More Room to Grow: Hoop Club Joins Skillset Hutt Valley

18 hours ago

3 min read

If you’ve been at one of our Hutt Valley sessions lately, you’ll know the court is getting pretty full. On a Sunday at Taita College, we can now have around 36 people on court in one session, with kids and parents learning alongside one another.

A big part of that is how much our Hutt families have embraced Parents Play Free. Parents aren’t just sitting on the sideline; they’re joining the drills, learning alongside their kids and becoming part of the session themselves. We love seeing that, and as the programme has grown, it’s also become clear that we need a little more space between the different ages and stages we’re coaching.

So from Term 4, Skillset Hutt Valley is expanding.

A new structure for Sundays

Until now, our Hutt programme has been split into two groups:

BASE Mini | Ages 4–8

BASE | Ages 8–14

From next term, we’ll move to three:

Hoop Club | Ages 4–7

BASE Mini | Ages 7–10

BASE | Ages 10–14

Our new Hoop Club session will run from 11:30am–12:30pm on Sundays at Taita College. For some current families, that will mean your child moves into a different group next term, but the reason is simple: clearer groups give our coaches more opportunity to meet players where they’re at.

A four-year-old learning how their body moves on a basketball court needs something different from an eight-year-old starting to understand spacing, teamwork and decision-making. A 12-year-old needs something different again. As Skillset grows, we want the coaching structure to grow with it.

Creating a stronger starting point

Hoop Club will become the starting point in our Hutt Valley pathway for children aged 4–7.

At that age, we’re working on movement, coordination, catching, dribbling, passing and shooting, while helping kids build confidence and get comfortable being part of a basketball session. It also gives us more room to keep parents involved, which is something our Hutt families are already doing incredibly well.

That family involvement isn’t an extra part of Skillset. It’s part of how we want the programme to work, particularly when children are first entering sport.

Why Hoop Club?

Hoop Club might be new to Skillset’s Hutt timetable, but it certainly isn’t new to the Hutt.

The Hoop Club name has a long history across Wellington basketball, and it also has a direct connection to Skillset. One of our founders, Dionte Kang, joined Hoop Club Hutt Valley in 2001 at five years old. Her dad Brett became one of the parent coaches that same year and, more than 20 years later, he’s still coaching.

That experience went on to influence a lot of how Dionte thought about creating Skillset. The focus on fundamentals, the role families can play, coaches growing through the programme and the idea that basketball development can still feel like community all stayed with her. So did the Parents and Coaches v Kids game at the end of term.

Hoop Club was built through people including Kenny McFadden, Terry Stallworth and Angelo Robinson, and we know the name carries a history much bigger than our own organisation.

Terry and Miria Stallworth have also remained an important part of our story. Terry has mentored Dionte from her playing years through to coaching, while both he and Miria have continued to support Skillset as it has grown. They backed the programme early, shared knowledge, talked about what we were doing and sent families our way.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/f4d2ce_7ca2383329e1480d8ce2668632ee91e0/480p/mp4/file.mp4

Coach Dionte playing (and more importantly scoring) for Hoop Club

For that, we’re really grateful. A lot has been gifted to us through that relationship and through the Hoop Club environment that helped shape our coaches, and it’s a privilege to carry some of that influence into the programme we’re building today.

More room to grow

For our Hutt Valley families, this change gives us more room to keep doing what we want to do well. It gives our youngest players their own space, gives our coaches more opportunity to focus on the detail, and allows families to keep getting involved while creating a clearer pathway as children get older.