First Step Towards the NBA

Connor has always been a basketball star, receiving his first indoor hoop at the age of eighteen months and never looking back. We play inside, we play in the driveway, we shoot wads of paper into the garbage, etc. He has even told me he wants to be a basketball player when he grows up. However, he has never wanted to be on a team. "So do you plan on going to an office and shooting hoops when you grow up?" I've asked. And yes, that was his plan- until this summer, when we finally got him on a t-ball team and he fell in love with organized team sports. At long last, it was time to play ball.

I signed up for basketball through Idlewild in September and didn't hear anything until mid-November, when someone e-mailed asking for parent volunteers for coaching duties. Uh, no. I paid $80 so that someone else could coach Connor for once- not so that we could move our coaching from the driveway to a gym. I want to watch and enjoy, and so does Chip. We conveyed this sentiment by passive(ly?)-aggressively ignoring that email and waiting to get a call from whatever sucker they pulled in for the job.

We got that call, and two practices later we had our first game. Against Bing Hampton. (It was two words on their unis.) There were about 15 of them, and only 7 of us. Not to mention that one of our kids just randomly left in the middle of the game. And we already knew one coach wouldn't be there, but the other got stuck in marathon traffic and showed up more than 30 minutes late. I know I shouldn't complain, since he's just a volunteer, but everyone in Memphis knew there was a marathon. That's why responsible people like me looked up the route map and planned their trip to the game accordingly.

To reward our responsible planning, Chip got stuck coaching after all. He did a great job, eventually. He finally explained to the kids that they should pass at least once before shooting- right before the fourth quarter, which is coincidentally when we scored our first points! Oh yeah, we had our asses handed to us. The scorekeeper actually reset the board for each quarter, just to keep our kids from entering into a suicide pact after noticing it was 50-0 or so at halftime.

All in all it was an awesome experience- just how I imagined it would go. Connor played hard and had a great time, and learned a lesson about losing with dignity. (Did I mention they didn't keep score in t-ball? He didn't know he'd ever lost a game before Saturday.) Because Chip was coaching, I was given the camera. That's why these pics aren't that good. But hopefully you can still get the idea.

Look at my boy play D!

Ayden gets the ball stripped by #23, who took it the other way for a score.

Yeah, they had a lot of fun. Can't wait to do it again on Saturday!