Sometimes life has a real way of surprising you.
Sometimes your boyfriend turns you into a girl in front of your co-workers and sends you flowers at work (woohoo Carrie). Sometimes your son withstands a game of full-court press against an aggressive boys’ basketball team and doesn’t have to puke afterwards. Sometimes your daughter, who absolutely hates basketball, turns out to be a decent player.
The basketball season is just building up steam here in Lincoln. Along with the school team that both kids play on, our daughter Mandy is playing in a recreational basketball league for the YMCA in Lincoln. Unfortunately she absolutely loathes basketball. She lives for volleyball and adores soccer. But not so much basketball.
She’s tall, so her dad thought she should give basketball one last try before she goes to high school next year. She played basketball for the YMCA when she was in 5th grade, but quit to give her full-time attention to volleyball.
She is loving her club volleyball team this year. They’ve come in second (or possibly third according to some accounts) in two out of the three volleyball tournaments they’ve played in.
Yeah, there was the one tournament they couldn’t win a game. But, that’s life I guess. The next day they played the other gold Magic team – the one that got third in that tournament – and beat them with their killer serves. Go figure.
She loves playing middle hitter and pounding the ball down on the other teams. She just loves to “play the net.” She came home from her last volleyball tournament this weekend and told me, “Apparently I can jump.” Evidently she got a bunch of awesome blocks at the tournament. The little flutter kick she does to get that tall body off the floor somehow works. Her volleyball coaches just love to make fun of her flutter jump. And I was so sad I had to miss it. I stayed behind to take Joe to his basketball game and watched his Spirit YMCA team beat the Fairbury 6th grade team. He made the first basket of the game. Go Joe.
Anyways, she hates basketball. I’m not sure what it is about the game. I actually think it has more to do with the fact that she hasn’t consistently played it for years. Sometimes she doesn’t know where to be on the court. Sometimes she doesn’t have the perfect form. Sometimes she doesn’t remember what basket she is supposed to be shooting at. Yes, even on the basketball court she is a blond in a brunette’s body and has tried to make a basket for the other team. But fortunately it was during a school game and the basket didn’t go in (either time she shot it). What a goof.
Imagine our surprise this week when she walked into basketball practice and the first thing her coach said was that Mandy had a great game Sunday. Yea! Mandy’s team got beat Sunday, but she played an aggressive game under the basket. A few weeks ago her team played an 8th grade team from Raymond Central that had three tall, big girls. (This was the game Mandy had to sit out most of the second half because she had four fouls throwing elbows and hacking the big girls under the basket.) This team played on our court immediately after our game Sunday. The coach from the Raymond Central team approached our coach after the game and told him that Mandy was a really good defensive player. He said he was impressed at how she was able to shut down the big girl in Sunday’s game, because the big girl scored lots of points on the Raymond Central team when they played her. YEA!
For somebody who hates basketball, she can really own the lane on defense. If you attempt to drive the lane, be prepared to get pounded. At Sunday’s game, the big girl was dribbling the ball down the court and headed straight for Mandy in the lane. What Mandy should have done was set her feet and drawn a charge. It was a perfect setup for that situation. INSTEAD, what does Mandy do? She turns sideways, lowers her shoulder, and sends the big girl flying. It’s her soccer shoulder shove. She saves it for aggressive soccer players, plus a few 8th grade boys at soccer camps and soccer jams. Unfortunately, this is not appropriate for basketball. As the big girl falls to the floor, Mandy is called for blocking with her body. Yeah, that’s about right. If that’s not a foul, then I don’t know what is.
Sooooo, after the game we asked Mandy why she didn’t take the charge. “I didn’t want to get hurt. If someone was going to hit the floor I would rather it be her than me.” Oh Mandy. We have to work on that whole “turn the other cheek bit” with her.
I have to admit, Mandy is not exactly the same person she was at this time last year. This year she has matured into a strong player on the court, and a strong personality off of it, as well. She still is extremely outgoing and makes tons of friends. She still is kind-hearted and always has a flock of little kids following her around. She still is goofy, talks a ton, and always is wearing a smile. But, she has found a self confidence that she was lacking last year to help her rally her team.
She has strong opinions, she strongly defends her friends, and she doesn’t back down from conflict or aggressive people. I’m not sure if this is because she no longer has her best friend Megan at school with her to help her fight her battles, or if it is because most of her new best friends are also strong athletes. They are busy girls who like to spend their time on the court and with one another. They prefer to hang out with the girls and have fun. Most of her friends are confident people, and they don’t seem to need to have a boyfriend to feel validated. I think that is fantastic. Heaven knows that 14-year-old girls have enough challenges. Keeping a boy in line shouldn’t be one of them.
I was talking to Megan’s mom today about that very subject. Megan was working on a homework assignment about teen dating for her teen issues class at East High School while we waited at the school kids’ basketball practice. We both said that if we knew back then what we know now, we would have never given most of the boys in high school a second chance or even a second thought.
I am well aware that Mandy is not completely immune to boys. Yes, I’ve seen her Facebook status. That’s her private life and I won’t talk about that here. I will say, however, that if she has a boyfriend or not, it isn’t the end of her world. (Isaac is a very nice boy. I am secretly cheering for Isaac.)
I’m not sure if she would have said the same thing last year at this time, but maybe everything happens for a reason. Maybe last year she wouldn’t have been a strong enough person to start fresh at a high school with 2,000 students. This year she can’t wait.
One thing I am sure about, focusing on the things she loves has made all the difference. She came home from volleyball tonight talking about all the great hits she made while they were scrimmaging the 15-year-old team. She has been working so hard at conditioning, practices, and individual training to improve her volleyball game, and it is really paying off. Tonight the director at the volleyball club told Rick that he has noticed how Mandy has been playing at the last few tournaments. He thinks maybe she should have been on the top 14-year-old gold team (the one her team beat at their last scrimmage). He said she is really a strong player. She is so happy and feels so good about what all her hard work has accomplished. It makes my heart so happy to see her proud of her accomplishments and have people compliment her on them, especially the coaches. It does her confidence a world of good to see her hard work pay off.
Granted, all her hard work may not pay off when it comes to her basketball team. She may still have a great game, but she probably won’t be able to prevent them from losing by 20 points. The coach has 10 players, so he splits each quarter with one set of five girls, and then the other set of five. It’s hard to sit on the bench when you want to go in and help your friends. But at least she comes home cheerfully chirping about her awesome baskets, or how she blocked some girl’s shot, or how she remembered which basket she should be shooting at the whole game. I’m not sure she still knows what it means to post up, sorry Rick.
Unfortunately her basketball team will have to play without her this weekend. We are headed to the three-day President’s Day Classic at the Qwest Center in Omaha. Three days of volleyball versus elite gold teams. There will be 90-some courts of volleyball being played all at one time. We will probably burn through a lot of gas this weekend getting Mandy to all her games, taking Joe to his games, and attending my niece’s baptism.
Rick and I are looking forward to watching lots of volleyball. Joe is looking forward to another Spirit game Sunday to see if he can score any more points or rip the ball out of anybody’s hands. Mandy is looking forward to having a lot of time hanging out with her friends, and to possibly catching a glimpse of a few boys at State Wrestling Saturday at the Qwest Center. Teenage boys in unitards. Like I said, she isn’t completely immune.
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