Families and Players:
What a great summer for our boys at all levels. I was able to spend quality time with our incoming Frosh class on Mondays and finish the season with a Varsity team bonding trip in the Dells at Chula Vista, all while going to graduation parties for our first senior class and saying goodbye. The summer consisted of three leagues and many tournaments. We played Varsity and JV leagues at BC and Wisconsin Lutheran. We played only freshman at South Milwaukee this year. We felt the competition was an upgrade for us at BC and the same at WLC over the SM league. We also felt that the refereeing was better in the two leagues on the north side this year. Next year we will be moving our Frosh to Pewaukee. We feel it will be more competitive compared to only two teams and we will get away from the atrocious refereeing. Our players and parents were irritable the entire time. The two big summer moments for our Varsity team happened in Plymouth and JustaGame fieldhouse in the Dells. Plymouth is always an important weekend as it's an opportunity for our team to bond but also rep their individual and team abilities in front of Mark Miller--the basketball writer from Wissports and Wisconsin Basketball Yearbook. We went 2-2 in the pool but had great showings from Jacob Vonderwell, Soph, all tournament team and Marcus Lee who made clutch FTs down the stretch. With our team complete we would have won both games. Missing a couple guys we competed but lost. With that solid effort and some practices and AAU completed we had a solid group of guys and went to the Dells and won our pool going 3-0. We looked stronger, faster, and more skilled than the HS teams we played. We ran our Swing very well and all our sets and defensively collaborated very well. We lost in the semi finals to an AAU out of Lax but fought till the end. they made 19/25 3pters. We had it down 48-45 with 9 min left and lost by 14. Marcus Lee with 30pts but easily was the best player on the floor that game and loved watching him make all the right reads in our offense. Jacob and Zak Klug kicked in strong efforts to help keep it competitive. The weekend was a success with chillin teammates and eating and chasing Pokemon. Next summer we are headed to Ohio University team camp to see our old Frosh coach, Joe Gricar! SUMMER CAMP This summer we ran three weeks of camps. Part of building our culture is from the youth up and having our players feel a part of that pride. We had some part time contributions from some guys: Ron, Calvin, Cody, and Hugo. They all helped out but our Varsity core stepped up and did a great job with 3/4, 5/6, and 7/8 grades. Thanks to all those boys. They earned the Dells trip. They coached stations, drafted teams, managed teams and behaviors, and had to referee games. Three weeks of hard work: thanks to Zak K, Jacob, Ryley, Caleb, Abe, Eddie, and Z Pow and Zach M. I think our culture was instilled and the youth kids get it. They heard all the same language we use at our level. The 3/4 graders to Varsity run the same offense and defense and was great to see the older guys teaching how we teach. Thanks to all the families involved helping us with camps: Decker, Klug, Bartoshevich, Tilley, and Clarks. We had a ton of little guys helping, including my son Eli coaching a 3/4 grade team, running score boards, managing stations, and more: Brady, Dolan, Carter C, Mason K, Carson F, Terrence Shellton, Grayson, My assistants Stekel, Reed, and the new coach Depouw along with the old Frosh coach Gricar all were huge in making this a success. After expenses and we are hoping to have raised 10k. A majority of those monies will be used for our annual trips--which begin next year to Orlando, Florida. Coaching Changes Part of building a good program is hiring good coaches. Unfortunately, good coaches don't stay too long. Joe Gricar took a job at Ohio University. Freshman Coach --Ryan Depouw We are very fortunate to have a new teacher in the Franklin school district fill this position immediately. Ryan Depouw will be coaching freshman this year while also teaching social studies at the high school. Some of you may have met him. He is a go-getter and a sponge. A really nice kid with the passion to learn. He has bought into our culture immediately. He was a WBCA All-Star in high school and averaged 29.5 points a game for Oconto. That is a small school near Green Bay, Wisconsin. He played for a very competitive AAU program and then played four years at Lawrence University and last year student taught and coached with a varsity program in Appleton. He will be really helpful for modeling and explaining in small groups. JV Coach Joe Stekel, an experienced coach, helped our program get off to a good start last year by providing plenty of strategy and program implementation ideas. He taught in MPS last year while helping us coach but located another opportunity to teach in Illinois and thus will be leaving our coaching staff. Best of luck to coach Stekel in his new opportunities. We have posted a new position and will be looking for our coach over the next month. A few people already reached out to us inquiring about the opening and that is exciting. Next! We now begin our fall workouts. Until Labor Day will start our complex program in the weight room. Complex refers to building sets on same muscle group--back to back. Our days of the week will remain consistent on Mondays and Wednesdays. Will work out on Fridays and Sundays but please review our website for schedule times and necessary changes because we may not work out on football nights of home games. We may switch some Sundays to Saturdays due to Gym restrictions. Will start running hills this Sunday. Will start with 9 this week and build up to 22 the week before the season starts. As we get into school we may change Hills to weekdays instead of weekends and most likely two Saturdays because we will have leagues on Sundays beginning in September. We did this last year and we had every much more involvement. The hills are essential for building mental and physical toughness and overall team camaraderie. I really encourage all the players and families of players or if you know of someone who may be interested in playing basketball to have them come work out. Our workout program is injury prevention first and athlete performance second. Fall Sport Athletes We know we have soccer, volleyball, cross country, and football athletes that may want to play basketball in the winter. For new families or a reminder of last year, we want to offer up the same opportunities for your athletes that we have for our non fall or basketball only athletes. If your Athlete wants to participate in the workouts in the weight room feel free to come. They can use as a maintenance program which I will adjust according to their sport. There is nothing wrong with continuing to strength train during your season. I will make sure that they will not suffer from overuse but instead use it as a lactate acid recovery and flexibility program. If they want to come to the gym and they are varsity athletes we will let them shoot and work out but not have any contact in game formats. We will have a fall league at new Berlin West and Brookfield Central and South division. The first two are Sunday legs. If they want to participate in those legs and they are not varsity athletes please seek out our fall league youth program coaches Steve Lee and Keith Decker. We encourage anyone involved in football or any sport for that matter to come to the Sunday open gyms and put up shots as we have a shooting program similar to a strength program. Last year Max Alba was found on Sundays often and it saved him weeks of catch-up time with the ball. Complete schedule: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B77S9XWUqUxKbmNHY1lWNE1rR0E/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msexcel or at the Saber Hoops Website: http://saberhoops.weebly.com/practice-schedule--more.html Podoll's Points It's official, we are into our second year with the program. We are still building culture and we are still building expectations. We aren't where we want to be yet with regard to culture, work ethic, systematically basketball wise, skills or strength, but myself and my asst Coach, Marcus Reed, are very excited about the one year of growth we had. This year our theme just adds on to the one from last year. Last year we had a theme "the game honors toughness." As we preached mental and physical toughness last year, we believe this year we can boast with pride this year's mission, BRAVE: "Be Relentless Achieving Victory Everyday." This credo stems from Tim Grover's book, Relentless. There are many opportunities for your child to participate in from here until November 14th, 1st day of tryouts. We are looking for those that will be relentless in achieving a victory every day in those opportunities. Those that take advantage of those opportunities will come to tryouts physically and mentally prepared. If you can't make my opportunities work, create your own opportunities because that's being BRAVE as well! Last notes: One last chance to order our ironically labeled long sleeve summer special shirts through the Booster club. Contact Bev Klug. We have about 75 orders already and are hoping to get 75 more. We will be ordering all the shirts on Friday so please reach out to Bev via email if you'd like to order. http://saberhoops.weebly.com/fbb-shirt-order-form.html Summer League fees This past summer the FYBBA organized all of our tournaments and leagues we entered. I was an agent of the FYBBA which allowed me to coach and manage players per the WIAA. The cost was $85. If you have not paid for Summer basketball please do so. The fees approximated $4000. FYBBA donated one of the leagues reducing the cost to $3600. We are about 10 players shorts that have not paid. Later this week you'll receive an individual email reminder. Thank you. Good luck fall athletes and good luck Baller workout guys. We are excited and we expect good things to happen this year. Let your work in the off-season pay off in season. Any questions please call, text, or email me. My phone number is 414-690-5784. PS. I just had shoulder surgery today. I will be in and out over the course of the next two weeks but my assistants will handle most of the workouts as well as the varsity kids with experience. I had a lot of parents and people reach out to help volunteer, thank you. I will be at full strength in December, but will have the adrenaline running in November and be strong enough to lead a very successful try out.
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