CrossFit Athletic Group

Speaking of a dad who raised his son the right way, I grew up watching tapes of Isiah Thomas and then spent hours and hours trying to mimic the way he did the between-the-legs moves. So from 5 years old through, like, 12 the only basketball I ever saw was either the kids I was playing with or professionals on tv. I assumed all basketball looked the same to some degree.

Then came my sister, who is a talented self-taught musician and a naturally skilled basketball player. As a 4th grader she had an uncommonly good touch anywhere inside 15-feet, and was surrounded by a group of tall, athletic, coordinated classmates at St. Dennis. My dad was their coach and they opened their season against St. Mary Magdelen that year.

The final score was 4-2.

Four.

To.

Two.

More letters in the score than the combined score. It didn't make any sense. Individually, the girls could dribble, move pretty fast, make lay-ups, and generally knew which way they were supposed to go. But it was like when you put 10 of them in one confined space they just turned into kittins trying to bat a yarn ball around.

...........

Meanwhile, in this edition of we miss sports, Tea', Madison, Makenna, and Rylee are all playing in a basketball league and a group of us went to their game last night. After the 6:30 session Jay and I made a bet: We placed the over/under for the game at 38. I hadn't bet on a sporting event since the Champions Club started but I figured since it was 9th and 10th graders, 18-minute halves, and Madison Bettys was playing offense and Rylee Hesske had 5 fouls to give that theoretically could lead to free throws; I felt decently safe taking the over.

With 7 minutes left in the first half it was 4-2.

I tried trash talking, complaining to the refs, yelling out instructions, and anything else in an attempt to manufacture something resembling momentum. I even resorted to having Shakes send Jay a picture of the other court's scoreboard (it was 30-8 over there) to try and keep it interesting. Slowly and sometimes accidentally, the ball somehow kept finding its way into the basket but it didn't seem like enough to get us to that 38-point landmark. It was a mix of comedic ineptitude combined with enraging ineptitude.

"How the f- do you let a shitty dribbler split a double team!?" I yelled, thankfully under the mask.

Suddenly there was a string of open layups made and we found the score 22-12 with well over 3 minutes remaining:

Mr. Rettig was the coach and, kind and polite and competent as he is, was completely unaware that I had a house payment and one of my dogs riding on two more buckets; he called off the full-court press (which wasn't producing any steals, but did increase the possibility of an upen layup on the other end). Maddy ended up making a shot in the paint and brought the score to 24-12 with just over a minute to play. The Champions Club cheering section turned into the Cameron Crazies (Mel's worst nightmare) and were hoping and praying for another scoring opportunity.

And then we got our wish: The ball found Tea' standing wide the hell open on the wing, she caught it(!), looked at the basket in the same way I look at a multipication problem, and then instead of raining a wide-open, spread-covering trey-banger, she threw the ball into a heap of girls who just happened to be standing where it landed, surprised it wasn't a soccer ball. The clock expired soon after and I found myself on my hands and knees at a rec league girls basketball game.

Jay is now somewhere in the Bahamas playing Monopoly with real cash. Hopefully he'll be back for the workout on Monday.

...........

I just realized I cut Coach Casey out of the picture! I'm a moron.

I really, really miss sports and I definitely took for granted the fact that on any given day of the week I had the option to go to any one of our kids games without any limitations.

I had so much fun last night watching the girls play. Madison made some good reads in the passing lane, Makenna held her own playing against kids two years older, Rylee had a few putbacks, and Tea' looked like she was aware a basketball game was being played. Coach Casey, Evan and I provided the color commentary at an unreasonable volume while Mrs. Carey told the girls their shoes looked nice just as Tea' banked in a 3-pointer.

"IT'S TEA' TIME," Coach Casey yelled like he was 17 years old in the student section.

Of all the sports, basketball and baseball are probably the two where fitness and strength can be overshadowed by pure skill. Rylee is a softball-first girl and the others are soccer-first; most of their time spent outside of CrossFit has been on their primary sports. But it's awesome that they are still playing multiple sports even though there is a lot of pressure to specialize. If you can look past the missed lay-ups and line drives off the glass, you can see how our girls are strong and in shape. The technical stuff can be learned over a few weeks of dedicated work. But like I said, this was not about sport-specific training or a lost bet. I haven't had this much fun watching basketball since the Warren Rec camp. Getting to watch our kids through the lens of a fan instead of a coach is really gratifying to me and it's awesome to share the experience with other people from our gym. Plus it's basketball... the best sport on planet earth!

Thank you girls for doing your thing last night and thanks to Coach Casey, Mr. Bennis, Josh, Shakes, Evan, Paris (by default), and Mr. and Mrs. Carey for coming out to show love!