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More Youth Sports

• Eagles teams end successful season
• Adams sticks with sports through photographs
• Charter School sports teams taste success

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While many Islanders are looking forward to fall sports, Diane Trzyna is thinking basketball.

The president of the new Optimist Club of Marco Island Basketball League, Trzyna is already signing up boys and girls for the season that starts Nov. 15.

She will be at Winterberry Park from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Friday during Marco Eagles football practices this week. Registration also will be conducted from 9 a.m. to noon on Sept. 20 and 27 when the Eagles football team will have games at Winterberry Park.

While the basketball league will closely coincide with the Marco Island Charter Middle School basketball season, Trzyna said there won’t be a conflict.

“We are targeting kids from 5 to 13, with the idea of signing up the older kids who don’t make the Charter School team and need further instruction and playing time,” Trzyna said. “We are expecting to sign up 100 kids or more. We will try to have separate leagues for boys and girls if we get a good registration.”

Admittedly a basketball junky, Trzyna has been involved in YMCA basketball clinics and helped coach the 12-year-old team, the city’s first traveling team, sponsored by the Parks and Recreation Department.

She is already looking into complete uniforms.

The registration fee is $25 per person or family.

“We want the registration fee to be low, with the children doing community service as part of their participation,” she said. “That is what the Optimist Club is about, giving back to the community, doing the right thing.”

Trzyna said the Eagles football organization, an established part of the new Optimist Club, is providing some funds for the new basketball and soccer leagues. She also will have fundraiser and is recruiting team sponsors. She also needs coaches.

For more information, or to sign up as a sponsor or a coach, call Trzyna, 389-7883.

As volunteers saw the success of Eagles football, now in its fourth year, they advanced a new Cal Ripken Baseball League, which too was a success in its first season this year.

Previously under separate organizations, when it was decided to add basketball and soccer the volunteers saw the sense in putting all teams under one umbrella. The formation of the Optimist Club came in July.

The Eagles, Cal Ripken, basketball and soccer leagues will now be under that organization. Previously the Eagles and Cal Ripken had separate boards and expenses.

“We were filing separate tax returns and paying $750 a team for insurance,” board member Greg West said. “Being under one organization we expect insurance for kids, coached and volunteers will be reduced.”