Laughs, Tears Share Same Stage In Coed Hoops

The latest jolt back to the reality that Kids Are Different Today was the bulletin from my sixth-grade son that he needed 20 bucks for his Hoopfest entry.

In the coed division.

Hoopfest has always accommodated mixed doubles, of course, and everybody else - men, women, wheelchairs, Special Olympians, media and families - in sizes small to XXXL. After seeing all the Dennis Rodman jerseys over the weekend and the dye-job special offered at the sidewalk salon, a crossdressing division can’t be far behind.

But if you’ve ever seen a 10-year-old boy put gum in a girl’s ponytail, the concept of coed hoops at the grade-school level seems potentially more volatile than call-your-own fouls in the men’s open division.

A decidedly Boomer point of view, to be sure.

“I know it,” agreed Vic Wallace, the de facto coach of the fifth-and-sixth champion Four Dimensions and a 35-ish former sprinter and football star whose youth predates this great new understanding.

“It was a get-your-cootie-shot type of deal and stay away from them.”

Kids are more enlightened now - possibly because their parents are, too. Or maybe in spite of them.

There is, however, still the occasional rough patch.

For instance, that 20 bucks. Why, I asked my sixth-grader, was I shelling out $20 for his entry but only $15 for his fifth-grade brother? “Because we only have three players,” he replied.

Why not get a second boy to make it a foursome, I reasoned.

“Because the girls won’t play with anybody I picked,” he said.

Women, I muttered. Can’t hoop with ‘em, can’t hoop without ‘em.

“What?” he asked.

“Here’s the 20,” I said.

Turns out it was a terrific investment. On courts 17 and 18, for Hoopfest’s youngest coed teams, the laughs and tears came in pretty much equal doses. The bracket won by the Four Dimensions concluded with five consecutive overtime games. Everyone behaved - everyone 5-foot and under, anyway. One boy even overruled a court monitor’s foul call, admitting he’d tripped over his own feet.

Wonder if that ever happened in the all-boys brackets?

And with a little investigation, you’d discover that with the 10 and 11-year-olds, it was often Sadie Hawkins basketball. Andy Semprimozik of Davenport shot his team to within a 2-pointer of a champion’s shirt after the boys team he wanted to be on took somebody else. Twins Brooke and Brynn Bemis of Coeur d’Alene opted in with the boys because “the girls at our school don’t play sports,” according to Brooke.

“Now, wait, yes they do,” protested their father, Brice.

“Dad, no they don’t,” Brynn insisted.

Outvoted again.

Not all the coed players start out in the sixth grade, of course. Over in the shadow of City Hall, Lake City Air captured a rather overheated championship game in one of the high school brackets, and Kelley Healey and Mysti Gomez of Coeur d’Alene mused on their second year in mixed doubles.

“It seems like guys are taken more seriously,” Healey said, “so it helps to play with them.”

Help? Their court monitor had to step in to defuse a couple rounds of elbow dancing. Doesn’t all the testosterone eventually become a pain in the butt?

“Sometimes,” Gomez acknowledged. “Some guys get angry because you’re a girl playing with them.”

And you deal with that how?

“Just stuff them once,” Healey said.

In a few years, that kind of riposte may not be necessary.

“You look at the girls playing in this bracket,” Wallace said. “They’re fundamentally sound, and the aggression is there, too. The girls step to the guys and play them strong, and so do the boys. They don’t see a boy or a girl out there, just another player. They respect one another’s games.”

You want respect? Check out Wallace’s 11-year-old nephew, Sterling O’Neil.

“I thought this would be funner than having an all-boys team,” he said, “and it was.”

And did any of his buddies give him flak for teaming up with girls?

“Nope, I tell ‘em straight,” he said. “I have a coed team and if they got a problem with it, then come to me.”

But, Sterling, this sort of thing didn’t go on when I was a kid. Why are so many kids going coed now?

“Probably because it’s the ‘90s, man,” he said.

In other words: wake up, pal. It turned out to be the theme of the day. Bright and early Sunday morning, I stumbled upon my sixth-grader’s team playing a consolation game without him. Dad had boneheadedly misread the bracket. Fortunately, a couple of young male stand-ins were available to make an out-and-out forfeit unnecessary.

Men. Can’t hoop with ‘em. Can’t hoop without ‘em.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

This sidebar appeared with the story: HOOPFEST ON-LINE For final results from Saturday and Sunday’s action, check our Hoopfest page on the internet at Virtually Northwest, an on-line service of The Spokesman-Review. The address: http:/ /www.VirtuallyNW.com

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