48 Hours, 78 Days

It is hard to believe Nationals is just 78 days away, we are looking forward to seeing everyone in Springfield. If you haven't already completed your player registration you have 48 hours to get the early registration discount. Please make sure to spread the word at practice Monday. Here is the link to register

We have posted the family fundraising program on line. This is really a very easy and profitable program. Our goal is to help 100 families raise $60,000-$100,000 to help them attend Nationals this year. For more information

End Of Year Nationals Update

#1 Player Registration Discount

I had planned to send this letter last week to give everyone a one week warning on the early registration discount but in the midst of holiday travel just didn’t get it done. As a result we will extend the deadline for the early registration discount until Monday January 5th – if you pay on line the discount expires at midnight, or if you mail a check it must be postmarked on the 5th.

#2 Team Registrations

It continues to look like we will set a record for teams this year as we have gone over the 200 team mark in record time. Look who has registered and if your team is not registered encourage your coach to register as we will start filling up age groups within the next 30-45 days. Link

#3 Family Fundraising

The economy is putting financial strain on quite a few families. The fundraising program that is in place can be used for families to earn $500-2000 to attend nationals for more information. Fill out Contact form on website

#4 Hardship Exemptions

I want to clarify that our goal in the hardships is only to put controls in place not to limit players. We have had a lot of hardship exemption request for players that attend co-op three days a week but are still 51% homeschooled and this is not a problem.

#5 Team USA

Registration is now open for Team USA. Link

Key Nationals Updates

We posted a very significant announcement on the player's blog earlier this week, we also e-mailed it to our entire list, if you have not read the update it is at players blog if this is the first you are hearing about this please sign up at the player's blog to get updates so that you get all the information in a timely manner.


Boy's Power Rankings Released

The NCHBC has released the December boy's power rankings. This is the last boy's power ranking of the year, starting in January the rankings will be done through a coaches' poll. Link


Girl's Power Rankings -- Dec 15

Championship and All-American Rings

We have received many requests about the possibility of buys rings for previous years. We have worked the the manufacture to make the rings available for -- Championship Rings (all previous years) and All-American Rings (from 2008) are available the link is on the front page of www.homschoolbasketball.com

Hardship Exemptions

We have completed to update and explanation of the Hardship Exemption. To read all about it go to http://homeschoolbasketball.publishpath.com/player-registration

Writers and Bloggers Needed

Nationals is looking for writers and bloggers for two projects:

Writers – this year we will be doing a special program/magazine called The Showcase. The program will include All-American information and history about past national tournaments. We are looking for a number of people who would be willing to a take writing assignment, research and write an article for The Showcase. It is our goal to gather and preserve the history of Nationals through The Showcase over the next 5-7 years. If you’re interested in writing or editing please contact us through the website contact form.

Bloggers – we would like to have 4-5 people write a blog during the National Tournament. It would be best to have people who are not attached to one team for this project so they can watch and write about 4-6 games per day. We really want to enhance the interaction for people at home as well as having write ups on 25-35 games each day. This will be great if we can find bloggers, I would love to see a bunch of graduates do this.


Special Thank You

The response that we have received from yesterday's announcement has been 100% positive and we really appreciate the spirit of cooperation. We do realize that there will be questions and concerns and we welcome all comments as we strive to make Nationals an even more amazing experience for all.

Important Conference Call

There will be a conference call for coaches on Thursday evening at 9:00 PM CST, November, 20th

Conference Call # is 1-218-339-2626 access code is 704478

We will cover five key topics:

All-American Nominations and voting
All-Region Nomination and selection process
Significant change to the former "Division 3"
A new alliance and how it affects our television deal for Nationals
The Fall of 2009

Some of you may have prior commitments and I understand but if you are a Varsity Coach I would recommend that you have someone "sit in" for you. The call is open to all coaches, athletic directors and board members.

This is very exciting information, plan for about 25-30 minutes.

New Website

I know some of you may have thought we lost some focus with the new Fund-It program and while we are on a mission to get every homeschool program using the Fund-It Program because we want every team to be able to afford to attend National's. At the same time we will be giving you a solid does of improvements each month that will keep you looking forward to the best Nationals ever, Springfield 2009

The new Nationals site is up and running, there is still a lot of work to do on it but I think you will like the way the site looks and works.


Early Registration Discount 6 days to get your registration filled and check in the mail



Hotels

Filling up quickly over 70% of the available hotel rooms in Springfield are already reserved, don’t wait to long and get stuck 30 miles away.


Rings -WOW

I just saw the final on the Champions, All-American and All-Region rings -- incredible, check it our on the main page of website there is a link mid page.


Coming next week


Eligibility

There has been a little confusion with our statement that we are adjusting the eligibility requirements. Let me clarify there are no changes to the rules we are just defining the Hardship Exemption Requirement and integrating them with the player registration form. The goal is to clearly design and explain the Hardship Exemptions and division play for the National Tournament.

On line Player Registration should be ready by end of the first week of October.

Tip-Off BIGGER than ever

Tip-Off Update
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There is a great preseason tournament developing in Springfield November 13-15.

There are 15 Boy’s varsity teams leaving just one opening. Last year we had 6 teams so this is a tremendous increase.

Currently we have 6 Girl’s varsity teams leaving 2 openings (last year we just had a 3 team round robin)

The JR High teams will play Friday and Saturday

Complete listing of teams

Kurt Talbott is the Tournament Coordinator for the NCHBC. If you would like to reserve a spot you may contact Kurt at 1-417-880-4875.

Fund-It/BenefitBar Update
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We have set up an NCHBC Fund-It/BenefitBar so that if your program is thinking about signing up but are just not sure how it works you can check it out. If your program decides not to participate and you would like to support Nationals you can sign up as well.

Remember it is free, it is easy and if your program joins down the road your toolbar will simply replace the national toolbar.

To check out the Fund-It toolbar

If you want to sign your program up and develop a revenue stream to support your program Click Here

Congratulations to following programs who have gone live with Fund-It in the last 2 days:

HSAA, Omaha Roadrunners, Faith Christian Academy, Fort Worth Zion, Memphis Eagles, Garland County Homeschool, Fort Royal Flames, VA

Additionally Youth-Net a Dallas based organization with 4,000 Youth Pastors ministering to 1,000,000 teenagers has joined forces with Fund-It to use the program to help local youth groups with mission trips, building projects and local ministries.

Teams that have signed up and will go live next week:
California Homeschool Sports, HIS Eagles, Ozark Christian Home Educators Association, F.C.H.A.A. (Faulkner County), North Atlanta Christian Flight, Fort Wayne GUARD, Dallas Homeschool Basketball (Thunder), Tulsa NOAH, Austin Athletic Fellowship, THESA , Lebanon Rockets, Rockford FIRE, New Mexico Select, Homeschool Wildcats Sports Club, Nashville Central Christian Warriors, Lake Houston Conquerors, Crossroads (Illinois Crusaders).

Save $50 Per Team

Teams that register and pay by 10/31 receive a $50 discount of their team. We always have a huge rush the last week of October, so make sure you plan a head and don’t miss the discount. On line registration. Registration is going to be a great year we already have five brand new teams signed up and over 20 inquiries from new teams that is very high for this time of year.

All-American Press Release

Please send us a copy any published All-American Candidate press releases.

Fund-It Program --Gone Wild

Over 20 homeschool teams have implemented the Fund-It Program and every program that has had their bar for more than a week is make a $100 or more per week. Plain and simple this is free money to help your program. There is no selling, buying or asking for money and it is free to sign up for your program and all your participants – read all about it
I worked with Fund-It to sign up the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and they will start launching it to their 50,000 plus huddle groups in 10-12 days so now is a good time to get signed up if you’re not already in.

Congrats to the following programs that just went live with their Fund-It tool bar in the last 48 hours: Huntington Eagles, Tulsa CHEF, Pulaski County Flames, Spirit Academy –CA, Weatherford Express, Quincy Saints.

We have revamped the website to sign up go to www.funditbenefitbar.com/nchbc
Feel free to call me if you have questions. Fund-It will be giving a $1000 bonus to the Fund-It program of the year at the Showcase in March. We will announce the details to all Fund-It programs in about 10 days.