Hey guys, this is Colin checking in again regarding our basketball program here in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

It's been a really positive past few weeks, with the Blazers and Bulldogs rolling along and momentum building at our new schools across the city. The quality of the PE classes and training sessions has noticeably picked up this week, where the foundational skills have sturdied themselves and the guys are growing more comfortable asserting themselves on the court. Kyle and I have begun expanding and increasing the complexity of the drill-work at St. Pat's and Boys' Model, and after getting over some initial confusion, the lads have impressively rose to the challenge. We were both almost in shock as we watched the different groups run through 5-man weaves and a few other passing drills with precision and discipline.

At these schools, we've been lucky enough to work with some of the best natural athletes that I've had the opportunity to coach since I've been in Northern Ireland. Amongst the groups, we have a number with sporting backgrounds in soccer and rugby which been so beneficial in easing the transition. They pass and move well without prompting, and I think given enough time, they could come together to form one of our strongest teams.

Also, as Kyle touched on earlier, last week witnessed the best performance to date by the Blazers. They out-muscled and out-hustled the undermanned Aquinas team, battling back from a 9 point third quarter deficit to win 46-43. All the lads contributed, but I was most pleased with the continuing maturation of Mark Wilkinson. We only started working with Mark last spring, but he has already grown by leaps and bounds, and his rebounding, finishing around the basket, and defensive presence were absolutely essential for the Blazers fourth quarter push. The sky is the limit for his growth as a player.

Anyway, all the schools are on break for the next week, but check back in soon for updates on our different projects across Northern Ireland.

Until then

- Colin

by Kyle Dumas

-Wednesday October 14th

The 8-mile journey between the universities of North Carolina and Duke along U.S. Highway 15-50, famously recognized as Tobacco Road, is arguably the best road-trip in basketball. An unparalleled combination of close proximity, rich history and consistent excellence places this rivalry amongst the most anticipated in any sport. However, Tobacco Road might soon face stiff competition for road-trip supremacy from an unlikely source: a discrete 300-yard long paved lane connecting St. Joseph's secondary school and Thomas Aquinas grammar school in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The first installment of this soon-to-be epic showdown came Wednesday when the Belfast Blazers of St. Joseph's and Orangefield made the short stroll to meet my upstart Aquinas squad (and by "my upstart Aquinas squad" I mean this was the first time I met most of these kids and a select few of them will eventually be chosen to partner with kids from Grosvenor Grammar School for a cross-community team coached by Ben and I, but I digress) on our home court. Evoking shades of so many of those classic ACC battles, momentum would sway back and forth repeatedly throughout the game with the ultimate result hanging tantalizingly in the balance until the very final seconds ticked away.

In the immediate aftermath of the opening tip, many of the Blazers players seemed briefly intimidated by their more experienced, favored opponents. Whereas most of the Aquinas players have been playing organized team basketball since a relatively young age, a majority of the lads from St. Josephs and Orangefield seriously picked up the sport only in the past few years as a result of Full Court Peace's cross-community team-building initiatives. As a result, the fast-breaking, quick-triggered Aquinas team jumped out to a small early lead. However, Aquinas seemed overly comfortable with its position. When they failed to extend the gap, the Blazers quickly realized that the previous year's worth of preparation (including numerous practices, games and a team trip to the United States) under veteran coaches Colin Powers, T.J. Reynolds, and Dave Tierney had given them the skills and confidence to truly contend for victory. Employing an array of solid screens on offense, coupled with a defensive attack characterized by swift steals and determined rebounding, the Blazers fought back to nearly even as the first quarter ended. Freshly motivated (and newly educated by an impromptu mid-half introduction of motion-offensive principles by Ben and I), Aquinas started the second quarter with a fury of easy baskets, eventually building the largest lead of the game. Still the Blazers refused to concede, taking advantage of each Aquinas turnover and relying on a physical brand of play to claw their way back into the game. As the first half drew to a close, it was still anybody's game.

Any veteran basketball player or coach has witnessed the transformation that can take place when a clear favorite allows a dangerous underdog to hang around just a little too long over the course of a game. In certain cases, the favored team's collective attitude tends to follow a trajectory strikingly similar to Will Farrell's movie career. At first, things come easy and everyone expects you to build on past success. Of course "Anchorman" followed "Old School." Inevitably, however, many dominant teams enter a comfort zone where future success is taken for granted. Now the favorites tend to maintain rather than excel, allowing their competition back into the fray (think "Talladega Nights"). At this point, pressure increases and mistakes start to become evident, not unlike segments of "Blades of Glory" and most of "Stranger than Fiction." Finally, in extreme cases, a complete failure to deliver occurs and the previously dominant team experiences a "Semi-pro"/"Land of the Lost"-style defeat. Standing at the center of the Aquinas huddle I feared that that this familiar path might be the team's fate as one of the players proposed, "Let's actually play this half, guys."

Unsurprisingly, turnovers continued to plague an increasingly uptight Aquinas team throughout the second half while the Blazers played an unselfish, free-wheeling game. The Coach Powers-led squad had captured the lead by the end of the third quarter and with less than 30 seconds remaining continued to hold tight to a one-point advantage. Purposefully (and largely motivated by the absence of a shot-clock), Aquinas fouled one of the Blazers more underwhelming free-throw shooters with less than ten seconds on the clock hoping that a miss would lead to quick transition for the winning bucket. The miss came as expected, but the necessary defensive rebound did not as an aware Blazer forward slid into the lane and grabbed the match-sealing offensive board. It was an appropriate deciding play considering the perseverance exhibited by the Blazers all afternoon. The prelude to Belfast's newest potential rivalry had been satisfactorily penned...


...Alright, so maybe the St. Joe's/Orangefield Blazers versus one half of a potential Aquinas/Grosvenor team isn't exactly Tar Heels versus Blue Devils. For instance, most of the Aquinas team showed up at halftime, the "underdog" Blazers team was actually mostly older than the Aquinas guys, and Aquinas co-coach Ben Honan doubled as the singular referee in his first ever game. However, a few important implications arise from our informal preseason scrimmage. While rivalry and competition are important to growing youth basketball here in Belfast, these elements are only stepping towards an ultimate goal of creating a close-knit basketball community in Northern Ireland that can supersede community differences. When working together to win as a team becomes more important than the religious or political beliefs of those you play with or compete against, then sport has made a tangible difference. On Wednesday, both Protestants and Catholics of varied social class simply played basketball. It wasn't the first time and certainly won't be the last. Yes, I would agree that our little match might not mean a whole lot on the surface but if it serves as motivation for even a bit of competition and bonding involving four very unique schools in Belfast then Tobacco Road it is.

Labels: Basketball, Belfast, october

Hey everyone just giving a quick update on the program. Last Wednesday myself (Ben) and Kyle went to Aquinas Diocesan Grammar School for our first session there. Aquinas is different to a lot of other schools we work with in that it has an established basketball program going back years. As a result we were very impressed when we got there at the quality of the facilities and the skill level of the players. This meant we got to run fairly advanced drills from the off, which was a pleasant alternative to the fundamentals-based sessions we normally run with players who are learning the game for the first time. Overall we were quite impressed by the kids involved and it looks like they could be a great asset to the program. We haven't had a chance to start working with Grovenor, the school with which they will be amalgamated, yet, so once that gets up and running the team should be a great asset to the program. In the meantime we are in the process of trying to get a challenge match for the Aquinas players against our Belfast Blazers team.

For the last two weeks now I've been doing one session a week with the younger kids in St. Joe's and I've been very impressed so far with what I've seen. I'm mostly concentrating on developing their fundamentals to make the transition easier for them when they eventually graduate to the Blazers team. So far I've found that a number of the younger kids are developing some of the basic skills of the game already, and shouldn't have any trouble making the step up when the time comes. Since these kids come along and watch our Blazers team train regularly, I'm glad to be able to give something back by giving them a chance to play some organised ball themselves.

That's all that's happening at the moment, but with a few projects in the pipeline make sure to keep up to date with all that we're doing.

Ben

If this happens to be your first time visiting the Full Court Peace blog I would recommend taking some time to look over the past five or six posts to catch up on what the FCP staff have been up to in Belfast since we landed five weeks ago. Colin, Kyle, Emily, and Ben have done a great job documenting our progress during that time. If you would like to read more on our staff, please click on the “Contact” tab above and click on “Bio” which will give you a brief bio on everyone involved with the program.

If the FCP blog happens to be one of your more regularly frequented sites, I would assume it has been Colin’s writing that keeps you coming back for more. And believe me, you are not alone. Colin was recently asked to cover Dave Cullen’s Invitational Tournament for SLAM Magazine. SLAM happens to have a circulation of over half a million people worldwide so, as the kids say, it was kind of a big deal. Colin was asked to cover a team comprised of players represented by our good friend, Noam Fishman (http://performancesportsmanagement.wordpress.com/about/). Noam, an emerging international sports agent, put in an absolutely incredible amount of work getting his clients flown over for the tournament and they did not disappoint. Anyway, Colin does it far more justice than I ever could, so click on the link below and enjoy. (Note: Colin’s article appears below Aggrey Sam’s article. Aggrey is a friend of the program, talented writer, and overall cool dude, so I would recommend bookmarking his page as well.)

http://www.slamonline.com/online/blogs/school-daze-by-aggrey-sam/2009/09/floridas-finest-and-irish-eyes/

If you recall from Kyle’s blog regarding the All-Ireland Under 21 Hurling Final, our primary reason for attending was to support Ben’s brother who is center forward for the Clare team. Well, Ben’s brother didn’t disappoint as he helped carry Clare to their first ever Under 21 title. For his efforts this season, he was recently named the Bord Gáis Energy Breaking Through Player of the Year.

http://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/championship/2009/1005/honand.html

For some more additional light reading I would suggest getting your hands on this past week’s Sunday edition of the Derry Journal. There is a full page feature on our Director of Basketball Operations in Derry, Chris Sumner. I have been unable to find the piece online, but it does a nice job of summarizing Chris’ aspirations for his work this year in Derry. When we can get him seated long enough at a place with an internet connection, I will ask him to post something here to fill everyone in on his progress.

For any further information on Full Court Peace or just to give us some feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact any of the FCP staff:

davetierney@fullcourtpeace.org
emilybango@fullcourtpeace.org
benhonan@fullcourtpeace.org
kyledumas@fullcourtpeace.org
chrissumner@fullcourtpeace.org