GCAA would like to take this opportunity to wish its players, coaches volunteers, parents and especially our intramural sponsor, Lane Office Furniture a healthy and Happy New Year! GCAA Basketball is extremely proud of our accomplishments and we do realize it has been a team effort to meet our goals. Thank you again to Lane Office Furniture for their continued financial support.

This week GCAA hosted the first 2010 GCAA grade based clinics with the 2-3 girls taking the court at St. Paul’s Monday Jan 11th and the 2nd grade boys taking the court on Tuesday Jan 12th. Thank you to the St. Paul’s Rec Dept employees who were extremely helpful in getting up 8 foot baskets for these younger division 6:00-7:30PM grade based clinics and setting up the smaller hoops for our GCAA Challenger program with its start date of Saturday January 9th.

With a few late sign ups in Decemmber 2009, our intramural total surpassed the 800 player enrollment mark with a total of 56 intramural teams. In addition, GCAA has 17 travel teams totaling in excess of 180 players participating in the Island Garden Super-League and over 90 players playing in the GCAA Challenger Basketball program.

The popularity of our 2nd grade boys, 2-3 girls and 7-8 Boys divisions have continued to enjoy success with a game concept approach. Our K-1 clinics and younger grades have been designed in a manner to ensure kids develop a standard level of basketball skills as they move on to the next level whether it be in an intramural or travel setting. Many parents moving from other communities have commented how wonderful it is to have these basketball opportunities available for kids as young as kindergarten age and leagues for grades as young as 2nd grade.

Our GCAA intramural program is a strong one with drafts, standings, scores and professional referees and it only continues to get better. For players wanting a little more, GCAA runs a very successful travel program as a complement to our intramural program. At present, we have 17 GCAA travel teams playing in the Island Garden Super League. Not only do we have a competitive program, our cost structure to each player is very favorable as well. Due to the size of our program, we have been able to negotiate discounts resulting in a cost per travel player of $265 plus $50 for a new uniform if one is required plus $60 for our GCAA intramural program. Many other groups, whether AAU or community based, charge $500-600 per player for an 18 game Island Garden season. It should also be noted our all Garden City teams typically compete against teams with players from multiple towns with teams that upgrade every year and some girls teams are required to play up given the number of teams in each league. For example the 4th grade girls team must play in a 4-5 league but the experience gained this year will helpfully contribute to that team’s success in future years. Despite this competitive disadvantage, many of our teams are doing very well with 3 teams leading their respective divisions and many other teams near the top of their leagues. The skills and drills we developed 3-4 years ago have certainly contributed to the success of our 3rd and 4th grade teams now.

Like any program, GCAA continues to explore ways to enhance and improve its basketball programs. Should you have any suggestions or ideas to upgrade the GCAA basketball experience, please contact via email one of the GCAA Basketball Directors listed below.

You can follow our intramural game results and standings on the GCAA website, www.gc-aa.com. Full team rosters and schedules for our intramural teams are posted on the website. You can follow the GCAA travel teams on the Island Garden website, www.islandgarden.com. Look for updates on our GCAA

Travel Program in future editions of the GC News.

GCAA Intramural Basketball will play games on following dates:

Sat Jan 16th

Sat Jan 23rd

Sat Jan 30th

Sat Feb 6th

Sat Feb 27th

Sat March 6th Playoffs Start

Sat March 13th Championship Weekend

During Feb break, there will be open play on Sat Feb 20 and Sat Feb 27th but no formal games.

The GCAA intramural clinic/game program will run as follows:

Saturdays

K-1 Clinic Boys and Girls 8:00-9:00AM at St. Paul’s

2nd Grade Boys 9:00-10:00AM at St. Paul’s

2nd-3rd Grade Girls 10:00-11:00AM at St. Paul’s

4th-5th Grade Girls 9:00, 10:00 or 11:00 at GC Middle School

6th-8th Grade Girls 11:00-12:00 at St. Paul’s

7th-8th Grade2 Boys 11:00-12:00 at St. Paul’s

3rd Grade Boys 12:00-1:00 at St. Paul’s

4th Grade Boys 1:00-2:30 at St. Paul’s

5th-6th Grade Boys 2:30-4:00 at St. Paul’s

Mondays

5th-6th Grade Boys* 6:00-7:30 at St. Paul’s

Please note four of twelve 5-6 Boys teams will play Monday nights at St. Paul’s. We will use these Monday night times so as to avoid CYO conflicts when possible. It is anticipated each 5-6 Boys teams will play an average of 9 games on Saturdays and 3 on Mondays during our 12 game season. Games will not be played on Momnday Jan 18th but rather Tues Jan 19th since the St. Paul’s facility will be closed on Mon Jan 18th.

GCAA’s Basketball Directors are as follows:

Intramural Coordinator- Dan Dignam dignamfam@optonline.net

Travel Coordinator- Tom Granville granvill@whitneycap.com

Clinic Coordinator- Scott Paskewitz scottpask5@hotmail.com