Sporty Spice

If your college kid calls at 6:45 a.m. on a holiday weekend, you know it can’t be good.

So began my day when the little genius called to report she had done it again. For the fourth time, she had injured her foot. How? “I was playing basketball and I think it’s broken. But you would’ve been proud of me — I scored the first goal.” Goal? I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure they don’t call them goals in basketball. “You’re wrong, mom, I played middle school basketball for four years, I think I would know.”

Does it count if half of those games were “played” from the bench because you were sidelined back then with cracked metatarsals and sprained ankles?

Thankfully she grew up in the era of participation awards, so her trophy shelf is as full as anyone else’s. Apparently there was no vocab test for sports lingo either, or maybe they just told her she was the basketball goalie to boost her ego.

Never mind. After researching campus healthcare (no x-ray on weekends) and nearby urgent care (closed for the holiday), we identified the nearest emergency room and had her Uber. She’ll start the semester hobbling around in a boot.

This is par for the course for our family’s experiments with athletics. I deserve my share of the blame. I grew up in the era where the government required mandatory public shaming in the form of annual fitness tests. Tiny and slow, I came in last in my elementary school for the timed races. I did no better in the middle school tests of strength, the first to drop off the pull-up bar and unable to do a single real push-up. I tried to redeem myself in high school, trying out for no-cuts freshman lacrosse, where all teammates played at least a few minutes every game. We looked adorable in our little plaid kilts and my first (and only) pair of cleats. I started off afraid of the ball; those lacrosse balls hurt like a medieval weapon and leave a four-inch welt if they land. Eventually I learned to catch and pass. For warm-ups the coach had us run seven laps around our giant suburban high school building. I was so slow I occasionally found it necessary to simply wait on the far side of the building for the rest of the team to lap me and rejoin them with a bit of a lead. It was better than having them all wait for me to finish, just like grade school.

With time and practice, I improved so much that I received my first and only sports award, one of only two given out to the team. No, I was not MVP. That distinction went to Susie H., who played for four years and eventually went on to captain Princeton‘s winning lacrosse team, earn a permanent place in its Hall of Fame, and coach college and pro teams. I really didn’t have a chance. Instead, I received the only other award granted to our team of 60: MIP, Most Improved Player. Go ahead and laugh. Perhaps I had the farthest to go, but at least I tried. I regret not sticking with it, but all my best nerd friends were in the marching band, and the next season I joined even though I didn’t play an instrument, soon becoming captain of the (wooden) rifles and looking just as adorable in that uniform, which had less plaid and more gold braid. Plus, marching band went on trips to play in parades in Canada and Virginia Beach. This struck me as a most significant improvement.

My own children’s athletic careers never hit the heights of my short-lived efforts.

When my oldest was 3, I signed her up for soccer. It soon turned out she could barely find where the ball was on the field, much less connect to it or try to score. When the next two had their turns, I dutifully attended the games with a couple of toddlers in tow. Perhaps it was for the best that there was not much for me to watch on the field as I was busy retrieving dropped snacks and blankies that fell through the bleachers. When my husband came to watch our 4-year-old play, he noted that she ran like she was afraid of hurting the grass. And in the wrong direction.

No matter. Her teammate Olivia controlled the ball from whistle to whistle, and her team won the championship despite our daughter’s light contribution. By the time November rolled around, we were shivering in the bleachers as we watched Olivia perfect her game, freezing our tucheses off and mentally noting that we needed to find another activity. Whereas sports require you to show up for every single game, we soon migrated to drama, since plays require parents to come see only the finished product. I could be an equally devoted parent on a much easier schedule, and no frostbite.

This worked until our accident-prone child got roped into middle school basketball. This experience was an exercise in maintaining enthusiasm while overcoming shame. Our school was smaller than others in our league. It received a special dispensation to allow fifth and sixth graders to play in competitions typically reserved for seventh and eighth graders, just in order to recruit a large enough team to participate. You can imagine exactly how competitive the 10-year-olds were compared to teams of kids four years older. Whatever you are imagining, it was probably worse.

At least the bleachers were indoors, and we did not need to endure November‘s chill to show up for the games. Those early scores were painful, some games triple digits to nothing. In the third or fourth year, on the very last game, we finally played a new team, even worse than ours, and won our first game ever. I am sure that jaded NBA champions are far less excited than these girls were to finally post a win.

Our youngest was probably the best athlete, and we finally learned that you can be a valuable player by focusing on defense. This took a lot of pressure off from trying to score, or even touch the ball in the course of a game. Those long, skinny arms waving in the face of the opposing team‘s best player accomplished more than we would have had we spent hours practicing three-point shots.

This kid also played in a local league, famous for extremely tough coaching of extremely unreceptive players. I arrived early once to pick up my fifth grader from the last practice of the season, in time to hear the coach “motivating” the girls to work on their skills over the summer. “Do you want to be losers, sitting around making friendship bracelets? Or do you want to be winners on the court?” He motivated her all right. My budding athlete ordered extra string for camp that summer and came back with a pile worthy of Taylor Swift.

Then there was the time in high school that my vision-compromised kid asked to be excused from gym when they played basketball because she kept getting hit on the head. I have to wonder how the other kids had perfected their aim. Can’t you step out of the way, I asked. I don’t see them coming in time. A few hundred hours of vision therapy helped her eyesight, but her opinion of the sport never improved.

Now that my kids are grown, I do feel a bit guilty for not pushing athletics more. It is a hard habit to adopt when you get older, and exercise is truly so important to health. Sports also teach discipline and cooperation, foster friendships, and best of all, you get another adult, the coach, dedicated to improving your kid’s character and discipline, yelling at them so you don’t have to. Hopefully ours learned their lessons in other ways. Recently, my kid found motivation to exercise because she wants to try out for the cast of “Survivor.” Drama kid to the core. Whatever it takes to get her to the gym. Good thing we have medical insurance.

Laura (Lori) Fein of Teaneck is a litigator at Eckert Seamans LLC. She is the daughter of the greatest mom ever, who she hopes is reading this, and the mom to five daughters who probably never will. Her podcast Mommash: The Oy and Joy of Family is available on all platforms, and she can be reached at mommash.podcast@gmail.com.

opinion

comments