Lower baskets. Younger players. Same intensity.

These are the qualities that Grasshopper Basketball will return to the red rocks after a three-year absence for the youth league, as more than 40 local first- through sixth-graders demonstrated at a pre-draft clinic Saturday, Dec. 5, at West Sedona School.

“These are just tryouts to test skills,” said local business owner Craig Sullivan, the only head coach to date for the 14 first- and second-graders who showed up to the clinic. “There’s a couple of kids who are quite small, but it looks like they’ve been playing for a while.”

Coaches conducted drills to help determine the best shooters, passers and other skilled players who will go against each other in the local basketball league, which holds practice Mondays and Wednesdays for games Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

“We’re going to evaluate them to divide them up into at least two separate teams of 10,” Sullivan said. “My son wanted to play, so he brought something home from the charter school.”

A mainstay of fall and spring seasons in Camp Verde Parks and Recreation, Grasshopper Basketball is giving Sedona another try for the first time since the spring of 2012, as three leagues match coed teams of local youth from two school grades each — first- and second-graders, third- and fourth-graders and fifth- and sixth-graders.

“I coached a few years ago, when we only had two teams and my son was a second-grader,” said Namti Spa owner Jeff McGrath, a 15-year resident, whose son, Israel, will play on the fifth- and sixth-grade team. “They farmed it out to the high school and it kind of fell apart.”

Sullivan and McGrath, who also will be game officials in the league, are the only Grasshopper coaches who have currently passed a background check.

“It’s been a long time,” Sullivan said. “I liked playing, but I wasn’t good and I knew I wasn’t good, “When I was in high school, I was coaching my brother’s team just outside Orlando. My dad was coaching my brother’s team and knew nothing about the game, so I was helping him until I finally said, ‘Why don’t you stop coaching and I’ll be the coach?’

“Now, to have the opportunity with my son, it’s exciting. Luckily, my wife and I each own businesses, so I’m able to adjust my schedule as I need to, and she can take over if I need to leave my shop.”

While both Sullivan and McGrath were pleased with the turnout compared to registration, which netted less than 15 players, more players and coaches are still needed by the 4 p.m. registration deadline Tuesday, Dec. 15.

“We didn’t get as many registrations as we wanted in the beginning,” said Santy Villarico, recreation and aquatics supervisor for the Sedona Parks and Recreation department. “We’ve been advertising this since October.”

While three other coaches have verbally committed, including local physical therapist Lori Zelwenger, Villarico would like to see four more coaches and as many teams solidly in place by the Dec. 15 registration deadline.

“Where I come from, we’d travel 30 minutes to the University of Central Florida to play games,” Sullivan said. “One of the things I proposed to Santy, when he said there wasn’t going to be enough kids, was that we team up with Cottonwood or Camp Verde and make a bigger league that would travel to different cities.”

“I still would like to have a backup,” Villarico added. “Once I get more people, I’ll tell them where to go to in the process.”

For more photos and full details about how to join the Sedona Grasshopper Basketball league, please see the Wednesday, Dec. 9, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.