BETHLEHEM, Pa. – A youth basketball league in the Lehigh Valley has been shaping lives for more than two decades.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the 6X BBL basketball league held their All Star Event. This is more than just a basketball championship.<\/p>\n
“It’s for kids ages 5 to 12. Just a recreational basketball league, just to have some fun,” said referee, Jazmyn McDonald.<\/p>\n
Have some fun while learning more than just skills on the court.<\/p>\n
“We hope that they walk away with the values of respect for each other and they take it to the workplace in life,” said coach and referee, Jonafer McDonald. “Everything in life doesn’t go your way, so basketball doesn’t always go your way.”<\/p>\n
The McDonald family started the 6X BBL league more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got players that are in high school all over the Lehigh Valley that played in our league and they’re stars for their team, and that’s what we’re proud of,” said McDonald.<\/p>\n
The league also has a motto: “Scholars first, players second.”<\/p>\n
“If you don’t do well in school, you can’t step on the court and the athletics part is just a bonus,” said coach, Gregory Brown. “Hopefully, all these kids do well in school and go to college, get scholarships and just become good citizens.”<\/p>\n
Basketball is the bonus and they showed off their skills, with each of them walking away with a reward for their hard work. McDonald said, “Every team player gets a ring. It’s just kind of like a trophy for them and they love it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – A youth basketball league in the Lehigh Valley has been shaping lives for more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,1391],"class_list":["post-126417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-bethlehem-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}