Dear Parents, Players, and Coaches,

Greetings on behalf of Coach Earl and Venom Sports. This newsletter will revisit some of the past years basketball happenings and some of the up coming summer and fall programs. Also Coach Earl will highlight some proposals and schedules in your area as Iowa City, Quad Cities, Rockford, Milwaukee, Burlington, and maybe Cedar Rapids.

First and foremost Coach Earl wants to apologize to all the parents and kids on Coach Earl's busy basketball schedule. In the past Coach Earl has been able to scout and watch many of the kids games through the year. That always have Coach Earl a great perspective of how the kids are playing and what the kids progressively need. Two seasons ago Coach Earl was able to see about 80% of all the Venom kids play. Unfortunately the past season took on two basketball jobs. First Coach Earl was named VP of Basketball Operations of the upstart Semi Pro Quad City Riverhawks of the ABA as well as Freshman Boys Coach of Solon.

Both time consuming indeed, but both were successful. The Riverhawks ended 25-10 losing in the Elite 8, 2nd in our conference, and were ranked in the top 10 of the league over half of the season, was able to get 4 players call due to higher leagues. Again the invitation always stands for any of Venom kids to attend a game and maybe play or help demonstrate drills at halftime of any game. Riverhawks games will be played at Wharton Field House in Moline. Coach Earl's Solon Freshman team were 13-6 and finished the season strongly winning 8 of their last 9 game.

Iowa City-Spring 07. Some parents might have heard Coach Earl often talk about starting his own league for the younger kids. Mostly for the reason that some kids don't have a normal team they play with and cant get on a team that plays in the North Dodge League. Coach Earl calls these kids stray kids, which there are many in the Venom program. Long story short the Venom Sports League was created and put into effect this Spring. For the 1st time in the Iowa City area, kids did fundamental training for 30 minutes then played controlled game scrimmages for the last 30 minutes. The league ran 5 Tuesday evenings. The League was highly promoted by Ms. Yolanda Spears of Lucas Elementary School. Early in the Spring Mrs. Spears contacted Coach Earl about volunteering in Lucus's after school program. Of course Coach Earl couldn't say no to a parent. [Last year Coach Earl had Mrs. Spears son Cameron in the Venom Sports Fall program]. Also Coach Earl would like to thank Mr. Bacon who is Coach Earl's daughter Kenya's principal at Lemme Elementary. Also Ms. at Grantwood Elementary School, both allowed Coach Earl to donate Iowa Hawkeye children counting books to 4-5-6th grade classes as well distribute Venom Sports Spring flyers to each school. But the Venom MVP might be Mike Moran, [Coach Earl's Rec Studies instructor in college] Iowa City Parks and Recreation director. With this program and in the past hes been so supportive of all Coach Earl's programs regardless of the enrollment numbers. We'd all like to formally thank these people again for their support.

Normal training also will go on as well in the area as well same as last summer. July and August will be mostly available as June was Coach Earl's heavy month. Anytime during the day from 9am-9pm normally work Ok. Again most sessions take place at the Rec Center [Robert A Lee Center] downtown or alternates Mercer-Scanlon Center next to South East JR highschool. Both are air conditioned /and we try to stay out of, but will occasionally use the hot U of I fieldhouse when the other 2 places are booked.

June was a busy month for Coach Earl. Starting in Milwaukee Wi. Coach Earl was was recommended by Rockford Wildcat director Chuck Lynde to the Wizards AAU program. Coach Kenny brought Coach Earl in for 2 days June 8-9th to work with about 25 kids for fundamental skills and offensive sets. Pictures of the Wizards boys/girls players can be seen on the Venom sports site. Hats off to the Wizards program and parents for providing lunch,snacks, and drinks throughout the 2 days.

The second week of June was Coach Earl's family vacation. Coach Earl didn't take a vacation last season due to his overflux of training last summer. Needless to say it was a great appreciated time off.

The 3rd week of June was Coach Earl's 2nd annual basketball clinic in Rockford at the Belvidere YMCA. Once again Coach Zonzo did a faboulous job securing sponsorships, and promoting the camp. Robert and Deondre secured most of the awards including skills champ, shooting champ and MVP for the boys division. The girls division was secured by Kavana, and and Jessica W. for the same awards.

The 4th week of June saw Coach Earl get into the Cedar Rapids market with Camp Wapsi. Camp Wapsi is about 20 miles north of Cedar Rapids funded and ran by the Cedar Rapids YMCA program. Coach Earl trained about 15 boys and girls for 1.5 hours for 5 days from all over the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City/Coralville area. Also in the last week of June ,going every Friday late afternoon, Coach Earl resumed the QAUD City group spearheaded by Dave Shoeve as Coach Earl trains his 3 sons Zack, 9th Tyler 4th and Austin 3rd. Also Coach Tim Groves 2 daughters Tori 9th and Meagan 4th plus the Kutula sisters Savanna, Lauren and Mickala were the main kids who received training.

July started out busy as well as after the 4th Coach Earl did the 2nd week of Camp Wapsi of even a bigger group of boys and girls. Then Coach Earl started the Burlington Group due to AAU coach Steve Gray. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings Coach Earl trained about 5-8 Burlington Notre Dame high school boys and girls players. Hats off to Coach Gray's daughter Heather whom was the only kid that attended every session.

More to come.

Sincerely,
Coach Acie Earl-Venom Sports
319 430-2537
coachaearl@aol.com