Last month, at my 1st & 2nd graders basketball game, I paid my penance. Whatever sins have accrued over the years, and they are many, have now officially been paid… as a coach… of 1st & 2nd grade basketball.
Lemme back up for a second, lets start at the beginning.
About 6 weeks ago we showed up for our 1st practice at shoreline church in fountain valley-best little developmental sports league around.
The coach doesn’t show. Well I’m there, I’m present, I have kids, I have a leadership background. I can step in for one practice!
You can already guess what happened the following week. Steven, the wonderful young director of the league, walks out of his office and says, ‘it’s official Ben, the other dad just couldn’t do it this year. Would you mind stepping in for the next 6 weeks?’
Let me just say right now: I’m a HUGE believer in volunteering. And because we lead what is essentially a volunteer organization, I know I must practice what I preach. That’s why we serve on a pastoral board for our city and another for a nonprofit we love (legacymakers).
So coaching kids sports-as much as it appeals to the competitive sports history of mine-has always been a really easy “no.”
In the end, I really had no choice. After all, 3 of my kids were on the team! And it was only a 6-week season, how bad could it be?
Well for a competitive young dad (like me) the answer is: bad… really bad.
Now I don’t wanna come out and disparage other kids from my team, these folks are neighbors and becoming friends. But the bottom line is that at this age, and this level of bodily development it‘s a wonder if a kid can dribble and run at the same time-for all kids, mine included!
Lets just get to the crucial moment and what I learned (and what you might learn too):
The first weekend of November was the last game of the season. The games are 50 minutes long, broken up into 5 minute quarters. Before we had gotten to half time I wanted to crawl into a hole.
Nothing is going right…
We can’t pass the ball. We can’t dribble the ball. We can’t make it past half court without the other team stealing the ball. Don’t even ask about shooting… my star shooter and leading scorer (my son), after 6 weeks of training to shoot from one spot-3 feet from the basket, up and decides that he’s gonna start lobbing one handed 3-pointers and I just can’t believe my eyes.
And you know what makes it all so much worse? The other team is stacked.
I mean they have played together forever. They have a complete bench of pretty strong subs. They have miles and miles of supportive (and loud) parents… they’re just smiling and laughing making inside jokes to one another and the truth of the matter is, we’re just kinda the ragtag group-barely strung a team together… running away from the ball in almost every instance.
So listen I’m not the yelling type or the narcissist who takes himself too seriously, expecting wildly too much from these young children, but can anyone relate to this?
Have you ever had to eat humble pie?
Have you ever faced public scorn?
Have you ever wanted to pull your hair out because a plan is falling apart?
Have you ever felt like your kids were gonna be the death of you?
Well if so, here are 5 things I learned from this past weekend’s basketball finalé that you can tuck in your back pocket for next time you face your moment…
- And this really is most important: we have got to learn to not take ourselves too seriously. ITS NOT ABOUT YOU!
Literally the morning of the game my mom sent me this clip of some insta-famous kid’s coach; he was really stinking good! And one of the things he said was, “I used to get angry, but then I realized I was making it about myself. And that’s what we call a lose-lose…”
The whole game I kept thinking, ‘is that what I’m doing?! Is this about me? My ego? My status?’ You know what drove me crazy? I didn’t really know how to separate myself from the circus act that was happening on the court… and thats just something I’m gonna have to get curious about… but even if I haven’t got my practice locked in yet, the value can still be a driving force, a lens of accountability for any meeting or moment we are making things about us, instead of making it about the mission!
- Sometimes the very real sovereignty of God comes down from heaven and makes itself palpably felt. When that coach mosey’d on out from his office and said they needed me, I was so shook, not because someone would have the gall to ask a father of 11 who, again, already volunteers his time, but because I knew, I mean I just knew God wanted me to coach this team for some reason. And when the hand of God moves, you better get curious because rebellion ain’t an option.
- A lesson in letting go is ALWAYS in order… in a crazy turn of events we had thee best ref of the season on our last game. Normally its some teenager in training who calls these games, but we had a middle aged man-looked to be a coach and father himself.
And man he was insanely great-called the game modestly, but intentionally enough to actually stop and teach them something. He knew all the kids names by half time and would urge them along in their breakaways and their shooting/passing/dribbling.
He was so on it I thought, ‘what do they need me for!’ And I took a seat.. more than I had the whole season anyway. So in a wild turn of irony, there was a whole other option available to me this last game-instead of getting the most frustrated and flustered all year, I could have been the most detached and relaxed simply because this ref* was so on top of it.
- Talk to the kids and have fun! Whether this applies to your next volunteering challenge or your everyday parenting challenge, try and remember: kids are a trip! They say and do the darnedest things… many times we’re just moving too fast to catch it! There was this moment during the game, because the ref was over-coaching (and I didn’t have to), I just sat down to one of our, we’ll say “meekest” players Alea.
This kid is hilarious man, she just barely says a word, usually she just sticks her tongue out at me (of course I just stick mine back out at her). But after 6-weeks I’ve started to figure her out… and so we were on the bench together and I just asked her how big her candy bag was from Halloween and of course she was totally in to that conversation. Then I turned around with some of the knucklehead kids from the 1st and 2nd grade team behind us and started asking them if they wanted to enter the trade portal. It was great fun. But I never would have seen it if I was taking myself too too seriously…
- Sports are a discipleship opportunity, just like everything else. There was a moment, granted in the older boys team later in the day, but it was nothing short of startling. Coach’s kid on the team, probably an average player, got called out for elbowing the other team’s players-by the opposing teams coach. The ref got involved along with our teams coach and they benched him. He starts hooting and hollering and rolling water bottles on to the court and dumping water out along the sideline. It was truly shocking.
I had to run and grab his mom watching the younger siblings outside to come and get him. She walked him out for 5 minutes and when he came back, he just got back in the game only to have 2 more amazing flops (fake injuries) and storm out before the game-ending handshake. I was appalled on so many levels.
First, there’s no way my kids getting back in that game until he apologizes to every person in attendance (okay maybe not the fans, but the coaches and players for sure) that is a major mistake in our adult modeling to allow someone to not clean up after themselves. But like so many other cases like this one, you have to ask: who’s to blame?! And even though we are embarrassed to say it aloud, Roald Dahl was right (author, Willy Wonka) when he answers, “the mother and the father!” Bottom line: sports, just like school, and friendships and chores and everything else is a discipleship/formation/character opportunity and we really wonder how could our outlook of the whole world change if we viewed it that way???
*believe it or not I actually fought the ref on one call he made. I mean this just goes to show you how out of my mind I must have been, because this guy was perfect. I really mean it, as close as you could get to an emotionally sensitive AI ref, he was it.
And yet there was this one moment that my kid (the leading scorer and ball hog) was 3-stepping to hand the ball off so someone else could shoot and the ref called him for traveling. I was like, “ahhhhhh are you sure?! But did you see what he was about to do?!” Like that’s just how we drew it up. Just when apparent magic was about to happen, foul is called and it’s another turn over. Uuuuuggghhhhh
Alright, we understand this could go on forever so we better cut it off before it becomes an anthology. We just hope that this journal entry from Ben’s coaching experience will serve as a helpful reminder for you about what life’s really all about, we know these 5 notes will be a on-going reference guide for us!
Until next time!
Ben & Rylee
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