Hoping to help the school grow and push its students, Grace Christian Academy has started a boys basketball program this year.
Earlier this year a few boys that had expressed interest in playing basketball, as well as some students coming up in the future. So, in hopes of helping Grace Christian grow, Head Coach Jonathan Tanner formed a team.
“Putting this team together, we use several of the boys from Grace and two homeschoolers to have made this team complete,” Tanner said.
Having homeschool kids on the roster made them ineligible in their division, but Tanner said it has helped them have a full roster to lay down the foundation for the future.
“It was a challenge at first to even know if we were going to have a team this year,” Tanner said. “We just didn’t know who all from the school was going to come out and play. But we had a great number of students step up and come out and play. Even students who had never played before that one, wanted to help the school out, and two be a part of a team.”
Grace Christian Academy was founded in 2020, with this year being the first season for the basketball program. The program has gotten ample support from the school and parents as well.
“Grace Academy fully-funded this basketball team where our parents didn’t have to pay a dime this year to try and get it off its feet,” Tanner said. “That’s been a huge help and a huge blessing. There’s great parent support too. You always gotta ask for volunteers to do concessions and stuff and all the parents were ready and excited to help.”
Not only was basketball new to the school, it was new to some of the players as well, with multiple kids having never stepped foot on the court before. However, Tanner has been more than pleased with their energy and effort all season.
“We’ve faced every challenge head on,” Tanner said. “Some of them knew they’d never played basketball, but they’ve taken on the challenge and they’ve been playing great for us.”
Tanner furthered his praise for the boys team, stating that they could’ve hung their head at the beginning of the season. But they didn’t and were able to turn things around and are sitting at 6-6 going into their final game of the season.
“I’m so proud of these boys,” Tanner said. “We have had some adversity this season. We’ve taken some hard losses at the beginning of the season. The beginning of the season was rough for us. But these boys stuck it out, kept practicing and kept getting better and the end of the season has been really good for us.”
While they’ve faced a number of challenges along the way, Tanner said that the groundwork has been done and that this basketball program can be successful for years to come.
“I believe wholeheartedly that next year’s basketball team is going to be a really good basketball team,” Tanner said. “We’re having a lot of young kids come and step up and we’ve even had a couple of young guys come and play with us this year who are going to be playing for us next year. The future for Grace Christian Academy basketball is bright.”
