It’s a league where all the participants are winners.
The Upward Basketball program at First Baptist Church McComb does more than teach children basketball, said program director Philip Alford. They learn about sportsmanship, character and hear the gospel.
“This is not about winning and losing,” Alford told McComb Lions Tuesday. “It’s about reaching them and building their self-esteem. We don’t keep score and we cheer for both teams.
“Upward Basketball is a mission to introduce children to Christ through sports.”
While competition is discussed to some extent, “at the end of the day, nobody’s going to tell you what the score was,” Alford said. “As long as we share the gospel, that’s the important thing.”
He said Upward Basketball began 14 years ago in Spartanburg, S.C., adding that the Upward Basketball and cheerleader programs have been at First Baptist 10 years.
“Our highest enrollment was this year with 429 children,” Alford said. “Our games are played from 6 to 9 (p.m.) on Fridays, and we start at 8 (a.m.) on Saturdays and go to 4 (p.m.)”
The season lasts six weeks, and children have 3 to 4 weeks of practice before the season starts. They practice one hour a week during the season, he said.
All of the coaches and officials are volunteers.
“We try to teach children the fundamentals of basketball, and during the one-hour practice the gospel is presented to them with a devotional and an object lesson,” Alford said.
“The children are given a verse to memorize for the next practice, and they are rewarded for learning it.”
Alford said the children’s basketball skills are evaluated at the start of the program to ensure that they are matched against children of equal ability during games.
Players’ skill levels are noted by different colored wrist bands, with blue identifying the most skilled players and gold representing the least skilled in each age group.
All children play in the games, and each gets the opportunity to start, Alford said.
The games are broken into six six-minute periods, with a break after the third period, when the cheerleaders give their cheers, and a church member or lay person delivers a devotion with an evangelistic message.
The goal of the games, Alford said, is to develop an atmosphere where the children receive encouragement and learn from the examples of their coaches and parents.
Criticism of the coaches, officials and players is prohibited, he said.
“It’s quite an adjustment to sit there and watch the games and bite your tongue and not say anything about a referee’s or a coach’s decision,” he said.
Alford said children are awarded with stars after the games for their play, and all the children are eligible for a special star awarded at the end of the season for the child who is the most Christ-like.
“This is not just a First Baptist program,” he said, adding that children and adults from other churches and faiths participate in the program.
“We try to make this program as user-friendly as we can,” he said. “We could not do this program without the prayers of the people in the community and the work of the volunteers who work with us day in and day out.
“We’ve come a long way in 10 years.”
