By The Public Communications Office
In this episode of “What’s Up, College Station?” Marketing Coordinator Grace Hallowell and Recreation Supervisor Casey Prescott discuss the Dec. 2 Jingle Bell Fun Run and the approaching winter youth basketball season.
Transcript
Grace Hallowell:
What’s up, College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell, and today I’m joined with Casey Prescott from our Parks and Recreation department. Hi, Casey.
Casey Prescott:
How’s it going?
Grace Hallowell:
It is going well. We are transitioning into the colder months, which sometimes makes us want to be a little lazy, couch potatoes. But you do still have some really exciting fitness opportunities.
Casey Prescott:
Yes, we do. We have some great athletic opportunities. It does get cold, so we move indoors for the most part, which is great. But the first one I’m going to mention is outdoors, and it’s actually our Jingle Bell Fun Run, which has been a tradition for a long time. We moved it to our Christmas in the Park event a couple years ago. So this is the third year it’s going to be at Christmas in the Park, but it’s going to follow the immediate … immediately after the College Station parade. So right after the City College Station parade ends on Saturday, December 2nd with the opening ceremonies, Christmas in the Park, we will start the Jingle Bell Fun Run in Central Park.
Grace Hallowell:
Yes, I’m excited. I’m actually going to be participating in the Fun Run this year.
Casey Prescott:
Awesome.
Grace Hallowell:
It’ll be my first race. I’ve been prepping for it, so we’ll see how it goes.
Casey Prescott:
Yeah.
Grace Hallowell:
I think it’s a really unique opportunity too, to run in the dark with the lights and seeing everything that’s going on at the event as well.
Casey Prescott:
Yeah, it’s really unique. It’s a fun family tradition, a fun running thing. It’s a one-mile, untimed race, and so it’s very casual, but it’s due to your own ability and whatever you want. So it’s really, really fun. You get to run in the trail through the lights. You get to see all the lights all around the park. When the lights turn on is when we go, and so you’re out there getting ready. It’s a little darker, and then the lights shoot off. It’s just fun to get out there and get going. Some of it’s on unpaved surfaces, but we do give out jingle bell lights and jingle bells for your shoes. We also give out Santa hats and things like that. It really just has Christmas written all over it, which is exciting.
Grace Hallowell:
Right, exactly. It is also time for winter basketball.
Casey Prescott:
It is, yeah. So winter basketball is one of our largest programs that we do in athletics, and it’s fun. We love it. As a basketball player growing up, I love it. It’s my favorite thing that we get to put on. So it is a very large league and so because of that, we do our best to create a lot of divisions that are given equal amount of competitiveness, but lots of our opportunities to learn the game. So we offer age divisions from six to 13 years old, and they’re broken up in year splits. So six- and seven-year-olds play together in a co-ed division, and then we have eight and nine and 10 and 11 groups that are separate for boys and girls. Then we have a 12- and 13-year-old boys division. So all of them, some of them we have available over a multiple spread of nights. Some of them are offered just on certain nights.
But overall, our league operates on either a Monday, Wednesday, Saturday section or a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday section. All those are outlined and given in detail on cstx.gov\sports. But it’s great. It’s really fun for kids to come learn the game, many kids in every age division. There’s kids who have played, kids who haven’t played, kids who have lots of knowledge of basketball skills and abilities, some with not, and so it’s great across the board. It allows kids to learn how to play. It allows them to compete, which is really fun. So majority of our practices and games, they all occur at either the Lincoln Recreation Center or CSID school gyms that are offered to us, and it’s during the night from either 6:30 to 9:30, but only in a one-hour time slot and those time slots are given … The earlier time slots are given to the younger age groups with the older kids getting the later times.
Grace Hallowell:
Yes. It’s a great opportunity to stay active in the months where you feel like not being so active.
Casey Prescott:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, and you get three days a week. So you get two week nights and Saturdays. So when we first start off, registration will close December 1st. We’ll have a pre-draft workout on December 4th and 5th, Monday and Tuesday for whatever section you’re in, if you’re a Monday, Wednesday player or a Tuesday, Thursday player. Then we’ll have a meet and greet with teams December 11th through 14th. We will then take a break for Christmas and New Year’s, and we’ll get going again with Praxis on January 3rd, and they’ll have about four or five practices, and then we’ll start games the week of January 22nd.
Grace Hallowell:
Definitely a great opportunity.
Casey Prescott:
Yeah, and we go all the way till spring break. So then once spring break hits and spring starts, we’ll have new programs and new things to do.
Grace Hallowell:
Right. Always something going on.
Casey Prescott:
Always something going on.
Grace Hallowell:
Thank you for joining me today, Casey.
Casey Prescott:
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Grace Hallowell:
And that’s what’s up.
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