Flesh and Blood (I wrote this when my children were younger)

Every day, I try to impose the ways of past generations on my children; often in vain, seldom with success. Hey, there is a reason why old school music is in vogue. It had substance and style. Why can’t the customs, ethics, and morality of my formative years apply to the youth of today? But I digress. I’ll leave this for another day’s debate.

Sports is a neat, simple microcosm of this opinion. Today, children can participate in a myriad of sports before they are fully potty trained, can tie their own shoes, or ride a bike without training wheels. There is soccer in the fall. Basketball in the winter. Soccer again in the spring. Swimming and T-ball in the summer. We complain as parents about the non-stop carpooling but honestly love every minute of it. You could argue that the sit down, family dinner has been superceded by the drive through window as early evening games await. Well, that’s the way it is now. Talk to any peers in any other state and you’ll get the same story.

I had basketball for breakfast on Saturday as my daughter’s team continued their winning ways. Lunch was spent watching my five year old sprinting aimlessly around a basket ball court in a non-competitive game. Later, I traveled to McClelanville to see my oldest compete and fall short of victory.

Like many families, we are immersed in a sport-in our case, basketball. The little one is simply emulating his siblings. Just to don the jersey and sneakers is fulfillment for him. Everything else is gravy. There is nothing more pure that watching a five year old score a basket. First, he stares in wonderment as if the rim talked to him. Next, his eyes look for mom and dad making sure that the event was noticed. The middle child is learning how to compete while having fun. At her age, sports is as genuine as it gets. Good hustle. Great desire. A thirst for winning. All spiced with sportsmanship. The oldest is being introduced to pure, unbridled competition. Young man against young man. Who can jump the highest. Who can block whose shot. Can I take him to the hole? The swaggers are noticeable.

There is something eerie about watching flesh and blood, of the same sex, play a sport. Sitting in the stands at my teenage son’s basketball game, I constantly follow him down the court in a symbiotic trance willing him to go left when needed or to shoot when the defense allows. This wonderful young body that only yesterday seemed five years old is now exerting itself so beautifully in pressure packed situations. And I helped create him!

It’s as if my love for the game was downloaded to him at birth. He walks the house tossing a ball from hand to hand. Just like me. He walks from the den to the kitchen shifting his feet side to side to evade an invisible opponent. Just like me. The daily sports page is devoured and statistics memorized. Just like me. It all seems to be part of his genetic code.

As I watch him transition from defense to offense, I catch my breath and glance at the scoreboard. Though we are up by seven points, we need a good, insurance basket and I want him to want the ball. I can stand up and scream for him to take it but that would not be prudent. No, it must occur naturally. He sets up on the foul line and extends his arms above his head. Unrewarded with a pass, he cuts to the right side to make himself a better target for the point guard. He catches it, and I feel as if the ball is in my hands. Ok son, what are we to do now, I ask us both. In the triple threat position, I knew what I would do but could only sit and await his move. He raises his arms to shoot a high percentage, ten foot set shot. Somewhere in my consciousness, I think good of his choice. His acting is superb as it draws the nearest defender into a frantic lunge at the ball. But just as the opposite’s arm reaches to block the shot, my boy pulls the ball down, completing the fake. Genius, I thought as the defender flies by, turning his head in disbelief as number four explodes to the basket for a right handed lay-up and a foul by a recovering center.

So now we find ourselves at the foul line. He’s tired. I’m not. I know that he probably sees two goals as his vision is blurred with exhaustion. “Aim for the left rim”, I beam to him in telepathic hope. He bounces the ball three times. Good. He tosses it forward with backspin so it returns as if tied to string. He quick pumps the ball two times. Aah! He normally pumps three times. Bends his knees and shoots. The arc of the ball is measured by my gaze and deemed to be good…yet it clangs off the side of the rim. Five more years of this. I’ll never make it!

The game ends with his team on the short side of the score. He hangs his head. If I could only be there to help him. To set a pick when he needs it. To run a fast break with him, just us against a helpless defender. Alas, my support now is in words. I speak to a blank stare; a look that in part cries for help and does not want my help.

The ride home is lengthy and we’ll have time to talk. I collect my thoughts and pray that the words stem from my heart and not my head. As I ignite the car, he taps the window to tell me that he wants to go home with a friend. “Of course you can”, I say. He walks off for us to talk another day. Another day where we both will get a little older, a little wiser, and much closer as father and son.