Men’s Basketball Team Hosts Sunday Night Youth Basketball League for 3-8 Graders 

by Abigail Wisniewski 

The Concordia men’s basketball team kicked off its fourth year of hosting the Sunday Night Youth Basketball League for young basketball players to compete against one another and learn from the Bulldog players.

SNYBL draws in anywhere from 150-170 third through eighth grade boys from Seward, Milford, York, Lincoln and Grand Island to compete in the league. The program serves as a fundraiser for the team, as well as a way for the men’s basketball players to influence aspiring young players in the area.

Men’s basketball coach Ben Limback brought the program to Concordia when he began coaching in 2013.

“I hope my players see that they have such an impact on young kids’s lives and that they are role models, whether they know it or not,” Limback said. “This is a great way for them to, even if they’re not coaching,…lift a kid’s spirits up that day or just to get to know a kid that day.”

For some members of the basketball team, SNYBL is an opportunity to build experience as a coach that they will be able to use later on in their coaching careers.

“There’s opportunities for them to learn how to talk to a group of kids or coach in a game, so it’s been cool to see the maturation of our coaches every year,” Limback said.

This is senior Chandler Folkerts’s third year as a coach for SNYBL. In past years, he has coached fifth and sixth graders and seventh and eighth graders. He is now coaching seventh and eighth graders for the second time.

“(The best part is) having them do something that they enjoy while they’re getting better at it,” Folkerts said of the participants. “Just hearing that they like it is satisfying.”

Senior Eli Ziegler has participated as a referee and scorekeeper, and is now beginning his first year of coaching.

“I think it makes a lasting impact on them,” Ziegler said. “They get to take some of the skills that they learn for the rest of their life. It’s cool being able to impact their future too, not just have fun.”

During the first night of the league, players participated in a skills evaluation and were drafted into teams. During the following weeks, the teams will compete against one another until the final night of the league when a playoff will determine the champions.

“It’s a chance for kids to connect with our guys and our program but also learn some basketball and get ready for their upcoming basketball seasons,” Limback said.