, you can mark a night that you absolutely cannot practice. Due to the continued growth of our league, some teams may choose to practice on Fridays. You can also mark a carpool link. This is only if you child has a sibling, cousin or neighbor in the same grade. Please don't put friends together unless you are their only ride. We will try our best to accommodate practice night exclusions and carpool links for basketball. Cheerleading coaches will pick their practice night closer to the season. If it doesn't work out then we will issue a full refund.
Uniforms
If you love the Celtics or Spurs, you are in luck this season! All basketball players receive a reversible jersey and a t-shirt and the cheerleaders will receive a cheer top, skorts and accessories (don't want to ruin the surprise!). Shorts are completely optional and are black (I think the same ones as flag football if you participated). Mock Turtlenecks are also optional for the cheerleaders and are the white just like in years past. Attached you will find a sizing chart as you will be asked to give your child's size while registering. There are separate sizing charts for cheerleading and basketball so please make sure you are looking at the correct one. I think the uniform vendors are the same this year so you can use last year's uniform as a guide. For flag football, the cheer tops seemed to run a little small. I will be able to order extra sizes so if your child grows another 10 inches over the next two months, we will be able to swap them out for a different size. Attached you will find our uniforms for this season so you can accessorize.
Evaluation Day
Great news! We have an Evaluation Day for basketball players where we will do our best to make the teams as even as possible. They are mandatory and this year the Evaluation Day will be Saturday, October 12th where you can show up anytime between 9 am and 2 pm. It went pretty quick last year if you made it as the make-up day did not go so quick so please try your best to come on the 12th. For our new families, evaluations are not tryouts. They are an opportunity for your child to become familiar with our gym and go through a series of stations so we can make the teams as even as possible. If all goes well, your time commitment should be less than 30 minutes.
Why are evaluations so important? Upward surveyed all their coaches and players and found that 85.5% of coaches prefer balanced teams versus playing with friends. Parents were 75-80% in favor of balanced teams. If we find some of our teams seem "stacked" after the first game or two, we may choose to try to even out the teams.
If you absolutely cannot make the 12th, please contact me so we can make other arrangements.
Coaching
I heard if I coach, I get some really cool swag?
Not only do you get a coveted Upward polo shirt that will make all of your friends envious, you get to see why our coaches are the reason our league us so successful! If you love God and if you love kids then you are qualified to coach in our league. We make it easy for you to be a successful coach by helping you every step of the way. If you have a friend you would like to help you out, please let me know so I can pair you up. You can register to volunteer online https://registration.upward.org/UPW87177/volunteer or email me directly. We also know many of you have someone at your church (or maybe yourself!) who would be great at giving halftime devotions let me know as we love having speakers from different churches. Just pass along their name and contact information.
I signed up to coach before Justin tracked me down...now what?
Thank you so much for helping us out as we really need coaches for basketball and cheerleading!! I will be in contact with you to help us out at evaluations and we will also have a mandatory coaches’ meeting on Tuesday, October 22nd from 7-9 pm. We will be meeting in the Life Center this year. During this meeting, we will be finalizing rosters, picking practice days and times, handing out gym keys, and going over all our expectations as coaches. Did I mention that this meeting was mandatory for coaches?
Practices
My other sport just ended where we had to practice 8 days a week. Will we have to practice that much for basketball or cheer?
There will be one- 1 hour practice per week and your practice day and time should not change from week to week. The first week of practice will be October 28th - November 1st (no practice on Halloween). Your coach may choose to practice on Saturday, November 2nd. For your reference, Kindergarten and 1st graders will use a 27.5” ball and 2nd and 3rd graders will use a 28.5” ball but any ball will suffice for practice.
Games
I went on StubHub and couldn't find information on games or tickets?
Good news...games are free! We will be playing games cross court as we have done in the past and with two games being played simultaneously. Games last about an hour. Game times will start anytime between 8 and 5 depending on the number of teams. We mix up the game times as we know your kids are involved in other activities on the weekends and this hopefully will minimize the number of games they will miss. Cheerleaders will cheer in the mornings. There will be no practices or games the week of Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years. First game will be November 9th and last game (and awards ceremony) will be January 18th.
Hey...you forgot about the 4th-6th Graders!!
Registration for the 4-6th grade season will open by mid-December. Evaluations will be in the last week of January and practices will start the beginning of February. Last year it worked out that our season started after the school seasons were wrapping up. We try to have our season end before spring sports start. If your child is in 3rd grade and is playing for their school, then they can play in our 4th grade league.
My friend didn't talk to me for weeks after they saw all my amazing Facebook posts of my kids playing Upward last season and they were too late to sign up!
Every season, it breaks away a little piece of my heart when I have to tell a family that it is too late to register. Please share this email with anyone you know who would be interested in our program as we can't wait to meet new families!
God Bless and GO UPWARD!!
Justin Miller