Monday, October 11, 2004

Basketball is life.....

Brett has played basketball with the same group of boys since he was in kindergarten. All in all they were a pretty decent group of boys, less one with a terrible attitude. The parents, on the other hand, would have made great material for a talk show. They were terrible. At every turn they were plotting against the coaching staff if little "Johnny" wasn't playing the entire game or arguing with referees to the point of being ejected from games. Years ago I had had enough, but Jay wanted to stick with it, he didn't think it was fair to not let Brett play with his friends. And because for many of the years he was the head coach. He was looking forward to coaching the boys their final season together. That was until this summer. By the grace of God (aided by the actions of some of the most troublesome parents on the team), Jay finally agreed that he had had enough and that we needed to find Brett a new team to play with. The search was quite simple, just a hop, skip and a jump from here but now we have to worry about "if" Brett will make the "A" team. It is tough in the 8th grade to earn your way onto an exisiting team, because it means that someone who has been on the team will get moved to the "B" team.

There are 2 evaluation sessions to determine who will be placed on what team. The first was Saturday. Brett looked slow and out of shape, but you could tell he had the skills needed to play. The final evaluation is next Saturday and hopefully by then Brett will look "ready" to play the game.

The funny thing is that Jay and I seem more "hung up" on him making the "A" team than he does. Maybe it is because he loves the game and he knows he gets to play either way. Or maybe he just isn't going to let us know how much this all means to him. He was perfectly willing to switch teams because it was what his father thought was best, but I sometimes wonder if his heart is still with his old team.

So this week, I will bit my nails and say a few prayers, that my little boy, whose first words he ever uttered were "I think I want to go outside and shoot basketball", will make it on the "A" team and prepare myself for the reality that he might not. In the larger scheme of things, making a team isn't that big of a deal, but it sure would be nice if he does!

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