The boys basketball team is starting their season with a yearly kickoff, commonly known as the Green and White scrimmage. They then will go on to play other teams in the surrounding area for the remainder of the regular basketball season. We interviewed the 7th grade head coach and some players from both the 7th and 8th grade teams.
First we asked Coach, also known as Mr. Heider, the 7th grade math/pre-algebra teacher, some questions about the upcoming season. “What do you predict will happen this upcoming season?”, we queried. “We’re going to get better”, he said, with confidence. We then asked, “Are you excited for the new 7th grade players, and why, or why not?” “Yes, because it’s my first time coaching a different group.”, Coach Heider responded.” “Why do you like coaching basketball?”, to which he then concisely responded, “Because it’s a strategy game.”.
Next, we interviewed 7th grader Nohl Blunier. Our question for him was, “How are you feeling about your first year of middle school basketball?”, and he had little hesitation in his answer, which was, “Good, because I’ve already done travel basketball in the past.”. Then, we moved on to another 7th grader, Sam Eastman. We asked him the same question, and he took a moment to think about it, but when he organized his thoughts and finalized his answer, he said, “Kinda nerve racking but I think we’ll do well, our team is pretty stacked.”.
Lastly, we moved on to 8th grade basketball players Cayden Fogo and Noah Purfield; we interviewed Cayden first. We asked, “What tips do you have for incoming 7th grade players?”, and he also had to think for a moment, but he soon said, “So, whenever you’re on defense your voice is the most important part. And diving and hustling for loose balls will give you the best opportunity to play.”. Next, we asked Cayden, “Do you think you will improve your team record from last year?”, and his comment was, “Yes, very much so, last year we were 15-9. And our regional, the state champions, got moved to the other side, so we might be able to win regionals.”. We continued on to Noah Purfield, to whom we asked, “How do you plan on improving your game this year?”, who then explained that, “We will because we all grew in height and we improved over the summer as a team.”.
As you can see, there are many things to look forward to this season; making it to regionals, sectionals, and potentially a state championship. Unfortunately, there are too many variables to determine in order to make an accurate prediction about how this basketball season will play out. However, the players seem to love the game and aren’t very anxious about it; they’ve competed for long enough to realize that as long as you’re having fun, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who takes home the IESA State Championship plaque, or the bragging rights that come with it, because they had fun playing the game they love.
