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Basketball
By Gillian& Sinead (both from 6th class)
Our trainer's name is Paddy Mullally, and he's from Athlone.
Every Monday at 1:30p.m. Paddy comes to our school and does two training sessions with 3rd and 4th then 5th and 6th.
Every season he invites a few people from 5th and 6th to play in a jamboree to compete to play for Ireland.
They go to Dublin and play against over one hundred people and if they win they get to go to some country in Europe with nine other people.
A few years ago Niall Grehan a pupil from our school got picked from hundreds of people to play for Ireland in Sicily.
And just last year Áine O'Brien and Darren King went to Italy to play for Ireland.
[Niall Grehan who played in Sicily on the Irish team, when he was in 5th class. Niall is now in secondary school.]
At training we start with a warm up and stretches then we do drills and play games.
Our school is very lucky because we have lots of chances to play basketball.
Recently we went to play in the Community College and in the Bower secondary school.
There were a lot of different teams there. We played against Tubberclair N.S. also.
We travelled by bus - we had a great day out! We won some games and lost others so overall it was fair.
We play basketball at lunch-time at school and sometimes in P.E. classes.
[Sarah (sub for national team), Áine and Darren with coach Paddy Mullally]
"My trip to Italy, 9th July to the 16th July 2000" by Áine O'Brien
Last year I was selected to play on an Irish U. 11 national team. We travelled to Italy.
I got a plane in Dublin airport to Heathrow, from Heathrow we travelled to Nice.
We went from Nice to San Reno by car. I was very excited and there were a lot of preparations to be made.
My auntie got me the lira and we also needed 20 sterling.
The countries that took part were: Belgium, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Slovak Republic and Italy.
A typical day was as follows:
7:00am Arise 8:00am Breakfast
9:00am - 3:00pm Basketball activities (with breaks)
3:00pm - 4:00pm Sporting activities
4:00pm - 6:00pm Games
6:30pm Dinner and recreation
8:00pm - 10:00pm Folklore and social activities
10:30pm Lights out
11:00pm Leader's meeting
Other activities we were engaged in were : swimming, canoeing, baseball, athletics and cross-country.
The weather was mostly hot but on Tuesday and Wednesday it rained badly.
On Wednesday we went to an aquadome in France. It rained very heavily that day and we didn't stay long.
The teams were mixed, I was in the team Narciso, we played basketball matches every day.
We stayed in the hotel Eden. The food we ate was Italian but we also went to the supermarket.
I brought many souvenirs home such as t-shirts, ornaments and pens.
I also learned some Italian such as "grazia" = thank you, "buon giorno" = hello, "ciao" = goodbye.
I really enjoyed my trip to Italy and would love to go again sometime.
"Italy": by Darren King
My name is Darren King and I played basketball in Italy for Ireland.
There were 7 countries taking part. They were Belgium, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Slovak Republic and Italy.
Every day we got up at 7:30 and had breakfast at 8:00am.
We played basketball from 9:00am to 3:00pm.
We had our dinner at 6:30pm.
At 10:00pm we went to bed and 10:30pm was lights out.
Our coaches were Bernie Preistly and Paul Barnes. I had a brilliant time in Italy.
[Áine, Sarah and Darren ]
My Favourite Hobby: by Gillian
I like to play basketball, It is a fun sport.
I go training every Saturday, It is lots of fun.
To be able to do drills you have to listen To what ever your coach is saying or showing you.
By the way did I tell you what my coach's name is -it is Paddy Mullally.
I started in the 9:30 session and I'm in the 1:30 session now
I have met loads of friends and have a lot of friends going too, Out of school.
my coach has basketball camps And they are cool!
I went twice and I was on the teams- Sting and Magic.
Different coaches were there from the real Bower basketball team,
I love to go on basketball trips, it is fun to play against other teams.
I hope I can play in secondary school.