We’re lucky to have Coach Rich Curry, a former pro basketball player with over 17 years of coaching experience, working with our children in the Mon-Wed basketball after-school program and helping coach the Tu-Thur 5th-8th Basketball Club as a volunteer. Coach knows the game and knows how to help kids develop skills, court intelligence, and a love for the game. Rich and his wife April, who teaches PE to grades K-3 and runs our Recess program, are both master coaches.

To see slideshow “Double Dribble”….

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OTA is a Math-Science-Music school. Academics comes first here; but we still like value sports. Why? Team sports make you more confident, healthier, and smarter (that’s right, studies—here and here— show aerobic exercise makes you smarter: athletes were smarter in “several areas of cognitive ability: creative problem solving, multi-tasking, inhibition and working memory”).

Team Sports also introduces a reality principle— and, if you’re lucky enough to have a great coach, a love of excellence and an appreciation for the hours of practice (10,000 hours according to the researchers) it takes to be great in sports, music, science, or any art or science worth mastering— into the lives of the X-Box generation. In sports you can’t hit reset and try again: the game goes on.