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College Basketball – 3000 Miles From Home

January 26, 2015 By basketballtrainer

College Basketball Away From Home

Considering College Basketball Away From Home?

I’m from San Francisco, California. I grew up playing ball on the playgrounds. Then in high school (Balboa High School) and junior college (Contra Costa College) I graduated to playing playground basketball with referees. The city game is fast paced, lots of in your face defense in crowded tiny gyms where the wall is the out of bounds line. Lots of razzle dazzle and competing against cross town schools with guys who you just played against at the park last Saturday afternoon. Picture the movie “Hoop Dreams”. When I was offered the opportunity to play college ball in rural Northern Maine at the University of Maine at Fort Kent I jumped at the chance, as weird as that might sound.

Basketball Adventure – Taking The Show On the Road

Playing far from home was exciting to me. I was ready to leave home. I had spent way too long in San Francisco. Of course I would miss my family and friends back home but I knew that I was here for a reason: to finish my bachelors degree, and play ball. Northern Maine is pretty much as far as you can get from San Francisco while still being in the United States. If you look on a map my home is at the most far left of the country and Maine is in that top right corner. I barely remembered that Maine was a state when I first learned of this opportunity. The one thing that I did know about Maine was that it gets cold in the Winter, extremely cold. Brutally cold. San Francisco due to it being a peninsula in between the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay experiences mild temperatures year round, it’s only an hour drive at most to some sunny beaches and surfing in the beautiful Golden State. I knew coming in that Maine was going to be vastly different in that regard.

UMFK Campus

As you can see from the UMFK campus picture above, I was right.  Aside from the weather, Northern Maine is a lot slower than the big city. I think there’s only a handful of stop lights in the entire town of Fort Kent. In San Francisco, there is always something to do. We have a plethora of museums, clubs, restaurants, and all sorts of attractions. In Fort Kent, your social gathering options are pretty limited outside of hanging with your buddies in the dorms. That’s why I spend most of my spare time in the gym.

Leaving The City Game Behind

The city game and the Maine game as I call it have their differences too. The game up in Maine is slower, not a lot of superb athletes. The city game can turn into a track meet quick. In Maine, lots of teams like to slow it down and execute in the half court. But the biggest difference I’ve noticed is the athletes, which makes sense. Any guy with a little bit of bounce who can run and jump is not going to end up playing in the USCAA in the cold of the North East. I haven’t seen an alley-oop play drawn up all season. Most of the players here in Maine are short, you see a lot of guys around six feet tall playing the 3 spot. Most of these guys handle the ball well, but nothing too fancy. They can all shoot the three and always make their free throws. Very fundamentally sound. Back home, a guy would rather miss a dunk in traffic and excite the crowd as supposed to trying and finishing the lay up with contact.

Another cool thing for me is the road trips. I’m getting to see a lot of the East Coast. I’m getting to see Maine, Vermont, Boston, New York, and Pennsylvania among other places. The road trips can be as long as 16 hour bus rides. When I was in High School, we took the city public bus 20 minutes across town to play games. Also, this being my first season in Maine, I don’t know any of the guys I’m playing against. Which is nice for me having grown up playing against the same guys from the area since I was in the 8th grade.

The Advantage Of Small College Basketball

Fort Kent MaineHowever, the biggest change is that since San Francisco has so much to offer, there is no type of community feel around a team. Here in picturesque Fort Kent, the community really rallies around the sports teams at the university and they support them heavily. If I walk through town, people know that I play basketball for the local college and I take pride in representing not only the school but the entire Fort Kent community when I play. Back in High School in a big city with six major professional teams and another handful of NCAA  schools in the area I could be one of the best prep players in the city but only a sliver of the population would know my name or know who I was. When we played our rival, University of Maine at Presque Isle, which is only an hour away, faculty members and staff on campus were coming up to me telling me that it didn’t matter if we lost every game this season as long as we won this one. The community here takes their sports very seriously and they are invested in the well being of their local team.

All in all, being away from home can bring you down sometimes, not having the support of your friends and family at the games; but those feelings are made up for quickly with such  a warm communal feeling around the area. Also, Maine and Northern Maine specifically is rich in basketball tradition. People in the area tend to stay here and raise their families here and they create legacies and generations of basketball players in each small town throughout Maine. I didn’t know it but Mainers really care about hoops and they are so willing to embrace someone who is representing their community on the court.

Although it may be by default since life is slower up here and there aren’t as many distractions, it doesn’t matter to me because for the first time in my life I have the backing of a ton of people and I feel I am playing for something other than myself.  I am glad I had a sense of adventure and have been able to play small college basketball 3000 miles away from home.

 

Fletcher Brown - Small College Basketball PlayerFletcher Brown was kind enough to share his basketball journey with us… a journey spanning the borders of the USA.    Our hope in sharing this story is that it will encourage other basketball players to look beyond the confines of their local area when pursuing the dream of college basketball.  Great universities and colleges like the University of Maine at Fort Kent want to hear from talented young basketball players.  Embrace a growth mindset and learn to keep your basketball dream alive by expanding your vision of possibilities.

 

Filed Under: Basketball Trainer Blog, Training, Uncategorized Tagged With: Fletcher Brown, small college basketball, UMFK basketball, University of Maine at Fort Kent Basketball

Small College Basketball & The USCAA

April 20, 2014 By basketballtrainer

Small College Basketball & the USCAA For prospective student-athletes in basketball looking for more options to pursue their dream of playing collegiate basketball the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) offers another option to the NCAA and NAIA.

USCAA College Basketball History

Athletic directors from the Lake Erie (Ohio) Conference and the Eastern Shore Basketball League established the National Little College Athletic Association (NLCAA) on July 29th, 1966 in Charleston, West Virginia.  The organization began with men’s basketball and featured an eight team national tournament to give NLCAA members the opportunity to compete athletically on a national level. In the mid-70s the NLCAA added three sports: Baseball 1975, Wrestling in 1976 and Soccer in 1977.  In 1989 the association changed its name to the National Small College Athletic Association (NSCAA) and then again changed to the now present day organization, the United State Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) in 2001. As of the 2013-2014 athletic seasons, the organization includes 84 members nationwide from Maine to Washington State.  The USCAA awards All-Americans, names scholar-athletes and hosts national championships in baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, volleyball and has a wrestling invitational.  In 2013 the USCAA sponsored their first year of football with 11 participants.

Small College Basketball Scholarships & The USCAA

Basketball continues to be a driving force for the growth of the USCAA.  Many current member schools have joined and have flourished by attracting top notch players with academic and athletic scholarships.  The athletic scholarship piece is something which gives USCAA schools an edge over NCAA division three schools who are not able to offer athletic money.  In addition, many USCAA member institutions are able to compete as duel members affording the opportunity for their teams to compete in more than one national championship.  The 2013 USCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Champion Rochester College (MI) traveled and competed in the NAIA Division II National Championships as an NAIA Independent, a week after taking home the USCAA title.  The USCAA allows schools this luxury that NCAA and NAIA full conference members prohibit, making the USCAA even more appealing to schools and student-athletes.

USCAA Small College Basketball National Championship

Perhaps the USCAA’s most valuable asset is the annual Basketball National Championships which gives participating members each year a very special, memorable experience.  Penn State Fayette, the Eberly Campus in Uniontown, Pa. has hosted the men’s and women’s championships since 2009 and in late September of 2013 agreed to host the basketball championships through 2018.  The USCAA and Penn State-Fayette team up to host 34 teams in two divisions of men’s and women’s basketball during four days of competition.  The tournament kicks off with a banquet at the incredible host hotel, Nemacolin Woodland Resort.  Nemacolin, situated on 2,000 acres of land in the Laurel Highlands of southwestern Pennsylvania, provides participating teams a unique experience during their stay.  The resort features items like live safari animals on site, a spa, 36 holes and fly fishing just to name a few of their on-site attractions. The National Championships provides two games guaranteed, as teams that are knocked out in first round play, have the chance to play in a consolation game and end their seasons on a high note.  The tournament also holds a skills competition at Penn State-Fayette the night before the first day of competition.  Players have the opportunity to compete in a two person shooting challenge as well as a three point and dunk competition in front of all teams in the tournament inside the spacious 1,500 seat main arena.

Is USCAA Small College Basketball For You?

In summary, USCAA basketball provides a great alternative to the NCAA and NAIA for prospective student-athletes.  Member schools have the option to offer athletic scholarships and to compete as duel members in more than one organization.  The annual national championships gives teams a great avenue to compete at a very high level of play and earn national recognition playing the sport that they love.  Check out the USCAA Basketball today.  As their motto states, they truly are “Leveling the Playing Field for America’s Small Colleges.” Click Here For More Info About Your Future and Small College Basketball in the USCAA. 

 

University of Maine At Fort Kent BasketballEric Werntgen is the Head Basketball Coach and Assistant Athletic Director at the University of the Maine at Fort Kent.  He is also a former small college basketball player himself at the University of New England / Westbrook College.  Eric is a contributing writer for www.BasketballTrainer.com.

Filed Under: Basketball Trainer Blog Tagged With: small college basketball

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