Winter HCNS During School Basketball Season // HURRICANES BASKETBALL

A few of you have asked for some input on playing winter Hurricanes concurrently during school basketball season.

The answer is yes.

All of our most experienced athletes will do it simply because school basketball rarely puts the time into skill development that our athletes need to continue developing. Throughout my 14+ years of coaching experience, what I have learned is that at the grade school level, the school basketball experience does not provide the athletes with enough skill development opportunity and at times the athlete will stall in their progress.
You may ask why? In a nutshell, here are a few reasons I’ve come to understand why this happens.

Too many athletes; limited game minutes. If your athlete goes to a large public school, there are too many kids trying out, and some teams carry over 12 athletes on a roster. It’s really hard to gain game experience if your time is limited on the court.
The school coach has a limited time with the athletes. Most schools practice 2 times a week and within a few weeks of their tryouts they will be playing games. There simply isn’t enough time to work on skills when you have to make sure your teams has an offense, defense, press break, out of bounds, side of bounds, etc, in place to be able to compete. Most of the practice time is spent on team plays and schemes and not on your athletes skill development.
The school coach specializes in something other than basketball first. Some schools, based on their budgets, have to hire teachers at the school to coach the teams. Other schools have history of hiring coaches of another sport to coach basketball to maximize that coaches stipend / pay. Therefore, not all grade school coaches are trained in or specialize in basketball first.
Practices go too slow and is not challenging enough. Some schools don’t have athletes that play year-round, therefore, practices have to start at the most basic of levels and are going at a pace that is not challenging enough for athletes who have been through our program.

Due to all of these reasons, and some I may have not mentioned, athletes have found that a balance of Hurricanes in the winter, concurrently with their school basketball experience, has been most beneficial to their development.
Some athletes communicate to me that they don’t want to play school basketball because of the experiences they have. I do not suggest this, as I do feel that school basketball is a necessary and a beneficial experience for building relationships, camaraderie, and bonds with their peers, that will help build a strong foundation of trust, connectivity, and belonging at their institutions. We feel this is a vital component to our athletes success in the classroom because their confidence will increase as they grow a common bond and sense of community with their peers.

Will there be challenges to doing both at the same time? Possibly, but not always.

Practice conflicts. Sometimes school practice and/or games will conflict with Hurricanes. It’s not a problem. We understand that their will be conflicts and sometimes offer make-up opportunities to ensure all athletes have access to practice.
Preseason & Postseason school tournaments. Schools will schedule some preseason and postseason tournaments and they may likely conflict with Hurricane games on the weekends. Most times they don’t but sometimes they do. It’s okay to miss our games when they do! We just ask you make a concerted effort when they don’t / or are close in time!

Overall, the challenges we have to overcome are minor compared to the benefits of playing Hurricanes while doing school basketball. We do find that athletes whom continue to play Hurricanes throughout the winter continue to make progress in their development while others who stop find themselves a little behind in the spring.

We encourage you to play and we hope to see you every winter,

MARYANN WAHHAB // WINTER HURRICANES DURING SCHOOL BASKETBALL SEASON // 10.27.19
HURRICANES DALLAS // BUILDING THE HEART & CHARACTER OF A CHAMPION TM