It was standing room only as we entered for the event of the 2008 season. All the bleacher seats were taken, and the walls were lined 2 or 3 deep. Troy and I hurried into the corner where our cheering section had taken up residence for the next hour of our life.
Let the GAME begin!!!
There were so many choices to be made as to what "activities" would command a 7 year old's time, especially one who could do anything from ballet, horses, piano, to ball games of any kind. She chose basketball (much to her poppy's delight!). It just so happened that all the teams were filled at this late stage of the "choice", BUT one!! Oh how right that was, she was the 8th girl on this last team in a Christian league called, "Upward",
a program with history in this family I will add.
Saturday was the first game,
Only gold and blue were the colors throughout the gym as all the teams had reversible uniforms and complied with the coaches color choices of that day. On the court were 2 games with 32+ little first grade girls eager to test the skills they'd only just begun to learn. Dribbling was a high priority with bounce passing the ball into the court a close second. One could see that on each team there were a very few older girls with one season previously under their elastic waist shorts, a real asset to the progression down the court. After attaching the colored velcro straps to their shoulders (a new method of "find your color", the girl you were to guard), the game began with a regimented rotation so that all the girls had the same amount of court time.
*An all little girl league
*matching ribbons and bows on pony tails and braids
*every set of parent's with a camera or video of some sort
*siblings of all ages, crawling, toddling or dribbling (some in uniform waiting for later games)
*grandparents, great grandparents, and even aunts and uncles
...how could the participants miss the fact that "THIS IS IMPORTANT"!!!
The SMALL ball was bounced onto the court and the game began.
The lessons learned the previous weeks would be put to the test as the dribbling (usually 3 bounces only and a wobbly pass to an eager teammate), running, finding your man (color), making sure you are going to YOUR basket, all began to make sense. The girls from last year were mentors knowing the thrill of making a basket, complete with the accompanying cheering and high fiving of all the significant others present. There were quick studies beside them on the court that day, and KG was one! She'd been practicing on the driveway and the goal at home, but it was nothing like this. Back and forth, walking and fouling not called, because this was primary in basketball "school". Boundaries were essentially enforced but the fundamentals were the focus. As KG watched and saw the results of a "SCORE" (not recorded on the board, but kept exactly in the heads of each girl), all the practice came sharply into focus and connected the dots of the game in her head. She found her color, watched her opponent "dribble" and, finding the right moment mid-court, KG "STOLE" the ball, dribbled to the right basket, stopped, and shot.... you could have heard a pin drop in the little corner where her fans crawled, sat and stood. THE BALL WENT IN!!!! SUCCESS that no amount of practice time previously could have revealed was recognized in an instant.
and then,
The success was reinforced, not by the applause (which I can tell you was resounding!!!) but by an exact duplicated moment... again, same girl, same place, same situation, repeated itself in the next venture down the court. STEAL, DRIBBLE, STOP, SHOOT, SCORE!!!!!!! it now became embedded in her schema of the game, many of the fundamentals that had merely been pieces, were now a complete picture of the game amidst the boundaries of the court. There was reason to the little boring drills that no parent, (or grandad) or coach could have have explained as effectively as the reality of the point scored.
I think we have a player on our hands,
and I am thankful that she had the opportunity to INTENTIONALLY put those skills into play for success. (it could have been a fluke or happenchance... we saw that there too)
BUT, for our KG, it was INTENTIONAL... CHOSEN...
and it resulted in faith,
that what she'd been told and taught by the ones who knew and cared about her success had spoken TRUTH.
I know that I could go into spiritual things here, but I'll leave that to your hearts (so many of you hear mine even when I don't share it... and so many of you reading this have been at the exact same place as this little 1st grade girl on the first basketball court, in the first GAME of your life). It was fun on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 to watch the face of my grandchild change as she UNDERSTOOD what she'd been told; and she will now play the GAME with a new anticipation of success.
Oh yes, and probably the most significant thing, we watched this little girl celebrate her victory by encouraging all the other members of her team as a group success, even talking and laughing happily with the girl from whom she'd just stolen the ball. I guess that is what you do when you are 7 years old and just learning the GAME. After all the girls had walked through the hand slapping lines of their opponents and coaches, little stars were handed to each player (part of the Upward program)... by the end of the season, they will each get one of the colors with the coach choosing which star to give to the players. There is only 1 white star per game, and as we sat at Abuelos with a celebration lunch, KG didn't talk about her baskets, she told me about her star.
"Tahtee, guess what, I got the white star.... it said... 'a Christlike attitude'".
I think I'm gonna enjoy watching this new generation of athletics in the grandmother season of my life!
God is so good!
