Monday, January 18, 2016

Our Little Basketball Superstar

I wasn't able to go and see B play his game today because little sister #2 was sick.  But I did get to see the ear to ear smile when he came in the door.  You could feel the joy he felt.  And all because of a little kindness.  I have long been a fan of all of the circles we are falling into since moving to Moore, OK.  But the Earlywine YMCA had always been my most unsure.  It's a busy place.  Easy to get lost in the crowd when you aren't from here and don't go to workout often.

But we signed our kids up.  Tator played soccer in the fall and loved... the other kids.  She is not our athlete.  She and one of her friends even played ring-around-the-rosie during one game.  But she had fun and the other parents we met were amazing.  So we signed up again.  We signed B up for basketball.  He couldn't dribble, and could barely get the ball up to the net, but we had time to work on it.

When we get to the first practices he can dribble and make a goal every once in a while, but to say that he was playing basketball was a bit of a stretch.  In B's world he is playing basketball.  And those other eight 7-9 year olds are his teammates.  He knows their names and a few have tried to interact with him, which always amazes me when a kid that age just gets things.

Then the first game... Only four other players show up.  B was out there the entire game and even inbound passed once.  We had spoken with the ref before the game.  We don't want special treatment obviously, but also don't want him wondering why one kid is randomly walking on the 3 point line while everyone else is on the other half of the court.

As the, accidental, coach of the team I have felt bad when B isn't getting the playing time that the other players are getting.  We mean to put him in and then the time is gone.  But today, when I didn't get to go, Greg got him in with a bit of time to spare.  And the ref walked up to Greg and asked if he wanted him to try to get B a shot.  Absolutely.  So once up and down the court and a "foul" gets called.  "Number 59 you're shooting".

He got two shots.  Missed one got the second, and the crowd cheered him on.  Before this he got so excited when they cheered for whoever that it made the whole thing worth it to us.  But now they were cheering for him.  After the buzzer to end the game a bunch of people came up to B to tell him how awesome he did.  A little piece of their day meant a whole lot to our son, and words will never express what it meant to me.  

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