B.C. is seeing fewer and fewer girls play and stay in basketball, even if more girls make the post-secondary level than their boys counterparts
The numbers of girls playing basketball are dwindling in B.C., or at least it feels that way. High school teams have been reduced to a few competitive squads, and club tournaments are seeing fewer team entries.
What’s the cause?
“TikTok,” said VK Basketball’s Anthony Beyrouti.
He was, to be clear, joking. Girls are not trading their basketball pinnies for aprons and tradwife training, or to create dance tutorials on how to do the Renegade or Slickback.
It’s a complex issue with differing factors, reasons and perspectives, said the VK coach and longtime basketball community pillar.
“It's a very interesting one. I don't have great answers, honestly,” he said. “I think kids have a lot of options these days, and it's hard work. So people tend to gravitate toward easier stuff than sport with their daughters. So we try to promote a place where kids can have fun and get after it and try to achieve some goals, but that's not that appealing to everybody.”
The club basketball ecosystem is where those who want elite level competition and training gravitate, but there’s a dearth of opportunities for those who aren’t ready for that level of commitment of time or money.
The pandemic also paralyzed the development pyramid in several ways, blocking some paths and creating a backlog in others. Geography, changing community demographics, lack of court availability, a flailing school athletics system, all have influenced the nature of girls basketball in B.C.
The irony in the situation is that girls’ talent from B.C. makes it to the post-secondary level at a clip that’s almost three-to-one to boys. Filter that downs to just NCAA Div. 1 schools, and the ratio grows even greater. The impact of the transfer portal, prep schools and reclassification into younger age classes by U.S. talent has raised the difficulty level for B.C. boys talents to be recruited as true freshman to near unattainable levels.
B.C. United sent eight players to post-secondary in the U.S. last year alone. VK Basketball sent three to D1 schools, and nine more to Canadian colleges and universities. Excel Basketball has another strong girls program.
3D Basketball Academy in North Vancouver used to be the nexus of girls’ club basketball in the province in the 2000s. Now that title is more likely to be bestowed upon AthElite in Surrey, which didn’t start its girls program until 2010.
Club co-founder Aman Heran, speaking before a practice last week, said he will have 55-plus girls in the gym on any given night, from Grade 9-12, from as far afield as Victoria or the Okanagan. He has a rep team of Grade 4 girls that is the only one in its age class in the entire Lower Mainland, so they have to play all their games south of the border.
“Overall, in the large scheme of things I would, I would tend to agree that there are girls or players that are not maybe picking up basketball as early as they kind of once did,” he said. “But, on the flip side of that, in certain pockets, I don’t think it's true. I don't think that's necessarily still the case in Surrey or in the Valley where I am. I do agree in the sense that we don't have anybody to play, because local clubs don't have teams to field at the ages I do. So there is truth to that.”
One contributing factor: how successful club basketball has become.
When 3D ruled the roost on the girls side, they didn’t have any real competition in their metro area. Now there’s a dozen. With girls making up a smaller number of basketball players compared to boys, it’s diluted their presence. Simply put: there’s too many clubs, not enough players.
“There's so many clubs popping up that it's become a very saturated market,” said Terry Fox junior boys coach Rich Chambers, the HOF coach who’s worked at every level in B.C., and helped run BC United’s girls program that played on the Under Armour circuit.
“Boys, there's clubs everywhere. You've got a crazy number of boys teams. Girls’ numbers are dropping for sure. It’s dropping in high schools, too.”
And if you manage to attract enough girls to your program, you have to create the environment and culture that makes them want to stay.
“Boys, they'll try everything. Girls ... if you don't offer girls-only programming, it is going to be next to impossible to have a young girl start out, even in coed basketball camps,” said Heran. “You go out for a week. Then you're the only girl there in a group of 20-25 kids ... you're going to get turned off. And it's not the sports' fault, it's just the landscape.
“With our numbers, I'm fortunate what I can offer girls. I have two locations for girls only, house league for grade three to eight, for novice players picking up basketball. And it's girls-only.
“It's an environment where they'll come. They know they're not the only girl. They'll make some friends. From there the small percentage that want to pursue the game, maybe 20-30 per cent, are like 'Hey, I want to move up a level. This house league is great but I want to see if I can make a club team or a rep team.’ You have to create a culture for girls. And so that's what we've been able to do.
“The kids who start early and make it they thrive,” he added. “But if you don't have girls-only programming, you're going to struggle. And so the difference with some of the other clubs, is because the numbers aren't going to be there initially. I mean, we're businesses as well. We can't run programs when four kids are going to sign up. It's just not feasible.
“We had to pay our dues early on. Kind of had to swallow (a loss) but you had to see the long term benefits of it, and now those programs are flourishing. It's good for us now, but it definitely wasn't the case five, six years ago.”
One of the problems being a business are the costs associated with it.
Whereas soccer is well-established with clubs all over the Lower Mainland, fields are easy and cheap to book.
Almost every club in the province is based out of a school gym, and that means dealing with the municipal bureaucracies. You need to pay for a janitor, pay for admin, insurance costs, etc., as well as dealing with pushback from principals, athletic directors or coaches who aren’t fans of the club model.
It’s not as simple as buying a chunk of land and building them, as anyone who’s aware of the real estate market in the province can tell you. The costs involved with creating a private court system are prohibitive to most.
“The math gets out of hand pretty quickly,” said Beyrouti. “Whereas, in like Boise, Idaho, that land is 250 grand, and you can just take over an old barn and put some courts down.
“We need more courts. We gotta get access to courts. So that's the next challenge in B.C. — we need more access to courts. I don't know how that happens, but that's the last piece, I think, to take it over the top.”
Access to school courts isn’t the only hurdle. Basketball in the school system has been degrading for years, with fewer and fewer coaches willing to work for free when they can supplement their modest teacher wages with paid coaching gigs in the club system. Senior teams are poaching players from their JV counterparts, leaving them woefully short-handed and degrading the player experience for those young teams.
All this has meant the bulk of skill and player development is handled by clubs. And if you haven’t been playing club basketball before Grade 8, your chances of making a high school team dwindle as well. You’re going up against players with years of high level coaching and competition, who have travelled to play elite level opponents.
“They just have way more experience. And so what happens? Those kids then get cut and that's it — they're done,” said Heran. “Once you get to that age, it really is.”
Carrie Watts is the head coach of the UVic women’s team, and spearheads the Vikes Nation, a program that includes sessions for beginners from ages 11-14. Part of its aim is to fill those gaps, to provide an alternative to the HP programs.
“You've got a whole group of kids that will never play high school sports because they feel behind,” she said. “And most schools aren't in a position where they can have a varsity and a JV team, or run two grade eight teams, where you can have a more competitive and more recreational (team), where you can expose some kids to the game, because there's just not enough coaches out there either.
“It's really, really tricky. You feel for, feel for the situation, but it's tricky to know how to resolve it. I think trying to provide opportunities that are learning and development opportunities, which, again, is hard because it's more appealing to go to a tournament in California than it is to play a little jamboree with three other teams from your city.
“It's interesting for us, because we're a varsity program, not like a professional club program. There's so many of them. But (our players) get opportunities to train at CARSA and be around our varsity athletes, which I think is kind of unique to some of the other club programs that are out there,” she said, alluding to the 190,000 square foot Centre for Athletics, Recreation and Special Abilities at UVic.
And 13 out of the 14 coaches running the girls’ programs are current or former Vikes’ players, not only giving them a chance to get some coaching experience, but to provide mentorship and inspiration for the younger players.
If further inspiration is needed, US basketball has served up the perfect icon: Caitlin Clark.
When the Women’s FIFA World Cup came to Vancouver in 2015, there was a corresponding spike in registration numbers the following year in girls soccer in B.C. Seeing Christine Sinclair up close and personal, and the pinnacle event of the women’s sport, was a nitrous boost for flagging registration numbers.
Clark, and her media-created nemesis Angel Reese, have certainly done the same for basketball in the U.S., and with the addition of new WNBA teams in Toronto and Portland — joining the already existing Seattle Storm — the basketball landscape is poised for a quake.
“I think even the WNBA coming to Toronto, look at how big of an impact it had on basketball when the Raptors came. It was a huge impact on the growth and visibility,” said Watts. “There's way more WNBA games on TV than there were before. The WNBA coming to Toronto, I'm sure they're going to make an effort to do some games across the country to really gather that support around the team as well. So I think the more girls see that, the more there's going to be interest.
“And the thing I love about them both (Clark and Reese) is they’re passionate, competitive players, and that it's OK to be that. I think that's so important for young girls to see too — at every level. It's so important for my athletes to see that too, that you know you can get after it and be competitive, and that's OK.”
Beyrouti and VK Basketball took a group of around 75 people down to Seattle to watch the Storm play Clark’s Indiana Fever, and marvelled at the energy in the packed Climate Pledge Arena. The area previous, Heran went down to the same venue with his daughter for the NCAA tournament, spending four days watching the Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Elite Eight tournament.
“We definitely should see a spike down south. I hope that trickles up here as well,” Heran said of the interest among young girls.
“Having a WNBA franchise in Toronto in 2026 that's going to definitely help. But we’re (years) removed to see the trickle down effect of that. And of course, we need to see the success of that team. Hopefully it stays and doesn't become a Grizzlies type situation.”
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