Laughter, screams and bouncing basketballs can be heard from the John McGregor Secondary School gym, just after school has wrapped up for the day.
Players on the school's junior girls basketball team have finished practicing their offensive schemes at both ends of the floor. With a football game going on outside, and the annual Halloween dance later that night, Head Coach Carrie Carleton has conceded the girls' minds might be elsewhere, and opts to hold a number of mini competitions for the rest of practice. With a couple players having to leave early, Carleton finds herself jumping into a kind of "Kings Court" drill.
"I probably couldn't have done that last year," Carleton jokes as she comes off the court, practice now done.
Last year, Carleton headed the JMSS Panthers' senior team. Lead by her daughter Bridget Carleton (who's started her first year at Iowa State) they had a perfect regular season and represented SWOSSAA at the AA OFSAA Championships in Kingsville.
With most players graduating and moving on, mixed with a small turnout at this year's tryouts, Carleton and staff decided there wouldn't be a senior team this year, and instead focus on the juniors.
"It was actually gut-wrenching, to be honest," says Carleton. "After last year's season we had such success and a great group of girls who loved the game."
Carleton says she's been preaching a message of positive experience throughout the year. It is, in her words, what high school athletics should be all about.
"We have fun on the court and get some experience along the way, it's what we're after."
Where other coaches would have been sour, Carleton is taking a different approach, using it as an opportunity to grow some players she could be working with for the next three or four years.
"Hopefully we can teach them a little about the game each year, so we can get better and more competitive, year-to-year."
