Numbers Up

Many factors can impact participation numbers in a basketball program. One of the reasons I went to the Grinnell Style was the belief that maybe the combination of an uptempo style and playing 12-13 players would increase interest in our program. At the time I converted to using the Grinnell Style, I had three thoughts:
1- Some of our best teams in the 1990's were successful by playing and uptempo offense and by being extremely aggressive defensively.
2- The number of participants in our program were getting lower and lower.In our last year running a more traditional style of play, we had only 30 participants in 9th thru 12th grade playing basketball.
3- I honestly thought with the players we had coming up on the varsity level our best chance to win was by being uptempo and winning. So I didn't just choose the Grinnell Style to create interest.



So where does it look like we're at now? Based on the girls who have picked up forms for basketball, we have 41 girls who will be playing basketball on Monday when practice starts. I realize numbers can fluctuate for a variety of reasons, but there is no doubt in my mind that our decision to play the Grinnell Style has given our program a real shot in the arm.

The other night at an open gym I commented to Coach Allison how much my thinking has changed since we are using the Grinnell Style. At this particular open gym there were 17-18 girls. When we were playing a traditional style I would have looked around the gym and worried about some of the girls being disappointed because only 7-8 were probably going to get to play. But I told Andie that with what we are doing now, every kid in this gym can eventually play if they stick with it and work hard. That is exciting.

Galesburg HS's enrollment keeps going down. In 1974 when I started we were a three year school with 2200 students, today we are a four year school with just over 1200 students. But we in three years have gone from 30 participants to 41 participants- that is a positive.