reset 06/23/99
Of all sports, basketball has always been my passion. As a five-foot high school freshman, little opportunity was available to me to play in organized team sports. I had skill, but not an overpowering presence. I had a heart for the game, but mine was a foot lower than the coaches wanted. Midway through high school, I had set aside any ambitions of greatness on the basketball court. I had stopped growing at 5'10". It was time to earn a living exercising mental ability rather than physical muscles.
While I was still attending college, my dad approached me with the idea of officiating. By that time, he had done it for a couple of seasons. I had no strong feelings, but I was curious about the perspective on the game as an interactive fan sporting the zebra stripes. The pay was next to nothing, $5 per game, but I couldn't really call it work either. It wasn't work, but neither could I call it fun. Besides, I was calling games alongside my dad. What could go awry? It was a good father-son bonding activity, or so I thought.
I came to realize I was on the wrong side of participatory sports when the first coach began screaming at me for calling a blocking foul rather than an offensive foul. My dad came to the rescue with an immediate technical foul call on the bench. At the end of the game, the coach came up to me and apologized for his personal attack, but I had already decided that I had more potential on the player side of the game at this juncture in life. More is, of course, a relative term. Other basketball-related opportunities were soon to surface.
Somehow, someway, my dad became the coach of my youngest brother's sixth grade Boy's Club basketball team. My dad, in turn, asked me to help out. Supposedly there were tryouts and something resembling a draft to partition players new to the league. At the first practice, there were definite signs of a setup. Our team was mostly from a Hispanic marginal neighborhood. It was obvious that these boys had little-to-no organized basketball experience. Their moms probably sent them to the Boy's Club to get them off the streets and out of trouble. In the arena of height, we came up short -- an extreme handicap in the game of basketball I knew all about. At the second or third practice, we were blessed with a new arrival, a tall white boy. Tall he was. Talented he was not. He was clumsy, as are most boys who grow faster than their motor skills. I could already foresee that team discipline was also going to be a problem.
A game or so into the season, I inherited the coaching job. My dad got busy with work and had to miss a few practices. Needless to say, it was a tall order for a college undergrad to handle a team of eleven sixth graders, mostly from the wrong side of town, by myself. As a naive young man, I pushed forward. I was always intrigued by the Boy's Club rule which said that at least ten boys must start and complete a full quarter without substitution. I put together a rotation to abide by the rules and minimize damage by our least physically blessed. The first game or two revealed that we had one exceptionally talented boy. He could drive to the basket with lowered shoulder and determination. Most sixth graders graciously cleared the lane for him. He was our ace-in-the-hole. He carried us from humiliating defeat to defeat. I'll refer to him as Juan, although that was not his real name. The first game or two also revealed that we had one exceptionally untalented boy. He mostly watched us get beat, except for the third quarter when he got a chance to contribute. I'll call him, Jerry, although that was not his real name, either.
Still early in the season, we came up against our South Austin rivals. The stage was set. From the opening tipoff, the outcome was apparent. We stunk! Our boys didn't take humiliation well. The boys took the personal droning personally. They lost it. We got flagged with a few technicals. The bench became unruly, and I could not control the action on or off the court. At the end of the game, two men, the dad and step-dad of our tall boy, came up to me. They said they'd pull their kid from the team if I could not manage team behavior better. I knew I needed some help. His name was George. George was his real name!
George was my best friend. It just so happened that he was 6'2" and Hispanic -- just what I needed to help mold this mob into a team. George worked hard with the guys on their play under the basket. He showed them how to position themselves better on offense and defense. He taught them how to leverage their bodies to achieve an advantage over the opponent. He especially worked with the tall kid. It showed. Our team steadily improved, developing skills that weren't there before -- learning that teamwork can win games. The winning spirit was contagious, as we climbed to a winning record.
Near the end of the schedule was a rematch with our South Austin rivals. Like Carrie Shrug, who though hurt from a fall on her first attempt, drew upon every ounce of strength within her for that second vault to bring Olympic gold to herself and her team, like the Dallas Cowboys looked forward to the rematch with the San Francisco Forty-Niners after the Montana-Clarke National Football Conference championship thing, our boys wanted a second chance at those Longhorns.
The rematch came. To the total amazement of the opposition, our team matched them point-for-point. In a slug-out performance where the bench was as much into the game and under control as those on the court, we hung close. At half-time, we knew we could win. We stuck with pretty much our regular rotation from quarter-to-quarter in order to meet the league regulations.
The third quarter was upon us, which carried our weakest line-up. It was time to insert our third quarter exclusive boy. Jerry was unconfident. That lack of confidence was magnified in game situations. It was not unusual to have only ten kids show for a game, but for this big one, we had all eleven. I had the option of holding out one player, but I didn't. I called for the regular third quarter line-up to check in, including Jerry. The opponents quickly keyed in on our weak link with swarming defense. We lost the ball once and turned it over a second time down the court. One of our players whispered to me, "We have eleven players. We don't have to play Jerry." I responded, "I know," but I stuck with my guys. The next time down the court, Jerry's inability to handle a double team resulted in a steal. It was at that point that I turned to Juan and said, "Go in for Jerry." That was the first time Jerry had not played the entire third quarter. It was the first time he had been pulled from action.
I was too busy to notice Jerry's reaction either in coming off the court or sitting out the remainder of the game on the bench. In retrospect, I should have given him a word of encouragement, devised a strategy to deal with their swarming defense, and reinserted Jerry, but I didn't do any of those. With Juan now in the game, our opponent's game plan unraveled. The game was in the balance until the final minute when we went ahead for good. As the clock ticked down to zero, our team erupted. Our rivals were in a state of shock. Was this the same team they kicked around and humbled a couple of months ago? We were not the same bunch of guys we were at the season opener. We could shoot, we could rebound, we could pass, and we could defend. As an added bonus, if we could defeat our final opponent, we'd proceed into the playoffs. Our confidence level was going supernova -- that is all of us save one.
Jerry was a no-show for the remaining practice and final game. We lost that game and missed the playoff action. But it didn't matter. By everyone's standards, the season was a resounding success -- everyone's but mine. We won the game that gained us respect as a team, but I lost the respect of one boy as his coach. I was hurting. You see, Jerry reminded me of me. I could see myself in Jerry's shoes. I guess that's why I look back on that game as a low point in my life rather than the pinnacle of my coaching experience. I've not coached since. Perhaps I never will.
At a critical juncture in the game, I pulled one boy from the action in order to secure a chance at victory. We won the game, but at what cost? What's really important in life? Winning the game? What's not important in life? Losing the game? Christian hope rests in our victory in Jesus. The game that really counts is already over. It was fought more than two thousand years ago on a Judean hillside. Satan was defeated then and still sits defeated today. Unfortunately, some are living without that knowledge. Don't you be one of them. Read on. Know the score. Celebrate true victory.
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reset 06/23/99