The McAuliffe tryouts for 6th-grade boys were held Tuesday and Wednesday of March 2024. It was after school in the north gym. It started with warm-ups and then we hopped right into scrimmaging. The scrimmaging was really crazy and felt similar to recess basketball. Fouls were not called, there were multiple games going on at once, and the teams were not grouped randomly (people chose their teams, giving some teams a huge advantage). 

My personal thoughts on the tryouts were that they were unfair and it was too hard to see the real skill level of anyone. People were all pretty much just trying to score, without passing, and the coach Mr.Kemf did not see all of the moments from everybody because of the multiple games going on at once. Mr.Kemf also should have included skills challenges instead of just playing scrimmages. This way it would be easier to see the real skill level of everybody and create more accurate results. It would have also caused more order, and less free-for-all recess-like basketball. Compared to the tryouts of a competitive club team called “The Bureau ” the McAuliffe trouts were considerably worse. At the Bureau tryouts we had warm-ups, then dribbling, speed, and shooting skills challenges. After that we then had scrimmages that were properly refereed and were more organized. At the Bureau I felt as if I were playing organized basketball, and that the coach was able to make proper and well informed decisions.

I asked some people that were in the tryouts what they thought about the overall structure of the tryouts and here is what they said. Tucker Jackson said very minimally about the topic, as he said, “They were fine.” I then asked Charlie Turney, and he said, “The tryouts were very chaotic, and it was hard to even sub in bench-warmers.” I interviewed Mr. Kempf about the tryouts and he said this.

Q: So what do you look for in basketball players?

A:So for basketball, we are just looking for different basketball skills, shooting, passing, dribbling, attitude, effort, being a good teammate, unselfishness, stuff like that.

Q:Since so many kids were trying out, was it even a possibility to make more teams?

A:We have enough kids for more teams because McAuliffe is a big school, but I went to the coaches meeting for district and the main reason we couldn’t make more teams was that the other schools didn’t have enough teams, and we are only playing one team so far.

Q:In the tryouts do you think you should have done skills challenges or scrimmages?

A:We do a little bit of skills and warm-ups at the beginning, but then most of it is just getting out and playing. We have a lot of kids and it’s hard. We have always done it this way in varsity, so we kind of did the same thing.

Q:Is it hard to see the skill set of the players with so many kids?

A:Oh, definitely it is tough seeing everything, you just do the best you can, and we try to get everyone to play in the try-out scrimmages, that’s why we usually do call backs, to make sure everyone has a chance to give their all. 

In all you now know the inside scoop on how I feel, others feel, and the coach feels regarding the 6th grade boys basketball tryouts.