Hello from Nevada! 

I’m filling in for Amy this week, as she has no time to write her column by the deadline. 

She spent the week in Orlando at a Pop Warner event promoting Fanbooks.  She came back late Tuesday night to turn right back around and head back to Las Vegas the next morning to set up their Fanbooks booth for the 2018 National Finals Rodeo. 

She is working very hard to get this company going and they are making great strides.  If you haven’t learned about Fanbooks yet, make sure you check it out.

We have built two of them for parents to purchase for school events and they have both turned out great and make perfect mementos. 

Basketball season is upon us and we are gearing up to have a busy few months.  Now that Analise and Antonio are 6^th graders in middle school they had the chance to go out for the team. 

After thorough questioning that Analise really was going to try out for the team I also committed to applying to be an assistant coach for the girls’ teams.  

I haven’t coached basketball at the middle school level since right before the twins were born. 

I was chosen for the position but was then soon moved to the head B-team coach as the existing coach decided that she wasn’t going to be able to make the time commitments as she recently had a baby.

Our school has an A-team and a B-team made up of 24 players.  Traditionally the B-team is made up of 6^th and 7^th graders and the A-team is made up of mostly 8^th graders with some 7^th graders. 

Making the B-team as a 6^th grader can definitely be tough as they are competing against 7^th graders.  

Analise and Antonio both went through their three days of tryouts. 

Analise did great and had enough skills to make the team!  We were able to keep four 6^th grade girls, which seems like a low number but our 7th grade girls are very skilled and we kept a lot of them. 

The boys’ teams had over 60 boys tryout which was a very high number.

After seeing how many boys were out for tryouts I was a little nervous for Antonio to make the team. 

They decided to keep three 6^th grade boys and luckily Antonio was one of them!  

I would say he got lucky, but he has been playing in the community league since he was in 2^nd grade and improved greatly throughout those years even as he played other sports throughout the year. 

 Isaiah also decided he wants to stick with basketball and has the opportunity as a 2^nd grader to play in the instructional division in our community league only if his parent coaches the team. 

I’m not sure how we will make it work but Amy said if I coach she will also help and can cover for me when we have weekday middle school games.  

Isaiah went through his evaluations this week and we will start practices and games in January.  

The kids will all continue with soccer practice for their club teams two times a week as we go through this basketball season! 

I’m sure Amy will keep you filled in as we try to keep our heads above water the next few months.  Have a great week!

Ben Veloz