Basketball Jones

What a great sports Saturday!

This morning, I ran 9 miles with Russ and the boys.  Jude, J.P., Joe and I went to an afternoon Predators' game and watched them wax the Blues (final tally, 5-0).  J.P. and I left after 2 periods to go to his basketball game at M.B.A., where several of the fathers kept up with Vandy's 74-62 upset over Kentucky on our cell phones.  Then, J.P.'s team played a tough game, but lost 37-32.

After the first 2 games of the winter (WNSL) season, we (coaches and parents) decided to move the boys up to the 3rd grade (9 year old league).  The boys blew out the first 2 second grade teams by 35-40 points, which wasn't good for either team in terms of the players' development.

The boys are 1-3 or 1-4 against the 3rd grade teams, although all of the games but 1 have been close. It's amazing to watch them learning so much from game to game - things they never would have learned blowing out 2nd grade teams all season.  One of the things I'm the most proud of is even t though our boys are outsized every game, they haven't yet backed down and they're never intimidated.  They scrap and scrap and scrap, diving on the floor for loose balls and tying up the ball time and again.  Some of the games have been a little rough, which has been great for their development.

Today, late in the game, the boys were down 35-32.  "Coach Russ" substituted J.P. in, but first told him his only job was to foul whomever had the ball for the other team.  I was sitting at the scorer's table keeping score, so I saw - up close - the confusion on J.P.'s face as he tried to process being told to do something he normally would never try to do on purpose - foul another player.  There wasn't enough time for Russ to tell him why - to stop the clock and put the other player on the foul line, so the boys could get the ball back - and J.P. was thoroughly confused.  I almost laughed as I watch him try to bump with his chest the boy dribbling the basketball.

It dawned on me, then, that J.P. didn't know how to execute one of the most fundamental plays in basketball - fouling another player to stop the clock.  None of the boys knew how to do that, because they'd never done it and it went against everything they had learned about basketball to date.  He never got the foul and I could tell he was frustrated.

Also, "Coach Chris" was situationally substituting late in the game, offense for defense.  Winn, one of our better scorers, and 4 fouls, so Chris took him out on defense and put J.P. in, then took J.P. out on offense and put Winn in the game.  Normally, the boys platoon substitute en masse, so J.P. was confused about that, too.

After the game, on the ride to Sloco in 12South for dinner with a few teammates and friends, I explained to J.P. why Russ told him to foul and why Chris was putting him in and taking him out of the game.  He understood, after we talked about it.  A father-son moment, for sure.

It's funny, but so many of the intricacies of sports and the unwritten rules, I get to teach him those things.  He doesn't know them.  I have no recollection of how I learned them or who taught them to me.  And now I'm imparting them to him.  Pretty cool.

Just another sports Saturday.