Idol Worship

OK, this is the only place I write anything down ... so I just have to recount this series of events before I forget them ...

Today my little 7-8 year old Christ Church basketball team was in a dramatic basketball tournament championship game.

And at the center of it all was, ultimately, my son.

The whole regular season, we played in the A division against the toughest competition in the league. I don't know why we were put there, but ...

We won one game, lost a couple of semi-close ones, got blown out in others. You couldn't ask for a better group of children. The lesson all year was that there was character in losing with dignity. We did that pretty well and pretty often.

Come the post-season that started this month, they put us in the Division IV tournament -- the least of the tournament divisions.

Somehow, we got a first-round bye -- I suppose thanks to our trials and tribulations in the A division in the regular season. All we had to do was win one game and we would be in the championship.

I didn't know what to expect as the tournament started. I told my kids all year that I couldn't promise them they would win, only that I would consider them winners if they played the best they could.

Last Saturday, we won our first game 25-14. We could have scored 40, but I put in the second string for the whole 4th quarter.

I couldn't help it. For all the talk of losing with dignity, all week I was nervous.

"What if? Wouldn't that be cool? No. That's shallow. I've just got to let it be. Remember what it is I taught them all year and what made me most proud ...

... but wouldn't it be cool?"

Today, we matched up today with the #2 seed for the championship.

When I walked into the gym, I saw their team. They had a kid who looked like he was almost as tall as a middle-schooler. They were pumped. I heard their coach telling them, "Focus."

I was thinking they might be the youth basketball league version of Drago in Rocky IV.

The game didn't start well.

The big kid scored at will. We were down by 4 points twice -- which is an expansive sea of point differential at this age.

I told my tough center -- who was at least two inches shorter than her counterpart -- to put a body on the big kid and foul him if she had to.

I directed another little defender -- my #1 fouler -- to help her out. (Sorry, I'm not going to just let some kid pitch a tent in the lane and score flat-footed).

We shut him down. .

My son is the scorer. The flashy one who gets most of the glory -- even if he doesn't totally deserve it each time.

He wasn't shooting as well as normal, but he was playing point guard about as good as I could ask for. Driving, passing, taking reasonable shots, filling the defensive passing lanes, running full speed despite being winded.

I give Asa hell sometimes. I asked all the kids in practice one day, "Raise your hand if you wish Asa would pass it more." You could feel the breeze as their hands shot up.

All season I've told him to pass the ball. He hasn't always complied -- in part because of his confidence in himself, his desire for attention and because he has a hard time letting go of control over whether the ball is going to be stolen.

He always played hard, every second ... sometimes too hard where he tends to lose himself.

The truth is, the team wouldn't be where they are without him -- and they don't always catch the ball when it's thrown to them. I made the center the captain early in the season to prove a point: Do the dirty work and take the bruises with no one really noticing, and you're a leader.

The game didn't look good, didn't feel right, but we answered baskets with baskets. But all along the way, just a little short.

Until late in the 4th quarter.

One of my littler ones made a corner shot to tie it up 14-14.

During the time-out, I reminded them about what they were best at -- defense.

I instructed my center to front the big kid because I knew that's where they were going. That's not always a good idea, but I figured they weren't quite sophisticated yet to know to throw it over her head.

I backed her up with someone to play him from behind, too.

It worked.

We got the ball back.

Asa rushed it down the court. The other coach must have called for a double-team on him.

I called a time-out when he ended up trapped by two defenders on the sideline with about 20 seconds left.

Time for a decision.

All year I'd been yelling at Asa to pass the ball.

Not this time, though.

For the first time ever, I told him explicitly not to pass it. In front of all the team to hear. He worked hard all year and listened to a lot of griping from me and ultimately paid me heed ... but this was his moment and I was going to give it to him.

The plan?

Have a good passer in-bound the ball to Asa. Then dribble out the clock a little, drive it to the basket with nothing other than a shot on his mind and see what happens. It was our best chance.
He did what I told him. He sliced into the lane, got forced to his left and took his shot.

Foul.

With 10 seconds left, we're looking at two free throws to break the tie. If he just hits one of them ... well, the truth about kids basketball is that a team can't get the ball down the court and get a decent shot off within the span of 10 seconds.

Just one free throw.

I sit down.

I put my hand on my assistant coach's knee. I tell him, "All he has to do is hit one of them and we win."

He tells me don't worry.

I tell him I can't worry, because I know I've got no other choice. I have no control.

Asa looks around, calmly. He just looks like he belongs there. He looks like I don't think I could look if I were in his position.

The ref gives him the ball, he looks calmly to the basket ...

In there.

I sit down as if a small gust of wind blew a feather over.

Before his second shot, I call to him and he looks over.

"Make sure the ball hits the rim before you move into the lane."

He nods.

One of girls earlier in the game had a free throw that she made taken away because she entered the lane on the release.

He shoots it.

He waits for it to hit.

It bounces out.

He runs into the lane ...

The day before, he spent the afternoon practicing free throws in the driveway. Just for fun, he practiced missing the shot, then making a running rebound and tapping it in on one jump.

It didn't quite work out as spectaculary as in the driveway ...

But he darts into the lane, gets the rebound and puts it in the basket to go up by 3 with 6 seconds left.

Tears of pride come to my eyes. I'm embarrassed that I can't control it. Or guilty that I enjoy it too fully.

We did it.

All year I've held him to a higher standard. Maybe too much of one.

Play smart. Think about his team and not just himself.

Today, he did that. And, at the end, he found himself with all the responsibility on his shoulders.

The moment that he imagines in his driveway.

Today, the only yelling I did was to tell him to quit interrupting me and finishing my speeches in the huddle.

(He's heard it all before. But there's only so much time. Last week, they gave me my first technical foul ever ... for a substitution penalty as I struggled to sort out equal playing time for each kid and get them in the game quickly enough).

That rebound and basket allowed Asa and his co-MVP to come off the court and watch the seconds tick off from the sidelines.

The second string goes in -- their lack of defense be damned because 3 pointers don't count -- to have their moment to soak in the last seconds on the court.

We line up behind the captain to shake hands. I walk up and down the line and tell them be reserved and keep it cool. The other team's feelings are hurt, I tell them.

They know how that feels.

But ultimately ... the celebration, the pictures, the hugs.

Postgame ...

Now, no one can accuse Asa of a lack of self-confidence.

Nor a lack of vanity.

On the way home, he announces to me that he's retiring his #12 jersey. He tells me he's putting it in the "baby box," a large tin can where all his little baby stuff is kept from when he was an infant -- including the tiny YMCA jersey he wore during his first basketball season when he was only 4.

He tells me the jersey is not to be washed. Next year, when he moves up in age group, the kids start wearing powder blue tank-top jerseys. No more #12.

He gets home, opens up the garage, places the trophy at the edge of the driveway, puts on some hard-driving "Guitar Hero" and WWE entrance music -- which somehow manages to include "Beat It" -- that he burned on a CD and shoots his basketball the rest of the afternoon.

I didn't realize he was serious about the jersey. He actually pulled out the big tin can and put the jersey inside. Unwashed.

He's spent the rest of the night carrying the trophy around. He's held it up like a wrestler holds up a championship belt, special hand signals and all. He carried around one of those fake belts for months. Now he has something real.

He fell asleep with it.

On Monday, the trophy will go to another kid's house, to stay in his bedroom for a couple of nights. He can soak in his accomplishment. Take some pictures, show his friends. I understand he takes his first communion tomorrow morning and will insist on wearing his jersey underneath his tie.

Then it goes to another house, where she and her sister will have to figure out whose bedroom it goes in.

Until the big party, where we all return, as a team, to get our participation medals, triumphant ... champions.

Yeah, there's a little bit of idol worship going on.

I told Asa that we couldn't keep the trophy, that it wasn't just ours. But I told him he should enjoy it, because he worked hard all year for it.

He told me, "The team worked hard."

I couldn't be prouder.