Basketball Gods, I Choose Coaching

There’s nothing in basketball that beats making a last second shot to win a game. Nothing. I know. I made one. 1985. Ashland-Greenwood High School gymnasium. Long-time rival Wahoo Warriors lead the good guys by 1. Six seconds on the clock. Timmy Washburn inbounds to Tom Anderson at the far end of the court. Tom brings the ball up the court in a hurry and passes to me on the left side of the lane. I take a step to the basket but there’s not an open lane. I take three hard dribbles to the left toward the baseline and heave up a 30-footer with a hand buried in my face. Sailing out of bounds, I wind up against the stage watching through the back of the glass backboard that beautiful, orange pumpkin spin with perfect rotation touching nothing but the proverbial net. Game over. Why do those six seconds still come through so clearly 30 years later? Because nothing beats making a last-second shot to win a game.

Nothing except coaching. I mean that sincerely. I love coaching. I think I love it even more than I loved playing, and there was a time when I lived to play. I was a decent player, but I'm a better coach. 

Tomorrow, my  team of first-grade girls will play its last game. We don’t keep score, but if we did, I’m confident we haven’t come remotely close to winning all season. We’re shorter than every team, and of the six girls on the team, only three can get the ball to the rim, and that’s on an 8-foot basket. Hell, one squints every time she shoots or passes. When I ask if she wears glasses normally, she says no. I’ve suggested she look into it.

I could care less about our would-be losing record. There’s no other place I’d rather be on Saturday afternoons. They don’t know, and they probably don’t care, but they’ve come so far in so little time, and that’s a beautiful thing to witness. It makes be believe in same area of my life, I’m making a positive difference. That I’m a good influence. That I’m becoming a better person. And I’m truly enjoying myself. I leave the gym every Saturday afternoon feeling so much better than when I walked in.

I've coached boys and girls basketball teams spanning more than a dozen years. Some of those kids are still playing, and it warms my heart watching them. Still, my biggest regret in life is not trying to make coaching basketball a full-time job. Not making the gym my home away from home. Not surrounding myself with basketball. Not following through on the dream I had growing up while shooting all those baskets on the driveway in the snow and rain and triple-digit heat. I just let the dream slip away. Instead of making it squirm out of my cold death-grip, I just let slip away and took another path.

I often wonder how much more of a difference I could have made if I hadn’t. I think a lot about all the relationships and struggles and successes and special moments I cheated myself out of. The thought grows in magnitude every winter when a new season rolls around. It comes to the forefront every time I try to lessen the regret by coaching one of my kid’s teams. That’s why I covet those Saturday afternoons so much. As cheesy, romantic as it may come off, for a short time, I’m reminded why I had the dream in the first place.

I love watching little kids put 2 and 2 together and experience their first success. I love the moment when all the pointless blither blather some adult has been spewing at them for weeks on end finally makes perfect sense—when the fog dissipates and the sunshine smacks them full on. I love the witnessing the twinkle of recognition beaming in a little kid’s eye.

I love seeing a little girl make her first shot ever and immediately spinning around, frantically searching for her mom and dad sitting courtside with the biggest flipping smile possible stretched across her sweaty face and everything in her presence screaming at full volume, “DID YOU JUST SEE WHAT I DID?”  

I love when a kid makes a great pass and I instantly hear every mother, father, grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunt, big sister, big brother, cousin, or simple bystander who is basketball-savvy and appreciates the finer details of the game acknowledge it by collectively letting out a “Nice pass!”

I love yelling “hands up!” and seeing 10 arms shoot skyward in unison.

I love saying “reach for the cookie jar” and a girl shows me perfect follow-through.

I love that in no other place in life do the words “three,” “point,” and “stance” or “box” and “out” make sense to a grade-schooler when used in succession.

I love teaching fundamentals and seeing them used. “Butt in the gut.” “Hands up, tails down.” “Pick and roll.” “Help defense.” “We push, push, push; not slap, slap, slap the dribble.” “Pass to the numbers, not the knees.” “The backboard is our friend. Show him some love.”

I love when a little girl, who on the first day of practice, can barely summon the bravery to squeak out her first name because she’s so shy makes her first layup, slaps me a high five, and realizes she belongs here as much as anyone.

I love when I get to the gym and the kids I’m coaching are already there, practicing the things they’ve been taught without knowing I’m watching.

I love the lessons I receive. The reinforcements. The affirmations. The wisdom. The humility. The pride. The laughs. The patience. Even the frustration. I love being reminded that I don’t know everything. That no kid is the same. That kids are so much smarter than they’re given credit for. That parents mean well, even when they’re a pain in the ass. That words matter. That sports aren’t for everyone. That kids with nothing in common can still be friends. That kids want to be challenged. That they want to be part of something. That they want to contribute to a cause. That they need to goof off. That even if a kid is only playing because her parents are making her, you can make her not regret the experience. That a trophy or medal for participating is fine (I guess), but it’s not what they’ll take away from their time.

Honestly, if the basketball gods came down from the sky and said, “Blaine, sorry, man, but we’ve decided you only get to keep one thing, either that last-second shot or the years of coaching. What’s it going to be?”

It’s not even a tough decision.