Site last updated: Thursday, April 9, 2026

Log In

Reset Password
MENU
Butler County's great daily newspaper

Dynamic Dribbler

Maddie Osborn, 11, daughter of Slippery Rock High girls basketball coach Amber Osborn, has been posting videos of her dribbling challenges.
Maddie Osborn, 11, posts challenges online

Crossover dribbles. Behind-the-back dribbles. Spider taps. Right and left pounds. Scissors. Waterfalls. Machine dribbles.

Maddie Osborn does them all.

The Globetrotters have nothing on her.

Videos of her basketball dribbling skills have been a hit on social media. Others have tried to recreate her drills.

Many have failed.

Matching the 11-year-old's ball-handling prowess is a challenge in and of itself.

“I would never have been able to do that at her age,” said Amber Osborn, Maddie's mother and head girls basketball coach at Slippery Rock High School.

Amber Osborn is no stranger to dribbling. She was a standout point guard at Grove City High and then moved on to excel at Slippery Rock University.

Maddie, though, is at another level at her age.

“Yeah, I handled the ball pretty well,” Amber said, “but I don't think I was that good at her age.”

Maddie has been dribbling a basketball since she could barely walk.

The daughter of a coach means being inside a gym.

A lot.

When Maddie was a toddler, she could often be found sitting on the floor at Slippery Rock, playing with a toy horse with one hand and dribbling a basketball with the other.

“She's always been in the gym with me,” Amber said. “She always tagged along.”

Maddie loves basketball. Everything about it.

But during the coronavirus pandemic that has shut down all organized basketball activities, going on social media to post ball-handling challenges is the only outlet for Maddie.

“I like the games because they are a lot of fun,” Maddie said. “It's hard not playing games now.”

Amber added: “Sometimes I can tell Maddie is blah about going to do drills again. It's hard to do drills without the payoff of a game. Games are when you put those skills to the test and find out where you are.”

Maddie, though, is taking everything in stride.

The Grove City Christian Academy student enjoys coming up with new challenges and posting them online.

“Each day we sit down and talk about what the challenge is going to be,” Amber said.

Some are more difficult than others.

Some require a long time for Maddie to master.

One such challenge took her 59 tries to master.

“She gets frustrated,” Amber said. “Sometimes she'll be happy with it. Other times she won't. But we always figure it out and finish it.”

Maddie looks up to many of the high school players on the Rockets. As the team manager, she's around them often.

One of those players is junior Hallie Raabe, who often posts her own video on social media of her trying to duplicate Maddie's skill challenge.

“She's got the fire of a high school athlete, honestly,” Raabe said of Maddie. “Her mom taught her so well.”

Raabe remembers how she looked up to the high school players when she was a team manager. It makes her feel good that Maddie looks up to her.

“It's an awesome feeling,” Raabe said. “When I was in the seventh, eighth grade I thought, 'Oh my gosh, those girls are so cool.'”

A lot of people think Maddie is cool.

She has a lot of followers on Twitter and has received messages from all over commenting on how gifted she is at such a young age.

“It's pretty exciting that they're even paying attention to it,” Maddie said. “Some at other schools, they're paying attention to it and they say good job.”

More in Amateur

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

* indicates required
TODAY'S PHOTOS