NERR-TV Virtual Showcase open for females
The coronavirus pandemic has come with numerous consequences, for people in all walks of life.
In our little corner of the basketball world, perspective student athletes who were relying on the spring and summer months for an opportunity to earn their exposure to college coaches have had those chances taken away from them.
At NERR, our goal has been to try to bridge that gap with our virtual showcase series.
It began with unsigned seniors, and was more successful than we ever could have imagined. 50 kids registered. 20 of them have since committed to scholarship levels schools. Every single one of them is either committed to a college program or has committable offers.
Last month, we expanded that platform to rising seniors, who were supposed to be playing some of the most important basketball of their young careers at this time. Again, we’ve had similar success.
While we always intended to continue to develop this platform to eventually allow everyone to take advantage of the opportunity, something unexpected happened along the way.
We had local female players reach out about the opportunity.
While unexpected, this isn’t totally unprecedented. We’ve had girls register for events before. Typically though, we reach out and let them know that the event is designed for boys, and they say something like ‘let us know if you ever do it for girls.’
This time, we reached out with the same message, but got a different reply.
We were told that girls in New England had no access to such opportunities and no brand, especially an impartial one, to help recognize their abilities and development. We were told that they knew it was designed for boys, but they wanted to participate too.
Well, if the last few weeks have taught us anything, it is hopefully that we need to be inclusive and help everyone get as many opportunities as possible.
To that end, our virtual showcase will have its first female participant this afternoon. With already a second planned for next week.
Is this a sign of things to come? We don’t know yet. But we do know that we’re not going to be telling anyone they can’t participate if they would like to and feel like they can benefit from it.
So stay tuned later today…