Pre-Season No More!

Today is Monday October 22nd, 2007. Today marks the start of the week before our season starts. It is during this week that we ask our players and coaches to rest their minds and bodies so that when the season starts (October 29th) we will be at full mental capacity.

Think back to the end of the season last year and how much has changed. Players are either better or worse ; they can either jump higher or lower, they understand the game better or worse, faster or slower, they basically are at their best or not. The offseason for a player is similar to walking in snow - we will always see your footprints. Your game tells us all how hard you have worked in the offseason ; your game tells us whether this was a good offseason for you or not.

It is the same way for coaches. Coaches are either more knowledgeable or less. Did our coaches work as hard as possible? Attend enough clinics or practices? Work hard for our athletes? Support our players while they play travel ball? Coaches these days work so hard in the offseason, too.

I am content with our offseason here at American Heritage. I am happy with most things, but, as always there are a couple of things we could improve upon. I am 100% certain that we worked hard to get our players better and put them in positions to succeed over the summer.

The Pre-Season is no more ; it is almost time for the regular season!

I have included a dunk by junior Everton Chin for you to see. His athleticism is exposed nicely in the video, as he gets his 5-10 frame above the rim.

SPARQ Training ; Kenny Boynton & Eloy Vargas Dunk; College Coaches Galore

These are videos of Kenny and Eloy dunking from last nights workout. How explosive are they?????

Last night was fun for both the boys and girls teams at American Heritage School as we participated in the SPARQ training. SPARQ stands for "Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction and Quickness". The 2 hour event was held inside our gym and tested our 2 varsity teams. (I have posted tons of photos from the event on out photo page). The girls and the boys both had a good night in terms of the results - but - believe me when I tell you this I was thrilled with the night for OTHER reasons. Last night I saw our players cheer for each other in these events. I saw our players give their own custom celebrations after one of them did well in an event. I saw the boys players root for the girls players, and vice versa. I saw our coaches root hard for our players, and our players get a kick out of the coaches trying their hands at some of the events. Basically, I saw the beginning stages of our team coming together and building chemistry. I loved it! To read the official SPARQ report on our school, click here.

Over the last week we have had an abundance of college coaches at school. The coaches stop by during the day at school for a few minutes, or they stop by at night at one of our workouts. American Heritage is a destination that the coaches feel they MUST go to, and that is a credit to our players - ALL of our players. While several coaches stop by to see Kenny or Eloy, we also have several coaches who have stopped by for our other players, too. The coaches tell me daily that our team is getting better daily, and I love to hear it from them.
Tonight (Friday) is a home football game. Our football team is 5-0 going into the district matchup with Coral Springs Charter, and will come out of tonight with another win. I will be in attendance to root them on, as several football players will play basketball this year, and, the coaching staffs of the basketball team and football team are good friends.
I am looking forward to this weekend, as the University of Florida plays # 1 ranked LSU in football, and our fall league entry will play at LaSalle High and at the new Miramar Rec center. It should be fun.