Noah recently completed his second season of basketball at the YMCA. “He’s better than he was the first season” is about as generously as you can put it. Noah loves it, even if he doesn’t completely understand the point of the game, or pay attention to you when you’re trying to explain it for that matter.
At his age, attention spans are short to begin with, and “organized sports” is somewhat of a misnomer. Beth, one of the managers at the Y, confided to me that the staff refers to it as “sperm ball” for the chaos and randomness that occurs after the whistle is blown. Even so, Noah stands out for his limited focus. If he’s on the bench, he’s goofing around with the kids around him. When he’s on the court, unless the coach is in his face telling him exactly what to do next, he could be dancing, he could be waving at us on the sidelines, or he could be staring at the wall. On rare occasions, he may actually be running with the herd as they stampede from one end of the court to another.
This is not to say he doesn’t have some good skills – he can dribble while walking, can shoot with some accuracy – even when they don’t lower the baskets from regulation height – and can get his arms up to play defense, but only if someone tells him to right that second.
Because he knows how to do all this physically, it has been surprisingly hard to lower my own expectations about his performance and just relax. I find myself telepathically trying to urge him to “Pay attention! Go after the ball! Shoot it!” I get anxious because I know he can do it, if only he’d pay attention (I probably sound like my mom, regarding schoolwork). I’m much better this second season, but it remains a difficult urge to control. I really don’t want to be “that guy”, the sports parent who berates his kid for not doing better and then berates his wife for telling him to calm down. We actually had one like that, and I feel for his kid long term.
If you can disregard your own projections for future college hoops success, it really is an amusing form of entertainment. Noah may not be the best, but he’s far from the worst. There are somewhere around 20 or 30 coaches and parents yelling things at the kids who, like Noah, barely know why they’re there. A basketball to the face will stop play as the injured party sobs mid-court. Teammates will wrestle the ball from each other, chase one another around the court and occasionally tackle if they have to. Dribbling may or may not be involved, and occasionally it evolves into a game of “keep away” rather than basketball. The kids find themselves under the basket with a “What now?” look on their face, with everyone in the gym shouting “Shoot! Shoot!” at them. Even at this age there are a few kids who are standouts, and are much better in dribbling, shooting and tracking the action. One kid even has a victory dance down when he scores, and it takes so long the action has long since moved on by the time he finishes. Even the customary end-of-game handshakes with the opposing team take a Herculean effort to organize and carry out.
The important thing is that Noah enjoys it, and proud of the medal he received. On to soccer...
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| Grandpa Rick, who is an experienced coach, giving some shooting pointers |
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| dribbling |
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Practicing some defense
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| Sideline antics |
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| Showing us his medal after the last game of the season |
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| Noah's never had a very spontaneous smile in front of the camera. Somewhere we have a soccer team picture with this same deer-in-the-headlights look |
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| His more natural picture-taking face. |
