By Rob Potter
MONTICELLO —March 14, 2006 — Although the weather was warm and sunny on Saturday, several adults and kids enjoyed spending some time inside the Kenneth L. Rutherford Elementary School gymnasium.
Coaches, parents and children gathered in the gym for the final session of the 2006 Village of Monticello Youth Basketball Program.
For the past 10 weeks, a total of 57 third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students from the Monticello Central School District gathered each Saturday morning to learn more about the game of hoops.
Before taking the court for their final game of the season, Michael Barnofsky, who served as one of the program coaches, spoke to the youngsters.
“It’s been a long, fun winter,” Barnofsky said. “We did a lot of work and hopefully everyone learned more about basketball.”
Also coaching the boys and girls for the past several weeks were Village of Monticello Parks and Recreation Department Director Betsy Conaty, Shabanni Davis, a 1993 Monticello High School graduate, and current Monticello High School students Jeff Brink, Sean Conaty and Lashawn Moorer.
Betsy Conaty noted that the goals of the program are for the boys and girls to have a good time and learn the fundamentals of the sport that Dr. James Naismith invented more than a century ago.
“Before playing games each Saturday, we had line drills where the kids learned the basic aspects of the game,” she said. “They learned how to dribble right-handed, how to dribble left-handed, bounce passes, chest passes and how to get in a good defensive stance.”
Each participant received a Junior NBA/Junior WNBA certificate and folder, which contained a calendar that features pictures and words of advice from NBA and WNBA players. Some of the contemporary players featured in the calendar are Sue Bird, Becky Hammon, Lisa Leslie, Steve Nash, Grant Hill, Emeka Okafor, Shaquille O’Neal, Paul Pierce, Diana Taurasi and Tina Thompson. Some of the NBA legends whose words of wisdom are printed in the calendar’s pages include Clyde Drexler, George Gervin, Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Bill Walton.
In addition, each youngster received a basketball trophy with their name engraved on it.
The kids who participated in this year’s program included: Mistah Alli, Akasha Anderson, Georgios Astras, Sean Badurina, James Brewer, Briana Call, Shikuan Carr-Sample, Malik Clark, Arianna Dacosta, Deija Davis, Kiara Davis, Matthew Etkin, Rachel Farina, Isaiah Fields, Brian Forrest, Courtney Forrest, Essence Gonzalez, Jason Gonzalez, Morgan Holloran, Jane Hyman, Michael Kaiser, Michael Krickman, Jonathan Larusso, Alexander Lawrence, Jahvel Lewis, Brian Lovert, Courtney Lovert, Elias Lugardo, Zacharias Lugardo, Kariem McCline, Stephon McCline, Aaliyah McKune, Shamira Moore, Alex Morales, Khadijah Nelson, Rafael Ortiz, Jeremy Pineda, Malcolm Pinto, Ryan Pinto, Hector Ramos, Keith Regan, Joel Reyes, Carmen Rivera, Nicholas Rodriguez, Isiah Rosado, Colin Rosenblum, Charles Sabatino, Brandon Salzman, Latise Sanders, Tyshawn Smith, Evett Tate, Trevor Tompkins, Joey Torres, Michael Washington, David Watkins, Brianna Williams and Larry Williams.