Sadly, my team was no better. We were a rag tag bunch of girls from a small parochial school who had been recruited mainly because our school wanted a girls' basketball team and we were the few who fell into the category of "girl". Technically, the team was supposed to be comprised of seventh and eighth graders, but because our numbers were shy we enlisted the help of our fifth and sixth grade friends. The combination of youth and inexperience, together with a large degree of unathleticism, rendered us winless for my entire career. Wins: zero. Win average: zero. Talent: not quite zero, but pretty darn close.
Found in the middle of this gaggle of ineptitude was our coach, who just so happened to be my dad. I don't know why he decided to coach the girls' basketball team. Very likely he was the only one willing to take on the challenge (humility?) of coaching a Lutheran middle school girls' team. Perhaps he saw it as a chance to spend some time with his two oldest daughters, who were quickly slipping away into adolescence and all the comes with it. Whatever the reason, our coach he became and our coach he remained.
And remain he did. Through the musty old armory practices he remained. Through the cheerlessness that losing over and over again brings he remained. Through the petty eighth grade girl squabbles he remained. Through the drills that we repeated over and over in practice only to be forgotten the second the referee's whistle blew he remained, yelling at us from the sidelines, throwing his hands in the air at the debacle that was occuring on the court, but remaining, always, throughout.
And despite the dolorous activity that was happening on the court, my dad could always be counted on to point out the positive. "I saw some good playing out there." "You guys showed great sportsmanship on the court today." "We didn't lose by as much as we did the last time we played that team." There weren't many highlights to be found in our Immanual team, but the ones that existed my dad always managed to uncover and lay bare for us to see, so that no matter how discouraged we were or how much we (ok, I) hated the sport of basketball, for my dad's sake we were always determined to get back on the court and give it our all, even if our all didn't amount to a whole lot.
Because we were his daughters, my sister and I had the privilege of riding home with the coach following practice and games. Mostly we'd sit in silence, listening to whatever classic rock was playing on the radio at the time. Occasionally, however, my dad would use the time to flesh out what happened in practice or during the game. Despite my total lack of basketball ability, my dad still believed in me and told me as much. He expressed his confidence in me as a leader and reminded me to never give up. He didn't get too involved with my adolescent life away from the court (and I really can't blame him), but I think he used basketball as a means to teach me lessons that could be applied to every day life. I remember a particularly difficult period in eighth grade when school events left me questioning my worth as a person. My dad took advantage of the quiet car ride before returning to the chaos that is life in a family of six to remind me to stay true to who I was, that I was valuable no matter what other people thought. He followed up by giving me a big hug and telling me he loved me.
He can still be counted on for those hugs and "I love you"s.
Dad, I've thanked you for many things (although probably not enough), but this time I want to thank you for being my basketball coach throughout those middle school years, for the time you spent in practices and at games, for the pride it cost you to coach such an unsuccessful team, for the patience it requires to bear with large numbers of hormonal pre-teens, and for the lessons and love you dished out along the way. Along with being a #1 dad, you were definitely a #1 coach.
No comments:
Post a Comment