Firmly in the dead of winter, with local football long done and baseball still a ways off, it’s basketball season in these parts, which made this past weekend something of a Rivalry Weekend for some.
The Naperville North and Naperville Central boys basketball teams tangled at North Friday night in the first of their two regular-season meetings. North prevailed this time around, 40-36 on the strength of 11 points from Winston Elston, 10 from Mitch Lewis and a bruising eight points from tough-nosed point guard Jelani McClain, a four-year varsity player for the Huskies.
And though players on both teams played equally hard, it was McClain’s rollicking style that caught our kids’ attention most. All three of our children play basketball, two of them at point like McClain, and all three with a similar all-out effort as his. When McClain would stop in the lane, plant, spin and shoot, you could see a twinkle in the kids’ eyes that beamed, “I’m going to use that move tomorrow!” Even seated in the Central section, cheering Matthew Meier, Harry Hallstrom and the rest of Redhawks, we couldn’t help but admire the way McClain plays the game.
Saturday afternoon brought a rivalry of a different sort, one that isn’t really a rivalry at all, so much as a clash of classmates. Two teams of nine boys each composed largely of second-grade friends from the same Naperville grade school converged that afternoon in a YMCA basketball game that parents had circled on our calendars as soon as the schedule was released.
Understand, YMCA second-grade basketball is not at all about the competition. No scores are kept, and teams aren’t even allowed to fast break, the referees instead slowing the offense down after a rebound, letting the other team get back to set up on defense before allowing the game to continue.
So it’s not at all about which team scores more points, blocks more shots or grabs more rebounds. As long as everyone plays, has fun and doesn’t get hurt, then it was an hour well spent.
Some of the kids will play in future years, perhaps on into high school. Some won’t, opting instead to pursue other sports or activities instead. We’ve known this natural attrition before, through the experience of our older son. Primarily a baseball and basketball family, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing certain classmates on the court or field one year, and not the next. New friendships are formed, some strengthen and some wane. It happens to our children just as it happened to their parents before them and will continue for generations to come.
More Top Picks Best Amazon Prime Day Food Processor Deals 2026
So it was something special indeed to see so many kids who walk to school together or ride buses together, have playdates together and play soccer or baseball together out there on the court, doing “battle” Saturday afternoon. In what was their only matchup against each other this season, one couldn’t help but let the mind wander years ahead, thinking about what those boys’ journeys of basketball and life may hold in store.
At this age, there’s little strategy involved in these games, if any at all. With defensive assignments made based on guarding the opponent with the same color wristband, it’s as much an exercise in matching and memory as it is in actual defense. The five players on the court at a time for each team are brought out and lined up across from respective players on the other team at the half-court line. They each slide on a colored wristband – blue, black, red, yellow, white – and find their corresponding opponent. That’s who they guard for their time on the court, and that’s who guards them.
It’s all rather routine, unless of course the kids have a different idea, such as making sure they guard their best buddy, or ensuring they draw a tougher defensive assignment against a taller or quicker player, or perhaps what they think might be an easier matchup against someone else.
That’s the sort of scene that unfolded Saturday as our son repeatedly finagled to guard a particular friend of his on the other team, arguably one of their better players. Just as that same son had done the week before when he – one of the shortest players on his team – played the same wristband-switching game so he could guard the tallest player on the other team, a strategy that worked in the way that a terrier will slow your gait by pulling at the leg of your pants.
This time, our son had likely drawn some inspiration from watching McClain and the other high school players a night before, as our daughter had in her game that morning and our older son did in his two games later that day. Will any of them eventually play high school basketball? Maybe. Maybe not. In schools the size of Naperville’s, the odds are against them, but the drive to make it may be on their side.
On this day, it didn’t matter who won and lost. It was a day of friendly competition among kids who’ve been friends for years and hopefully will be for years to come. Years that may one day include some of them playing for Central on a Friday night against North, with the same intensity of McClain, Elston, Lewis, Meier, Hallstrom and the rest of the Huskies and Redhawks.
And with former second-grade teammates there to cheer them on, every step of the way.
Rob Manker is a freelance writer who lives, works and parents in Naperville.