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Tiger Cubs Earning their Stripes

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For the past five Saturdays Maywood High School’s gymnasium has echoed with the squeak and patter of little sneakers. Our Tiger cubs were learning the fundamentals of basketball in the months of January and February in the Short Shooters program. Short Shooters is headed up by Mr. Jones and Mrs. Stengel. The high school boys and girls basketball teams help with the program on the weekends. The program incorporated the kindergarteners, first, and second graders this year. Our coaches decided on these grades because all the other grades had their own teams they played on during the week. There were about twenty kids that took part in the program. The main focus of short shooters is to work on the kids’ fundamentals and ball handling. At the end of every Saturday ball handling games were played. This added a little competitive edge and excitement to the day.

The Short Shooter has been a program that has been established here at Maywood for around fourteen years. Mrs. Stengel has been a head of the program since the beginning and Mr. Jones has just been a part of short shooters for at least seven years. Before Mr. Jones, Mr. Kahler helped with the little cubs. A couple years ago the Short Shooter program invested in youth hoops. This has helped the kids with their fundamental; the youth hoops are shorter so it is not as hard for the kids to reach the hoop. Short Shooters is a great opportunity to expose elementary children to team sports in a way that is nonthreatening and fun. The immediate goal is for the youngsters to have fun while becoming familiar with the terms and fundamentals. The hope is, down the road, that this experience will increase an interest and enrollment in Maywood’s team sports at the junior high and high school levels All in all, Short Shooters has been a big success here at Maywood Public School.