Fellow Coaches,
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of you as well as your players who made Faith 7, OCA All-state, OBCA Academic All-state, OBCA All-star by class and OBCA All-district as well as any other awards you and your players may have received for the 2015-2016 basketball season. It is always a very difficult task for those committees selecting those recipients to sort through all of the applications, with so many deserving candidates and select the top individuals to receive those awards. It is indeed a great honor to be awarded with any of those awards considering the depth of talent to select from in each class. Summer is fast approaching and I know all of you will be very busy with camps and leagues throughout much of the end of May and all of June. That only leaves a short period of time, mainly July, to get some rest and vacation time in. However, I’d like to encourage each of you to come support the OBCA all-stars at ECU on June 4th as they showcase their abilities in the OBCA All-star games and show your support to ECU as well as they put a lot of time and effort into making the games a memorable event for our kids. In addition, I’d like to encourage you to take time to attend the OCA summer clinic in Tulsa. Last year, attendance in our basketball clinics was down and I would very much like to see that increase this year. I believe the OCA has worked hard to get us a good line-up of speakers this year and we each need to be there in appreciation of those speakers for taking time out of their busy schedules to come and speak as well as to continue to learn ourselves. As soon as the OCA lets me know the line-up of speakers they have set for sure, I will make another post to keep you updated. There is also a possibility that our Fall Clinic hosted by the THUNDER is going to be moved up this year, presumably to August 13th, before the school year gets off to a start and busy. I will also let you know more on that as we get more information verified by the THUNDER staff. I hope you have a great end to your school year and a successful summer with building your teams up for the upcoming year. Thank you for all you do & God Bless!
Darrick Farriell
OBCA President
I would like to start out by thanking everyone for your nomination and election to the position of OBCA President this past Fall at our clinic. It has been a great experience over the past 10 years serving on the board and getting to know so many of our members that I wouldn’t have gotten to, if not for my involvement at that level with our organization. The regular season is quickly coming to an end for all of us and what a fast season it has been. I hope you’ve had successful seasons and that as the playoffs are quickly approaching that you have everyone healthy and are getting re-energized as we all start back with records of 0-0. Regardless of the season that you’ve had according to your record and regardless of how far you make it in the playoffs, I’d like to personally thank each of you for the hard work you put in throughout the season and for the influence that you are on the young men that you coach. More often than not today, we are assuming the roles of parents and counselors to our kids just as much as we are coaches to them if not more so. It is a questionable time in our country with a presidential change quickly approaching, a difficult time in our state with all of the financial cuts looming out there for education & with the possibility of school closures and a difficult time in each town & school as parenting as a whole seems to be less and less with the students we teach and coach. I’d just like to encourage each of you to keep your heads up and remember why we joined the profession and continue being positive mentors for the young men that we have the opportunity to coach. It’s our job to push them, challenge them and inspire them to set and reach high goals for their lives and to dream big! And if they fail, to get back up and go again and continue striving to achieve whatever it is they hope to achieve both on the court and in life! Best of luck to each of you in the playoffs and I will look forward to seeing you at the state tournament! God Bless!
OBCA 