First Tournament Trip

This past weekend we headed out for our first tournament trip of the year to Milwaukee, Wisconsin!!!! This will be the first of many trips we will take around the U.S. this spring and summer as Jake’s teams play against the best competition in the nation. The goal for Jake’s high school teams in these next few months are to prepare and sharpen up for the ‘live period’ in July when all the college coaches attend the tournaments to scout out players and offer scholarships. It’s a pretty exciting time to look forward to, but all the hard work must be put in now so that the high school players will be ready for the exposure. For Jake’s younger teams, the goal for these traveling tournaments is basic skill development and learning to understand the game of basketball (not only on a physical level, but intellectually as well). One of my favorite things about having the younger teams along at the tournaments is to see how the younger players watch the high school players in absolute awe! They really are looking up to the older guys…..you can just see it in their eyes. It’s like they are watching them and dreaming of the day when they will be able to play that way too. Jake is always telling the young players that when they watch the high school kids play, they are not supposed to just be a spectator. They are to study the players. They are to notice how they come off screens, cut to the ball, execute the press, get open down low, and how they display leadership, etc, etc. Little did Jake know that JJ must have taken his words to heart this weekend too….. because, all weekend long I noticed JJ wiping off his shoes with his hands just the way the players do right before they go into the game. It was hilarious! He thought he was SO COOL! Here are some pictures!

Getting packed

Getting the vans loaded up at the gym. Sam was SO EXCITED for this trip. Can you tell?

Someone else has been waiting for this moment too!

We had to take 3 – 16 passenger vans on this trip! Any player who’s parent can’t come to the tournament can send their player to ride in the vans and be in the care of the coaches for the weekend.

Pitstop at Wendy's

Finally, it’s game time! Daddy has been waiting all year for this!
Coaching the 16 & under boys (this team ended up winning the championship).

Coaching the 17U boys

The younger players like to sit at the end of the bench and watch the older teams’ games. That is Sam there wearing the headband (the one that he caught at the Iowa Energy game!).


I love this picture! This is Sam watching Mac Irvin Fire playing (orange jerseys). They are a team out of Chicago and they are usually the top team in the tournament that everyone wants to beat. They have monster dunks that really get the crowds fired up!

This was Sam’s first traveling tournament. He told us that he had never stayed in a hotel before!!!! For the life of me I could not get a good, clear picture of him playing (I’ll blame it on my camera), but I did manage a really quick (10 second) video of him driving to the basket during one of his games. Of course I missed his awesome drive a few minutes before this video in which he scored a perfect floater after his drive, but thought you might enjoy this short excerpt anyways.




JJ did his fair share of dribbling too of course!

And Jayla got to skip her nap Saturday afternoon which called for a popsicle in order to halt a very loud tantrum. :)

She also enjoyed running up to Daddy after his games (just like JJ used to).

A kiss for the coach even!!!!

We also got to enjoy some Easter Sunday bubble chasing that another family let us in on (and these were the giant bubbles)!

I really wish this picture would have turned out! It so captures the joy on their faces!

And this picture pretty much sums up our first trip....

Exhausting, but oh-so-fun! Up next is Arkansas in two weeks!