The night before his son's final representative basketball tryout, Marc McGowan did not sleep. His 10-year-old son Mason did. McGowan, a journalist and coach, was attending the Ringwood Hawks' Victorian Junior Basketball League tryouts in two roles: as an anxious parent and as a coach for the under-12 boys' "twos" team. He writes that the experience gave him "a good insight into the incredibly competitive, intense – but fun – world of junior rep basketball."
The scale of the system is large. Fifty-four rep basketball clubs in Victoria field more than 1,200 teams each season. New South Wales has 81 associations. At the Hawks alone, more than 900 children from under-12s up registered for tryouts this year. The club fields eight teams in the under-12s alone.
Tryouts are a multi-stage process. At the Hawks, hopefuls are identified only by a number on their arm and leg. Children are often lined up by height, from tallest to shortest, and made to run races to test speed. The sessions mostly involve scrimmaging. Which court a player is on indicates the team they are being considered for, and that can change across three tryouts.
McGowan was kept away from his son during the final tryout to avoid the appearance of bias. He was assigned to court four, the farthest from Mason, and given the difficult task of cutting a group of about 40 children in half within an hour. "It's heartbreaking in some ways, but the reality of rep basketball," he writes. "Someone always misses out in rep – but that's part of the satisfaction if you do make it."
During the session, the age group coordinator appeared to have made a decision but then kept one place open, with three boys left in contention, including Mason. A full-court game played out among them. After the tryout ended, the coordinator pulled McGowan aside and told him: "We can't chat now, but I wanted to let you know, Mason will be in the twos." McGowan's heart sank. He found Mason in the foyer and hugged him, telling him which team he was on. "He was fine," McGowan writes. "It is just a number in the end. And for all the drama and stress of tryouts, when it comes down to it, Mason just wants to play basketball."
The article notes that the process is imperfect and attracts criticism on forums, social media and in person. Common themes include accusations that parent coaches are the devil, that tryouts are rigged by internal politics, and that children are overlooked. McGowan writes that the truth is more nuanced: clubs sometimes get it wrong, but children who miss out may simply not be good enough, at least yet. The jump between age groups can be significant.
Families often register for tryouts at multiple clubs to increase their chances. Clubs compete too, sometimes pushing back the start time of trials to force children to choose early. Holiday camps spring up beforehand, and self-professed gurus post videos and tips on social media, such as telling children to walk up to coaches and shake their hands, wear something colorful, and show good team play.