A new sporting adventure

Well Tommy has now reached the age of school sponsored athletics. He had his first basketball game ever tonight. And boy was it, fun, wild, and chaotic.

Their poor coach is a teacher over at the middle school and had parent-teacher conferences tonight. Well game time arrives and they have no coach there. Yikes! Me being the closest thing to authority tried my best to help coach. I asked who usually plays where and they all stared at me with that deer in the headlights look and I was then thinking this is going to be great!! They didn't know what a guard, forward, or center was and busy-body Tommy was trying to tell me something about numbers. Later I find out they play positions 1-5 not the actual names, very smart actually for learning.

Moving on, we do our "hands-in Eagle cheer" I tell them, get the ball, dribble, put it in the basket, don't let the other team score, and they're off. Our poor center got hurt during the tip off when the ball bounced off his nose, everyone then stared at him and didn't get the ball. More deer in headlight looks from the players. Would this game ever start? It did, and before I know it we're down 6-0. What part of "don't let the other team score" aren't they getting? Oh yeah, maybe it was the fact that the other team had a player that was taller than probably 1/2 of my students who are 7/8 graders. Yeah, test that player for roids. I was able to put in a set of subs which was a small miracle because when I told them to go kneel by the scorers table they looked at me like I was speaking Yiddish or something. It was a little crazy but at least we had a game going sans head coach.

She got there with a little left in the 1st quarter and our team did MUCH better after that. We only lost 12-6 and we could have won if our shots would have fallen. Tommy played very well defensively and got quite a few chances offensively. He'd be dribbling down the court for what would look like an easy lay-up chance and he would shoot the ball up at the glass so hard that it would often fly way back past the free throw line. Note to self - Tommy needs to work on his shooting in the off season. So many times we'd get excited watching him shoot, and BOOM another huge miss. The kid has no finesse and was a real backboard abuser. Maybe Saturday he won't shoot the ball so hard since he'll have tired himself out at his earlier hockey game.

The funniest part of my coaching experience was when Tommy was going back on defense he comes running over yelling, "I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired." I guess he was hoping he could just change on the fly like in hockey. Hilarious! I just told him stay out there he gave me a panicked look and kept moving. He survived.

So the family has been all abuzz about Tommy's big debut. It's a short season, we'll see if Tommy can knock one down on Saturday. Tonight he couldn't buy a bucket but I'm all proud just the same. I'm loving this new adventure already.