Back in the States briefly to do some grand-parenty things, which brings a heavy dose of perspective. Bottom Line Up Front, as we used to say: all the things you endure as parents, when time and patience are limited, become luxuries to enjoy as grandparents.
I watched grandson Henry at basketball practice the other: ten six-year olds with one coach, trying to learn the fundamentals. That coach must have the patience of Job. It brings to mind the old joke about monkeys and a football (Google it; I can’t repeat it here).
We didn’t have such “youth sports” back in the day: sports started mostly around 5th grade, when the boys acquired sufficient motor skills–but not enough self-discipline–to play. I grew up in Indiana, where basketball is and remains king. You played basketball, or got beat up and called words which aren’t socially acceptable . . . today.
I recall practice being good preparation for the Military Academy: endless exhausting drills with much screaming and questioning of one’s manhood (remember, we were ten year olds). After enough berating, we could enjoy a little scrimmage, although there still was the terror of the coach blowing his whistle and yelling “freeze,” which induced a Pavlovian mixture of fight-or-flee. We had to stop exactly where we were, so the coach could point out some crime against humanity one–or occasionally all–of us had committed. Then it was back to the joy of the game.
Henry and his friends had no such experience: it was all joy. They travelled with abandon, shot when they should have passed (and vice versa), and sometimes wandered off into private flights of fancy. One young lad took a break from the action literally, heading to an empty space on the court to do a little break-dancing.
I recall taking my daughters to basketball practice so many years ago: a change in type and kind, since girls were left out back in my day. I knew they didn’t need the drill school I experienced, but what exactly were they doing? Team sports are an important part of growing up, but how much pressure to exert on skills versus fun? I over emphasized the former, but they had plenty of the latter. They couldn’t possibly imagine how much of an evolution that was!
Organized sports, especially Indiana basketball, was all seriousness growing up. We remembered the scores, the good and bad plays, the missed shots. In my case, especially the missed shots. I had what you would call substandard athletic skills. Okay, I had none. To borrow the Rudy quote, even in college I was ‘five feet nuthin’, one hundred and nuthin’, with barely a speck of athletic ability.’
I became adept at using my skinny lil’ bod to block out, because there was no other way I would ever get a rebound. I learned that if you ran fast enough, you would get a fast break leading to an uncontested lay-up, which I shot successfully around 50% of the time. Which was an improvement from any other shot I attempted, including free throws.
Basketball games were a mix of anticipation, adrenaline and pure fear at how I might screw things up this time, but still in some ways I enjoyed them. And it was a sport I was able to really enjoy when I finally grew into an adult body sometime in my twenties.
Was that high pressure approach wrong? Is today’s Let it Be better? I dunno. If you survive missing a tying free throw with a second on the clock in a crowded auditorium, life’s other strained circumstances are a little less apocalyptic. Still, screaming has never been an appropriate form of leadership (drill sergeants excepted), so why would it be for kids?