Photo courtesy of Annie Smith

Learning to walk before running is an old axiom that still has meaning today. Paton-Churdan Activities Director Annie Smith is a former high school athlete at East Greene who went on to a basketball career at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake. With the start of girls’ basketball practice at P-C on Nov. 6 and boys on Nov. 13, Smith talked with Raccoon Valley Radio about the basics of the sport.

“In this day and age, these kids are surrounded by professional and college teams, and that’s a different style of game, typically, than the high school game, so they want to jump right to the play of the collegiate and professional level. Sometimes our coaches have to reel them back in and say what is seen on TV requires learning the basics and you have to become disciplined.” She added she’s seen high school players that want to go right to the three-point line and shoot before become adept at the basic skills of the sport.

Tom Kennedy is the coach of the P-C girls and Greg Jacobs is the boys’ coach. She added both coaches are very good at stressing the fundamentals of the game.