October 22, 2003

Volunteers keep Bulldogs on the court

Home court advantage rare opportunity for homeschool basketball team

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

       The intrinsic nature of homeschooling is, of course, that it is mostly a home-based endeavor.
      To have a girls basketball team comprised of homeschoolers, then, requires just a few extra steps - and a few thousand extra phone calls.
      Karen Bell, athletic director of the Lady Bulldogs homeschool basketball team, works the phone like a professional. The Blair Township resident spends countless hours finding teams to play, gyms to practice and hold games in and organizing details large and small to keep the team playing. Then there's fundraising, the ongoing and relentless effort to find money for uniforms, shoes, referee fees, gym rentals and equipment.
      With two daughters on the varsity Lady Bulldogs team, Bell and a cadre of devoted parents have many ways of keeping the team going. Pulling school names off the TV sports roundup, she cold calls Class C and D schools offering to play either a game or a scrimmage. She also scans the website of the Michigan High School Athletic Association for teams to contact.
      The Lady Bulldogs are members of the West Michigan Homeschool Athletic Association and play games against other homeschool teams. They also play a number of Class C and D schools in the area's Cherryland Conference. The team scrimmages with teams from St. Francis High School, Forest Area schools and Lake City schools.
      "We play 21 games and I had to fight to get those," said Bell, who over the past six years has compiled a master list of who to call where. "It was hard because we started off with 17, then people dropped."
      "When we schedule games in the spring, I tell them by all means if something better comes along, I understand, go for it; we are not a Class C school and are non-conference," she added. "It rarely happens, though, teams are so willing to play us."
      Over the years, Bell has established a strong relationship with the St. Francis High School girls basketball coach. Bell's daughters attended summer camps at the school for the past two years and the family often attends St. Francis games. This year, she decided to be outrageous and ask if the Lady Bulldogs could call the gym at St. Francis High School their home court (a vast improvement over a home court out in Mesick.)
      "I decided the worst they can say is, 'No,' and here it has been one of our biggest blessings," she said.
      The Lady Bulldogs began seven years ago and now has three teams: elementary, junior high and varsity. Led by the coaching duo of Kris and Rachelle Crosby, both ardent basketball enthusiasts, the teams have compiled an impressive series of 11 trophies for top three finishes. They achieve this success despite not having tryouts - the Lady Bulldogs accept any homeschooler who wants to play.
      The varsity team is currently 14-3 and is fielding one of its best teams ever, with members week after week leading the sports round up for all schools in the region in steals, rebounds and highest scorers. As fifth and six graders, the junior high team players won the all-city championships for the past two years running.
      The success is quite a contrast to their first season, when blowout losses of 60-2 and 72-10 marked their first two games. Kris Crosby started the team with complete raw material: players who knew virtually nothing about the sport.
      "Our kids barely knew the anatomy of the court, let alone how to play the game," recalled Crosby, who volunteers his time as coach. "It stayed that way till almost the end of the season, then it seemed like a few of the kids started to buy into the basketball way of thinking and the fact that it takes hard work to achieve victory."
      "We finished the season on a high note as we took second place at the Home School State Championships for the junior high level," he added.
      Contrary to one perception about homeschooling, Lady Bulldogs members do not play basketball all day, every day. (They practice three times a week for two hours at a local church gym.) In fact, members of the varsity team squeeze basketball into their busy academic schedule and around work commitments, family time and extracurricular activities.
      "Since I'm homeschooled, I usually get done with school around 12 o'clock or so and then I have a while before going over to basketball practice," said Elissa Peterson, an 11th grade homeschooler from Elk Rapids. "Basketball is my favorite sport, the only one I play."
      Leah Bell has been playing on the Lady Bulldogs varsity team for the past six years and is a standout player. Now a senior, she averages 23 points a game and in September passed the 1,000 point mark for scoring. She credits the team and coaching for her success, noting that Kris Crosby has taught her everything she knows about basketball.
      "This year has been the best year because we've all played together and we all know each other so well," said Bell, who for the past two years has been named as part of the all-region Class D team, despite not being on a Class D team.