The Lynn Parks and Recreation Basketball Summer Evening League is back for July. The league is a free program for boys and girls in elementary, middle, and high school to get together and play basketball in East and West Lynn.
“The league started about 20-25 years ago. It started with the Lynn Parks and Rec which gives kids the opportunity to play basketball,” Assistant Director Geanni Byrd said. “It’s a free program and it’s hosted in East Lynn and West Lynn.”
Byrd said they try to get members of the community involved to help run the program.
“Throughout the years, we tried to have a lot of people who are involved in the basketball community to coach or work in the program to give kids a good foundation of basketball skills,” Byrd said.
This year, Byrd said there has been an increase in numbers compared to last year.
“Last year was really slow I think because of all the other programs. This year, however, I see an increase in kids from last year. Our East Lynn program is completely full for middle school and almost full for elementary,” Byrd said.
“The program is generally four weeks,” Byrd said. “We try to start right after the Fourth of July and be done by August 1 because that’s when pop warner starts and kids want to play in that, so we usually lose kids if we go past August 1.”
With kids active in the community, what could be better.
“It’s good to get kids active and involved in the community,” Byrd said. “Sometimes, kids may not have much going on throughout the day and have little interaction with other kids per se, so it’s good to get kids from either East or West Lynn together.”
Regardless of the skill level, Byrd and the rest of the workers put the kids in balanced teams.
“We’ll get kids on teams and break it up to make it as fair and even as possible as some kids have better fundamentals than others,” Byrd said. “We start with grammar school at 5 p.m. and then transition to middle school at 6 p.m. and then high school at 7 p.m.”
Byrd, who is a Lynn English alum (class of 2013), said she’s been involved with the program for more than eight years.
“I played for Lynn English in high school and that’s when I first started to get involved. Then I took a little break before coming back,” Byrd said. “Jeff Byrd (Director) who’s also involved in the program, who is my father-in-law, has been involved in the program for over 20 years.”
“My favorite part about this program is being able to be involved in the community,” Byrd said. “I work in the Lynn public school [system] so seeing the kids in a different setting makes me happy. I was a basketball player growing up, so seeing kids active and wanting to play makes me want to stay involved in this program.”
Despite the middle school level hitting capacity, there is still limited space to join the elementary or high school level programs.
“In East Lynn, our middle school, we have no jersey left to give out but for elementary, we still have a few,” Byrd said. “Sometimes kids won’t show up after getting a jersey, so I do offer that if a team isn’t full and you show up and want to play on occasion, I will allow them to play. They just need to have a shirt that is close in color to the jerseys we have.”
