Upward Basketball and Cheerleading

My daughter was involved in Upward at the church we attended while i finished seminary, she loved it, we loved it, the church loved it and it was a great outreach to the community. :thumbsup:
I'm hoping to find someway to get an Upward program started in the community i'm serving in now.

 

I've never heard of the program, Joshua. Could you tell us about it?

 

It's a great program. We don't have it at our church because we don't have the facilities. A neighboring church has started it, and we're letting one of our daughters participate.

Upwards also does Soccer!

 

I'm not Joshua, but it has been around here for a while. One of mine participated in it. Many kids around here have. I have seen nothing but good from it.

Basically it is churches sponsoring a basketball league. The teams are arranged by grade level, everyone plays, good sportsmanship taught, lots of encouragement. About an hour of practice a week. Then about an hour to an hour and 1/2 on Saturdays for the months of Jan. and Feb. At the end of each game there are prizes for things like good teamwork and good sportsmanship. Then there is a banquet at the end with prizes and a talk by a local sports hero in which there is a lowkey Gospel presentation. Lots of people who don't come to church do bring their kids to all this.

So the best thing is that the coaches develop relationships with the kids and present the Gospel formally and informally. Formally in that there is prayer at the start of games and there are devotionals that use sports illustrations but do present the Gospel.

 

This was the first year our church ran the Upward camp, not the full fledged league. The turnout was good, and it was a good opportunity for the kids and parents in the community to find out more about our church and what Upwards was all about. Being it was the first year, I expect next year's to run smoother with more word of mouth and advertising. A lot if not most of the kids came just to get the free ball and jersey, but I pray a seed was planted and at some point it matures to fruition.

 

Our church has team sports as you have described, but it's not part of Upwards ...

 

Is the Upwards program a mix of all ages? Or just for children?

 

IN our town, the upward bball program has grown larger than the local Y's. Flyers get sent to all the local schools, particpation is great. At halftime of the games the players go off to rest/talk and a devotion is given to all the spectators. there is also time reserved at the end of practice for a devotion for the players. There are ribbons given for all sorts of phases of the game(passing, rebounding shooting, dribbling etc), including sportsmanship, etc. All the kids wind up with a reward after each game. All kids play an equal amount of time - of course as the kids get older, winning becomes more important to them. All coaches had to be christians.

 

It's not just basketball...there are also upwards soccer leagues now. The things I love about it:

• None of the garbage associated with some kids' sports (unsportsmanlike behavior, unethical stuff, etc.) is allowed. At all.
• Each kid plays an equal amount. For recreational kinds of sports, it's great...takes out the politics, favoritism, and the like. If you have a future all-star, it might bother you...but everyone plays.
• (my favorite) There's not the ridiculous amount of practice and games that take over a family's life and ruin everything else. For instance, the soccer league around here practices 1 hour per week, and there is one game per week--1 more hour. That's it. No more allowed.

As with another poster, we would have this here at our church if we had facilities for it. Highly recommended.

 

I coached one season of Upward soccer.

As some have indicated in this thread, there are advantages to this program, as it teaches children to be positive, parents stay positive and it is devoid of controversy as everyone plays and we even went out of our way to try to make it to where everyone scores. Compared to the unsportsmanlike win at all costs corruption of today's youth sports it is a welcome change.

However, the things that are bad about it are the many things that sports historically taught children being essentially removed. There is no scoreboard so there's no real cause to work as a team for victory. Since no one loses there is no cause for being gracious in defeat. Finally, just like the self-esteem doctrines of our schools, where children are taught to believe they are smart rather than work to become smart, the children come away thinking they're athletes and good at the sport, rather than working to become good.

 

Rufus,
I am wondering if there are some local differences in how things are done.
For example, when my son played basketball and then other games I have attended, the score is kept and there is a winning team.
At the banquet, in addition to other character awards, there were skill awards.

 

Perhaps that is the case.

Here's some rules from their website and perhaps the teams I coached were considered instructional:

• "No league standings are maintained in any league. Such standings add unnecessary pressure and intensity.
• Scores are not kept in instructional leagues. "

​

http://www.upward.org/cr_rulesso.htm

 

Hi Rufus,

By "instructional leagues" they mean preschoolers. Keeping score in all other leagues is optional, but keeping standings is not allowed for any age. I don't have a problem with that. Kids usually have an idea of the score anyway, but keeping standings would put the emphasis in the wrong place, IMO.

As for this:

This has not been my experience. Maybe it depends on the coach. Upward provides a good opportunity for kids to experience basketball or soccer (or even flag football, which a local church tried out this year) in a low pressure situation. They get to learn the rules and work on their skills, but one hour of practice and one game per week for two months won't make anybody an athlete, and I think it is up to the coach to not leave that impression.

 

Play to win, Play the best players, WE have to beat that undefeated team, zone defenses are great, run the clear out for our star, I can't believe you didn't call that a foul!.... High school or college BB, no this is the emphasis in most 3rd/4th grade BB leagues that I have ever been associated with....

My daughter played Upward basketball last year and this year I am coaching her team. I've coached both boys and girls Varsity BB over the years and I can tell you that I am very impressed with this program. ...They do keep score starting with 3rd/4th grade but the program is designed as an introduction to basketball and to Christ through the people associated with the program. We give a devotion at every practice and the kids get stars for learning bible verses...WE SAW 28 KIDS ACCEPT JESUS AS THEIR SAVIOUR LAST SEASON!!!!!

There's plenty of time for the kids and parents to learn how to have bad attitudes and blame the refs/coaches for their failures as they get into Jr. high and High school sports later

It's awesome that this program actually introduces them to the sport, I can tell you from experience, the pure joy that these kids display is incredible...

I highly recommend Upward BB, Football, Soccer - This is a tremendous Program!

 

Practices for our Upward Basketball league started two weeks ago. The kids are already getting into the dribble of things. It is so much fun to watch even the practices.

How's your league doing Joshua?

 

Yes, and we also started upward football this year.
Also every child that signs up there family gets a visit from a team from our church, we have had several familys get saved and join the church.

 

I'm kind of surprised that cheerleading is accepted in a baptist church. They don't really do anything besides dance and provide some eye candy. There's not really a bunch of life skills that they're obtaining for use down the road. Most cheerleaders end up getting in this culture where they think they're better than others, yet as a whole, most of them end up being the least successful after high school. So, it's just kind of surprising that Baptists would promote this.