We’re excited to get the winter basketball season underway with games beginning November 7th for many of our teams.

We would normally host a parent meeting prior to the beginning of the season but due to restrictions on facility use we’re not going to host an in-person parent meeting this year. Please take a few minutes to review this post as we will try to cover some normal parent meeting topics.

Rosters – Rosters have been created in TeamSnap for the upcoming session. Unique to this year, we will likely need to ask players to pick up a few extra games when we find ourselves in a situation where a team is short due to a player in quarantine.

It’s highly likely we will have players who are asked to quarantine from school. When a player is asked to quarantine as a result of a close contact to a Covid positive case, we’ll expect the player to also miss basketball activities during the quarantine period. Once approved by the local health authorities to return to school, the player may resume basketball activities.

TeamSnap – We will once again use TeamSnap to manage our program communication, schedules, gym directions and also manage player availability and health screenings. New to TeamSnap this year there is a feature allowing you to answer a few short questions as a health screening. Parents will be asked to mark their child’s availability for games and also to fill out a health screening prior to each game. Coaches will use this information should we need to contact trace.

Player Fees – Families will receive an invoice thru TeamSnap for our November / December activity. You will be able to pay the invoice directly on TeamSnap. The fees we are collecting for include the player’s pro-rata share of game costs, program insurance & our TeamSnap account. We operate the Jr. Eagles Basketball program as a “break even” organization, so all costs are merely passed thru to the participants.

Uniforms – Uniforms have been ordered and many have already been received for the upcoming season. We are hoping to have everyone’s uniform ready before our first games. An email will be sent out thru TeamSnap with instructions on how we will get uniforms distributed.

Game Schedules – CNR has released game schedules for November and December which we’ve loaded into TeamSnap.  There is still a chance some of our game locations and times could change and we’ll update TeamSnap accordingly. Due to the pandemic, CNR isn’t working with their normal amount of game locations (gyms). As a result of less space available, CNR is doing their best to get each team a minimum of 4 games during November and December with the hope that more gyms will be available for use January thru March. CNR will begin working on the January, February and March schedule in mid-November.

CNR Basketball – Spectator Guidelines – CNR has posted their spectator guidelines at this link – https://www.cnrbasketball.org/cnr-host-site-spectator-guidelines/. Having already participated in many games during the fall session under these guidelines, here is what you can expect.

  • Coaches and Officials will have their temperatures checked before every game.
  • It is up to the Coaches and Parents to only bring players to games who are symptom free. CNR will not be temperature checking every player before the game.
  • Players may enter the gym 10 minutes prior to the start of their game. Please do not enter the gym earlier as site supervisors need time in between games to clear and clean benches.
  • Some site supervisors are better than others at enforcing the mask requirement for every spectator.
  • Similarly, some sites are better than others at regulating the number of spectators entering the gym.

We ask that all of our families adhere to the guidelines exactly as defined by CNR. Please do not push the envelope here just because you might get away with it. It’s important to us, as a program, that we serve as role models for our kids and for other fan bases.

Fan Conduct – Along the lines of being a good role model and supporter of the program, we ask our fans to represent the Jr. Eagles in a positive way. Fans are asked to cheer for all of the players on the team, not just their child.

We completely understand that watching your child can be an emotional experience. That being said, please do not coach from the sidelines; let the coaches coach and let the officials officiate. We will have our share of good and bad officials and it’s safe to say we won’t get every call. We don’t need fans yelling out “travel” or “three seconds” during games. Do your part to create a positive environment for our kids to learn the game of basketball and grow as teammates.

Skills Development during a unique season – In a typical year we would be practicing with our teams twice per week. During the course of a season we would normally see meaningful progress made on the skill development continuum. Realizing we likely won’t have practices this year, our coaches will be using the time during games to teach game concepts. We are holding a coaches meeting prior to the start of the season to share strategies for teaching concepts and will be available to our coaches throughout the season to offer any assistance / ideas.

Interaction with Liberty H.S. program – During a typical year we would host several Jr. Eagles nights at Varsity Basketball games. Unfortunately due to the pandemic and the need to restrict crowd sizes, we do not have any Jr. Eagles nights scheduled. As information is available about “live streaming” opportunities of basketball games we will share this information with our Liberty Basketball community.

Additional Links:

Jr. Eagles Facebook Page

Jr. Eagles on Twitter

CNR Basketball on Twitter

Liberty Boys Basketball on Twitter