MdStang
Greetings From Geezerville
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
- Messages
- 240
- Reaction Score
- 2,338
Today's Frederick News Post has an article on informal girls basketball games played outdoors this fall. The teams were made up of squads from the county high schools and some middle schools. Here is the news on Saylor:
"High school coaches weren’t allowed to coach in the league because it was the offseason for winter sports, but they could attend games as spectators. However, there’s no rule against a high school player coaching. Middletown senior standout Saylor Poffenbarger was head coach for the Orange team. In April, Poffenbarger had surgery to repair a torn labrum in her left hip, and when the fall league started, she had yet to be cleared to play. So, she ended up coaching players who were her Knights teammates. Poffenbarger, who said her hip is 100 percent now, enjoyed the experience.
“It was definitely nice to see things from another perspective,” she said. Granted, Poffenbarger had offered input — say, on switching defenses or running plays — to her mother, Amy Poffenbarger, who is Middletown High’s head girls basketball coach. But actually being a coach made her appreciate coaches like her mother all-the-more.
“It was kind of like second nature. It was a lot harder than I thought,” Saylor Poffenbarger said. “When you’re playing, it goes by a little bit quicker. But when you’re coaching, it’s like, ‘Oh gosh, we’re down by 3 and there’s two minutes left. I’ve got to do something.’”
That something is a plan. Then, it was up to her players to enact it. “Normally, in the game, I can do it myself, and so trusting the players was kind of cool,” said Poffenbarger, who thought that helped grow relationships."
"High school coaches weren’t allowed to coach in the league because it was the offseason for winter sports, but they could attend games as spectators. However, there’s no rule against a high school player coaching. Middletown senior standout Saylor Poffenbarger was head coach for the Orange team. In April, Poffenbarger had surgery to repair a torn labrum in her left hip, and when the fall league started, she had yet to be cleared to play. So, she ended up coaching players who were her Knights teammates. Poffenbarger, who said her hip is 100 percent now, enjoyed the experience.
“It was definitely nice to see things from another perspective,” she said. Granted, Poffenbarger had offered input — say, on switching defenses or running plays — to her mother, Amy Poffenbarger, who is Middletown High’s head girls basketball coach. But actually being a coach made her appreciate coaches like her mother all-the-more.
“It was kind of like second nature. It was a lot harder than I thought,” Saylor Poffenbarger said. “When you’re playing, it goes by a little bit quicker. But when you’re coaching, it’s like, ‘Oh gosh, we’re down by 3 and there’s two minutes left. I’ve got to do something.’”
That something is a plan. Then, it was up to her players to enact it. “Normally, in the game, I can do it myself, and so trusting the players was kind of cool,” said Poffenbarger, who thought that helped grow relationships."
