7. Love is. . . Playing Each Moment Like It Matters
Youth basketball is where it's at for Father's, baby.
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My son Rainy was 12 years old. He, like me, tended to be one of those shy kids who wasn’t born with the thirst for team sports. He preferred video games and TV shows and hanging indoors in dark rooms away from other humans.
But winter is long in Minnesota, and even Rainy agreed that playing basketball that year was worth it if for no other reason than to get out of the house.
At that time, I struggled to make connections with Rainy. It happens. So, I did what dads do, and I signed up to be Assistant Coach.
I got a dry erase clipboard, a whistle with a lanyard, and I even had my own maroon-colored Sibley polo shirt with yellow embroidered “Sibley” that looked super official.
We were the Sibley team.
Our Head Coach was Coach Mike. He knew basketball and he knew how to coach. His grown sons used to play for Sibley, and over the years he earned the privilege of coaching the Sibley team long after after his sons aged out.
Coach Mike—he had a way about him. His demeanor was calm and steady. He was soft spoken for a coach, and didn’t use a lot of words. He showed the kids how to do things. He commanded respect, taking time to explain the purpose behind the drills and how to setup and execute plays. When he corrected players, he showed them without making them feel singled out.
One Thursday practice, Coach Mike took me aside and said he had to work an extra shift on Saturday and wouldn’t be able to make Saturday’s game with Longfellow, one of Sibley’s longtime neighborhood rivals. I would be on my own. A First Officer of a starship without his Captain, floating in deep space…
When we arrived at the game, the Longfellow team was already there with two and possibly three coaches, along with their squad of 13 kids. Thirteen players! Compared to our Gang of Eight, as we called ourselves, Longfellow’s red jerseys looked like a small army. And we were down a player, so we were The Gang of Eight (Minus-One).
To everyone’s surprise, we pulled ahead and built up a sizable lead by the end of the first period. The score was something like 18-7. Sibley’s Gang making good on layups and keeping up with Longfellow’s Army on defense. We performed with coordination and confidence.
When the second period began, the tables turned. The Longfellow team pulled out their secret weapon—the Full Court Press, which, according to Park and Rec rules, wasn’t allowed until the second period. Our players couldn’t seamlessly pass the ball from the other team’s half of the court anymore because Longfellow players stood guard at the sidelines waving their hands in our faces, making every pass difficult. When our players showed any signs of hesitation, Longfellow grabbed the ball and the ref turned over possession. Our players grew flustered. The Full Court Press effectively confused us and dragged our momentum.
That’s when we pulled out a surprise of our own.
“Scramble!” I yelled, letting the magic word float across the gym like a calvary bugle call.
Our two players on the bench next to me screamed it with me, and instantly our players shifted gears. Instead of playing like deer frozen by headlights, we moved with increasing vigor and purpose. The Gang took initiative to get out in the open and thwart the defensive screens and obfuscations. Our players threw the ball down to our court, where one of our players stood, open. Without anyone to guard him, he made a stress-free layup.
We knew we broke their Full Court Press when the Longfellow coaches called a time out.
In the huddle, I encouraged them. We’re interfering with their interference, just like Coach Mike had taught us. The players nodded to show they got it.
I offered a few corrections and reinforced the things we were doing right. Rebounding. Passing. Stay moving. Our layups made it into the hoop. Our heads stayed in the game.
I sent them out of halftime break with one key directive—Stay Focused. “Don’t pay attention to the score. Focus on keeping the ball and getting our ball through the hoop. Every two points starts with getting the ball and moving it to our side of the court.”
By the end of third period our Gang showed signs of being human, red faces were evidence that their tomatoes were pumping. Meanwhile, the 13-person Longfellow team could refresh their entire squad every few minutes.
I used our two time-outs to let my team catch their breath and send out two fresh players. The Gang needed to rotate more frequently. A couple minutes of downtime helped them catch their breath, get an attaboy, see the game from a different view, and get back in with extra oomph.
Our more assertive shooter-players protested. The father of our top points-earner shot disapproving looks whenever his kid wasn’t playing. He was one of the father figures who thought he knew better; he coached from the sidelines. Once he even got into it with Coach Mike. I tuned him out.
I was the one wearing the maroon shirt with the word Sibley embroidered on it.
“We need everyone in this game,” I told them, “When you get pulled, you didn’t do anything wrong. We just need you to breathe and reset.”
The fourth period was intense. Longfellow kept its A squad out for longer, and they kept racking up points. The Gang kept pace.
We got behind, and then we got the lead back.
We rotated players.
Our defense was tight.
We rotated.
Longfellow got anxious. They missed easy shots. It happens. We were not afraid to pass the ball and slow down the speed of play. Our players responded to coaching. They listened to me, and proved they had learned from Coach Mike, even in his absence.
All the while, we rotated. All of our players received play time that they might not have gotten otherwise.
When our more assertive players took their turn to rest, our other players—including Rainy, had plenty of chances to rebound and attempt layups. I watched as Rainy’s rebounding performance grew by leaps and bounds. My shy introverted kid played his little heart tomato out that day. I was a proud dad.
You could say it was merely fun to watch, but in truth (for me) it was dizzyingly electric. Crowd noises bounced around the gym. Youth basketball, baby.
Despite our team being outnumbered by nearly double, the game could have gone either way.
At the final buzzer, Longfellow and Sibley tied 44-44. I don’t remember exactly what the response from the crowd was, but I was elated. Electricity ping ponged through my entire body.
When we took our team back for a game debrief, I did my best to channel the steady and reliable Coach Mike, but my enthusiasm betrayed me.
As Coach Neil, I gushed about how we executed Scramble and broke Longfellow’s Full Court Press. Noted the consistency of their layups. Gave Rainy and his fellow equally tall teammate’s props for fighting for rebounds. Asked our shooters to take a bow for remembering to take long shots that were “reasonable risks” instead of moonshots from half court. Everyone gave happy slugs to our shyest player for fighting for for the ball, showing us all that we were in the game.
For me, a First Officer without his Captain, the Tie was an unquestionable Win.
It may not need to be said, but I will say it anyway—it wasn’t just the final score that mattered. Because when you are in the present, playing each moment like it matters—the score becomes secondary.
For the first time I felt like a coach.
I don’t know if Rainy or any of our other players absorbed that lesson from our game with Longfellow, but I did. Ultimately, that game remains one of the brightest-burning moments in my memory banks.
Owleigh
Dearest Hobbit,
Last night, at game night with friends, I watched you shake the dice with such jackhammer vigor that your cheeks shuddered. You even made machine gun sounds out of your lips as you rattled the dice between your hands.
Just like Rainy used to do when we played Yahtzee! with him.
Last night wasn’t any different than prior game nights.
You didn’t win.
Heck, you didn’t even notice that you came in dead last.
What you did do was have more fun than anyone around the table. No, let me rephrase that. You brought the fun to the table, and each time the dice came around to you, you up-leveled the fun-level.
You have never been one to care about winning or losing. You’ve always focused first and foremost, on enjoyment, and secondly on maybe hopefully improving yourself along the way.
I admire that about you.
While you may be “losing” according to the rules of the game (or life), you always scatter your pop-rocks-pixie-stix all over the rulebook and bring a psychedelic level of joy to every moment.
From the stories I’ve heard and the one beautiful year I got to know Rainy and be a part of his life before he made the choice to go about adulting without you, I can only imagine that being Rainy’s dad wasn’t easy, and that it often felt like you were losing at the dad thing.
But you have never seen it that way.
Despite Rainy’s life choices and your years-long estrangement, you hold no resentment, and refuse to pay attention to the “score”. You stay focused. You keep the memories of the little moments like The Gang of Eight very much alive in every moment of every single day.
As I watch you ante-up the fun-level in games, and shake the dice with Rainy’s machine-gun laughter spilling from your lips, I see you keeping the joy of Rainy alive. He is as much IN you as you are in him.
Life isn’t about winning or losing. It’s about tying the strings of joy into every move, every play, and every day.