Elementary School Basketball Ethnography Analysis

For my ethnography project I chose to study the life at elementary school basketball games in Albemarle, NC. In this paper, I will refer to all the players by their number. I will also refer to the people in the crowd by what they were wearing on that particular day. The main focus of this ethnography is to see why people come to little kids Saturday basketball games. Is the audience there for a specific relationship to the team, or just to watch free basketball?

The first gym that I observed was the Albemarle Middle School gym. The AMS gym is part of Albemarle Middle School and the gym is located in the back of the school. As you enter the gym directly in front of you is the wooden basketball court. To the right is a stage where the clock manager and the

All the referees wore grey shirts with black stripes and black pants. All the referees let many calls go by. For example: Missed travels, missed double dribbles, and missed fouls. I doubt that they were “missed” calls but since the players are of a young age they referees give them some leeway. If the referees at these games made the majority of the calls they were supposed to, the game would last twice as long. They would have to keep stopping the game to give the ball to the other team. Also the referees were very lenient with the fouls. Even though the little kids do not foul very often, there were a lot of “missed” fouls. The average number of fouls called at the games I observed was 4. While in the NBA the Charlotte Hornets average 18.5 fouls per game. That is a huge difference. Even though the NBA is more intense and lasts longer, the kids have to foul more than four times a game. In addition, the referees stop the game halfway through a quarter so that the teams can make substitutions. This is also different than a normal game because the referees are supposed to wait for a dead ball before the team can make