Update on a meeting this past Monday between the RAYBA head coach of the grade 9-12 team and the NWSBL
Monday
A small part of the article....
On Monday evening, members of the Northwest Suburban League met with the head coach of the Rogers Area Youth Basketball Association ninth through 12th grade girls basketball team. The team was “kicked out” of the NWSL last Friday afternoon, prior to a 3-on-3 tournament, because of its skill level, in a development that made national news.
The head of the association wrote a letter that stated, “The Northwest Suburban Basketball League has decided RAYBA does not fit into the league. The main reason they made this decision is because other teams do not want to play RAYBA due to the skill level.”
Monday’s meeting featured head coach Jason Hanauska, as well as parents who were upset that the team would not be able to play for the rest of the season.
Hanauska said that he has known many of these girls since kindergarten and has watched them grow up. He wanted to give them a chance to play together during their senior year.
RAYBA does not have enough girls in the ninth through 12th grade age group to put multiple teams together. Instead, this one team of 14 girls decided it would ask to join NWSL, and the group was accepted.
“Two girls can’t play until February, so by the time they get around to being with us, we finally had seven on seven,” Hanauska said, commenting on one of the biggest criticisms he has heard over the past 48 hours of having too many girls on the team. “Five girls have jobs, so you have three to five girls at any given week that can’t play.”
The thought of splitting up the teams was brought up before the season, but because so many of the girls had other commitments, the team knew even if multiple players had to be gone, it could still put a team on the court. There also wasn’t another coach for a second team if the team were to split.
Hanauska said that members of RAYBA have also expressed possibly reaching out to other leagues that might allow the girls to play for the rest of the season.
“I’d be up for that in a heartbeat,” he said.
NWSL said it will meet with RAYBA at a later date, refusing to comment on what was said during the meeting after the doors were closed off to media.
Rogers parents were also hush following the meeting, promising NWSL a 48-hour hold on any comments so that NWSL could speak with a RAYBA representative.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
