Fair Grove Park Boards’ recreational basketball season officially started with their first practice on January 5th.
Brittany Counterman, the sports director for the park board, has been there for almost eight years. She went over the details of park board basketball, “It’s a recreational league so all players get to participate regardless of skill level and experience. We encourage coaches to provide equal playing time to all players.”
“This year we have 225 Fair Grove players and one team of 8 from Pleasant Hope as well,” she continued, “We have 28 teams all with a head coach and at least one assistant coach.”
Counterman also explained her role, “I take the lead role in organizing and running the programs…I am responsible for putting out registration, organizing teams, schedules, ordering uniforms and hiring employees to referee and keep score.”
Keely McKordendale has been assisting with basketball for two years, and is the assistant coordinator for the park, “I help on practice nights, helping everyone get their jerseys, (and) setting up goals as needed.”
McKordendale went on, “On game days I get the day started by pulling the bleachers out, setting up score boards, helping as needed with pictures, and talking with families, answering any questions I’m able to!”
Counterman mentioned, “Keeley and I both oversee practice and game days to make sure everything is running smoothly.”
Practices for the league are a bit chaotic this year, according to Counterman. “We have a lot of growth in our program,” she said, “But since we share the school to offer our program there just isn’t a lot of gym space.”
She added, “We have multiple teams in each gym and they get very short practices. It makes for quite a chaotic evening.”
In turn, Counterman finds game days fun, “We start with our oldest kids around 8:30am and finish out the day with our youngest kids around 3:30. We play Saturday mornings and we use the high school gym. The kids are always so excited to play where the older kids play!”
McKordendale expressed her appreciation for the league, “My favorite thing about park board basketball is seeing all our friends and watching my own kids play.”
Counterman added, “I think my favorite part about the program is watching kids who started in PreK learn and develop as they play each year.”
She continued, “I also enjoy watching kids of my classmates or grandkids of the people who coached me when I was a kid in this league, come through the program. Watching the program continue to grow and be successful is a lot of fun.”
The league’s first game was on January 17th, and the season will run a total of seven weeks from the first practice to the last game.
