Dad Entry #146

I'm helping coach Michael's basketball team. I'm not the head coach, just a bumbling assistant. But it's a start, and I love it. I want badly for all the boys to succeed. It's like parenting, in that respect, elation, frustration, suggestion, correction, observation, exasperation, reflection; all circling, colorfully, in a big carousel. Coaching, like parenting, exposes nerves that at any moment can be struck - stomped on, in fact - and sent ringing, producing exquisite sensations not unlike those encountered in Soviet dentist chairs only 30 years ago (I'm told by my Russian and Ukrainian coworkers), in gray, spartan medical offices, made suddenly and spastically very brilliant with color, when the drill was applied without novocaine. Well, coaching isn't that bad, or good (consider the relief when one escaped that Soviet dentist chair), but it really gets me fired up! Since I have spent many months of my life, in aggregate over the entire span, on a basketball court, I fancy myself somewhat knowledgeable. Of course, there's a lot of know-it-all parents out there too, many of whom aren't even parents at all!, or whom, someday, inevitably - it happens to us all - will be humbled by events that occur when they're on the job (a job that lasts forever).

It's funny to notice the insecurities that surface while I'm coaching. As a player, I'm pretty sure I could handle with ease - all the kids in the league, of course, none being especially agile or tall or over 100lbs - but 99% of the dads and coaches too, face-to-face in the flow of a game, or one-on-one if they insisted. No sweat. (None look like former college players or in that dreaded early- to mid-twenties age-range that I can no longer own off the dribble and freely create against... I have lost a step). So despite a stubborn, soothing confidence as a player, I'm bombarded by uncertainty when trying to verbally instruct the kids, describe a fundamental, deliver a pointer, run through a play, organize a drill, obtain and maintain attention. I will get better. I'm tempted to impress the boys as a player, to get them to listen. The desire to impress is, of course, the surest sign of insecurity. I could spin the ball on my finger or dribble through both legs and around my back in a blur, show a wicked crossover to freeze my nine-year-old defender, thread a no-look pass (that would only hit a kid in the nose causing bewilderment, shooting pain, snot, and insistent tears - I hate getting hit in the schnoz) or I could drain a smooth pull-up three, but they wouldn't notice. They would only notice a dunk, and I can't do that. Shame on me. That would impress. Then they would hang on my commands and advice, and the very rim itself sometime in the future; they would be focused, hungry, eager to "set a pick," "maintain spacing," "use your left," "box out," "BE QUICK!" and so on. Go get the basketball, it's yours!!