GCAA will be hosting tryouts for Travel Basketball. The teams will play in the highly competitive Island Garden League. You do not need to try out if you have any interest in playing GCAA intramurals. In that case, just fill out the GCAA application. The intramural application can be downloaded from the GCAA website www.gc-aa.com and clicking on the "basketball" link. In order to be eligible for the travel try out, all players must be registered for intramurals and they must pre-register for the try out via email with the applicable contact listed below. Once a player pre-registers, the player will be given the final time and location of the try out. The fee for the Island Garden travel season, which starts in mid November and runs thru March, will be approximately $375 per player. Please note the travel program is not an introductory program as our teams will play some of the best basketball teams from around the New York region.

A player must attend both nights for those grades with a two-day try out process. The contacts for each grade are as follows:

Boys: 8th Grade: Scott Paskewitz, scottpask5@hotmail.com; 7th Grade: Ryan Kelly, ryan.kelly@netwolves.com; 6th and 3rd Grade: Tom Granville, granvill@whitneycap.com; 5th Grade: Joe Capetola, Jcapetola@mscklaw.com; 4th Grade: Eamon Tubridy, tekt@optonline.net

Girls: 8th and 4th Grade: Dan Dignam, dignamfam@optonline.net; 7th Grade: Sue Walczyk, swalczy1@optonline.net; 6th Grade: Greg Raphael, gjraphael@aol.com; and 5th Grade: Ryan Kelly, ryan.kelly@netwolves.com.

Tryouts are tentatively scheduled as follows:

Boys: 3rd Grade - Monday, Sept. 22 from 6-7:30 p.m. and Wednesday, Sept. 24 from 6-8 p.m.; 4th grade - Wednesday, Sept. 24 from 6-7:30 p.m. and Friday, Sept. 26 from 6-8 p.m.; 5th Grade - Monday, Sept. 29 and Tuesday, Sept. 30 from 6-7:30 p.m.; 6th Grade - Monday, Sept. 22 from 7:30-9 p.m.; 7th Grade - Friday, Oct. 3 from 7-9 p.m.; 8th Grade -Friday, Oct. 3 from 7-9 p.m.

Girls: 4th Grade - Friday, Sept. 26 and Tuesday, Sept. 30 from 6-7:30 p.m.; 5th Grade - Wednesday, Oct. 1 from 6-8 p.m.; 6th Grade - Tuesday, Sept. 30 from 7:30-9 p.m.; 7th Grade - Friday, Sept. 26 from 7:30-9 p.m.; 8th Grade - Friday, Sept. 26 from 7:30-9 p.m.

If you have questions regarding the GCAA travel program, contact Tom Granville at granvill@whitneycap.com or 747-6827.

GCAA is now accepting sign ups for its 2008-2009 Intramural Basketball Season. The season will start in early December and run thru mid March. The application can be downloaded by visiting the GCAA website, www.gc-aa.com, and clicking on the "basketball" link. The fee is $30 for kindergarten through first grade and $60 for grades 2nd through 8th. Please make sure you sign up for the GCAA program, the one in existence for 50 years with an extensive array of volunteers.

The majority of our Saturday games will be at St. Paul's. The tentative Saturday game times, subject to change, are as follows:

12-1 p.m. - 3rd-4th Grade Girls (there also may be some morning games)

1-2 p.m. - K-1 Boys, 2nd Grade Girls

2-3 p.m. - 5th and 6th Grade Boys (there may be an occasional Monday night game)

3-4 p.m. - 2nd Grade Boys

3-5 p.m. - 3rd Grade Boys

4-6 p.m. - 4th Grade Boys

5-7 p.m. - 5th through 8th Grade Girls

6-7:30 p.m. - 7th and 8th Grade Boys

The Saturday game times will be one hour in length. For the 5th and 6th grade boys division, each team will have one Monday night game 6-7:30 although 80 percent of the games will be played on Saturdays. We will also continue to run our grade based clinics 2nd through 5th on Monday evenings from 6-7:30 p.m.

The coordinators and their respective email addresses for each division are as follows:

Boys: 7th and 8th Grade - Chris DeSantis, cmd144@aol.com; 5th and 6th Grade - John Lori, john@jdlpartnerslp.com or and Tom Granville, granvill@whitneycap.com; 4th Grade - John Mixon, johnpaulmixon@verizon.net; 3rd Grade - John Gallagher, jgallagher@ieee.org and Brendan Wootten, bwoot@optonline.net; 2nd Grade - Doug O'Connor, lddirect@optonline.net; Kindergartner-1st Grade: Scott Paskewitz, scottpask5@hotmail.com.

The 7th and 8th grade boys will be a very informal league and GCAA will work around typical middle school and other sports conflicts.

Girls: 5th through 8th Grade - Dan Dignam, dignamfam@optonline.net; 3rd through 4th Grade - John Feyrer, jfeyrergc@aol.com; Kindergarten through 2nd Grade - Scott Paskewitz, scottpask5@hotmail.com.

For those interested in trying out for GCAA travel, you must register for intramurals. Please sign up now to lock in discounted rates. This season most of our times will be in the afternoon while the majority of our times in the 2009-2010 season will be in the morning.