(From left to right)- Saratoga High School girls basketball players Amber Young, Cruz Escobedo and Heather Oxford were coaches for the Junior Jazz youth basketball league in April.
Three of Saratoga High School’s girls basketball team stars honed their coaching skills with local K-6 Junior Jazz last month.
Senior Amber Young and junior Heather Oxford coached Team S6 (Saratoga Team 6), made up of fourth and fifth graders, while freshman Cruz Escobedo helped coach Team S5, another fourth- and fifth-grader teams from Saratoga. The local Junior Jazz basketball league, which ended last month, included coed teams from Saratoga, Encampment, Hanna and Rock River, with boys and girls in grades ranging from kindergarten through sixth grade.
Escobedo, who did Junior Jazz when she was younger, said she enjoyed watching the boys and girls on the team develop into solid players.
“This is my first year being a coach, and I love being able to teach the kids what I already learned to make them better than I was at their age,” she said in April. “The kids have learned a lot about the basics of basketball, as well as good sportsmanship. A lot of them are also newcomers to basketball.”
Oxford and Young were also first-time coaches this year, and both began playing basketball in sixth grade. Oxford said it was fun to experience the game from a different perspective.
“It’s interesting to see the other side of the game as the coach, and this is also fun for us because it gives us something to do and keep us in sports,” she said. “The kids have gotten better at passing more instead of just keeping the ball to themselves. I have been working on getting the kids to take more shots and not second-guess themselves so much.”
Young said that coaching kids required her to start with teaching the simple skills of basketball first.
“We’ve had to learn how to coach and work on the basics with kids,” she said. “Some of them might not know how to shoot or do some of the other basics.”
With the Junior Jazz season over, the girls said they had enough fun to want to coach again. Young, however, would be starting at University of Wyoming this fall, while Oxford would be willing to coach again if needed.
Escobedo said the fun with her team has inspired her to be a coach again for 2014.
“I would sign up again for next year because I’ve had a great time coaching,” she said. “I’ve gotten better with patience while being a coach.”
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