New Albany Deanery parish sponsors bustling basketball league

Claire Clemmer-Becht, left, Xavier Jansen, Drew Cassis and Knox Betourne were teammates on a team in the kindergarten division of a six-week youth basketball league that took place earlier this year at St. Mary-of-the-Knobs Parish in Floyd County. (Submitted photo)

By Sean Gallagher

“If you build it, they will come,” is the iconic line from Field of Dreams, a 1989 movie in which an Iowa farmer played by Kevin Costner obeys a mysterious voice that says those words to him by building a baseball diamond in his corn field.

Legendary baseball players from the past come to play and, at the end of the movie, hundreds of people in cars are seen approaching to watch the game, thus fulfilling the prophecy, “If you build it, they will come.”

Five years ago, members of St. Mary-of-the-Knobs Parish in Floyd County didn’t work to build the Geis Activity Center in response to a mysterious voice.

Instead, it was a part of the vision that they and their former pastor, now-retired Father John Geis, had to help grow their faith community and open it up to the wider community.

Since the activity center was completed in late 2010, hundreds of children and their families have come to it for an annual six-week youth basketball league. This year’s league had 374 participants from age 3 through the fourth grade. Only about half the participants were from the parish, and many were not Catholic.

The parish built it, and the kids came.

“It reaches beyond our parish boundaries,” said Father H. Michael Hilderbrand, pastor of the New Albany Deanery faith community. “It’s become so developed that it’s incorporating so many other people of other denominations and religious backgrounds. It’s an opportunity to share our resources with others.”

Father Geis now serves in retirement as a part-time sacramental minister for Immaculate Conception Parish in Millhousen and St. Maurice Parish in Napoleon. He is pleased about how his former parish in Floyd County is making full use of the activities center there.

“It is thrilling to know that it is being used, and that the people there are opening it up,” Father Geis said. “We felt like the parish really has something to offer, not only to the parish’s members, but also to the community. That’s what we wanted to do, to bring them to the faith center.”

The league organizers are all parishioners, as are many of its coaches. But all of the participants know that it is a ministry of the parish.

That is seen from the beginning of each game where both teams pray the Our Father together to the virtues that are instilled in the players by coaches and league officials.

Svend Jansen is one of the parishioners who helps oversee the league.

“You look at this parish as an example of really setting your mind to something and pushing through,” he said. “Good things happen to people of good faith.”

Jansen’s hopes in regard to the basketball league, however, are focused not so much on the parish, but on the children learning the fundamentals of the game and good sportsmanship.

Bryan Walsh, a parishioner who coached two league teams this year, works with parents and players alike in trying to realize those hopes.

“I try to set the tone first by reaching out to the parents,” said Walsh, who had four children in this year’s league. “I talk about the fact that we want them to get better and be competitive and to win if we can. But we also teach them sportsmanship and to not win at all costs and to play the game the right way. We treat the people on the other team the right way.”

The way the league is set up also helps team members treat each other the right way. Each team member plays at least half of each game, something that Walsh said challenges him as a coach to work hard to teach basketball fundamentals to players who may pick up the game more slowly than some of their teammates.

He recalled one game where a girl, who had started the year having a hard time with the game, made a crucial play to help her team win a tight contest.

“In the championship game, our weakest player got the ball on a rebound, dribbled it down the floor and passed it to our best player, who scored a basket, Walsh said. “It was a fairly pivotal point in the game. To see that she had improved that much was gratifying.”

Seeing that connection between players of various skill levels helped Walsh see a further tie between the league and the faith community that sponsors it.

“You’re connected to the Church and you want all of it to be healthy,” he said. “And it was neat to watch the kids and see lesser players make contributions. It could be something as simple as a rebound or bringing the ball up cleanly and making a pass.”

To help the players learn basketball fundamentals, the teams are given one-hour practice time slots on the two courts at the Geis Center on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays during the season. Games are played on the courts from 9 a.m. through 7 p.m. on Saturdays during the season.

“I’m just living the icing on the cake that Father John and the people that he worked with at that time put together,” said Father Hilderbrand. “It’s a whole facility designed for the future generations to come.” †