Ricky, Bobby, and the 3 Chicago Bulls

We all know that mom, the one who has the kids involved in multiple sports or on multiple teams and can often be found on the bleacher any night of the week for her son or daughters 5:30 practice only to then be found on another set of bleachers for his or hers 7:30 game. She gets up early on Saturdays, coffee in hand with her messy bun on top of her head, she’s what you might call basic, but she’s there, on the day she’s supposed to get to sleep in, she’s there, warming her spot on the bleachers for another ball game. That’s me. Nice to meet you. Maybe.

Let me give you a little insight in to my life…

I work full-time, I mom full-time, and I volunteer to do things I don’t have time for because it’s a bad habit (I can’t say no). My husband who we will refer to as “Husband” works full-time, and does his dad thing. We have two kids; we will refer to our oldest as Ricky, and our youngest as Bobby.

Ricky plays for two youth basketball teams in our little corner of the world (soon to be three teams…WTF am I doing). Bobby (again, the youngest) just started to play organized ball and plays for one team in town. So, we are constantly running from one team to another, one game to another, one bleacher seat for mom to another, one concession stand to another (#allthehotdogs #allthenachos), and one coach to another.

If I have learned anything in my time as a #sportsmom it would be that youth sports and I have a love/hate relationship. I love getting to see my children thrive and do something they enjoy, but I hate everything else that comes with it. Ricky has played basketball for one specific league in our town since he was allowed to sign-up, so a few years. This particular league is not school based and you do not have to have experience (or morals) to sign up as a player or to be a coach.

If you can’t afford the league fee then no worries because they just want local kids to have a chance to play regardless of money. This particular place does a lot for kids and so you might think that this particular league is about just having fun (yes, everyone gets a participation trophy, but we will touch on that another day) and teaching kids the fundamentals of the game. All of this would be true, but remember how I said coaches don’t have to have experience to coach in this league? Well, that kind of throws us a curveball. By experience I mean they don’t have a checklist that says…

1. Does this coach know the fundamentals of the game?

2. Is he/she here for the kids and not his/her own selfish reasons?

3. Will he/she treat kids appropriately (not fair – because life isn’t fair, and I want my kids to learn that lesson, it will save them a lot of heartbreak)?

4. Is he/she COMMITTED to this TEAM?”

They don’t have that, and they don’t ask those questions. If you volunteer to coach then congratulations because you are the newest coach of the Mighty Tigers. We hope you know what triple threat is.

So, back to Ricky, he has played in this league for several years and in all honesty we have always had a good experience with this league. We never have any problems and we enjoy it. I mean, it’s just a youth league; we are just here to play a few games, get our fundamentals down, and have a good time. This definitely is not going to be what makes or breaks us.

Like, Ricky is not going to get into the NBA because he played in this league, in a few years we probably won’t even remember it. However, this year we are learning a new lesson. We aren’t working on our fundamentals. This year Ricky happens to have a coach that has very little “experience” in my opinion, if we were to go through the above checklist.

This weekend we kicked off games and by games I mean, this league will run till the end of February, playing once a week, each week. I had high hopes and boy have they come crashing down. Coach didn’t exactly get off on the right foot with me because he skipped out on the first practice to go watch another basketball game (question four on our checklist.) They only practice once a week for one hour at a time.

So, if you can’t commit to one hour then what exactly are we doing here? However, I decided to give him a second chance, because I am all about them. We are up bright and early for Ricky’s game and everyone is in attendance and everyone is excited. Let me just say this first, I am not saying that Ricky is the next Steph Curry, because he isn’t, not even close, Steph Curry’s embryos can play better ball than Ricky, but Ricky knows the fundamentals, will work for that ball all day, and can shoot – like the kid can freaking shoot.

Again, I am just a #sportsmom sitting in the bleachers, I probably don’t know anything. Let me also add that in this league if you coach then your kid is on your team, every time. So, back to Ricky’s game. The game starts and our coach throws five kids out, three that he thinks are the next Chicago Bulls during MJ’s years and two who he just randomly picked from the bench. Which is fine with me. I know that my kid can’t always start and ultimately at this point I am fine, literally think nothing of what is happening.

The first quarter passes and the Chicago Bulls have played the entire quarter while the other two have swapped in and out with one other kid, not Ricky though, but at this point it is still fine because we have a lot of playing time left. Instead of giving you a play-by-play (and boy would I love to) I will cut it short. Ricky played all of five minutes and thirty seconds (30 seconds in the first half and five minutes in the second half) while the Chicago Bulls played the entire game.

Also, this is true for all of the other kids who are not on the Chicago Bulls elite threesome, they barely played, because when you have seven other kids swapping in and out for two positions, well you don’t get a whole lot of time. The problem here is one of those Chicago Bulls is the coach’s kid, one is the assistant coach’s kid, and another one is supposedly the best in his age group in our entire region of the state (whose dad also sits on the bench... insert eye roll emoji here)!

Now, I want to win and so does Husband and Ricky, but again, this is a local youth league. For the most part kids need to have equal playing time, not down to the minute, or even the second, but just a good estimate. Three kids should not be playing an entire game while the rest of the team rotates in and out to warm the bench.

Am I upset? Yes. Do I want to pull my kid and commit our time somewhere else? Yes. Am I? No. The problem is instead of teaching kids what a team is you are showing them that if you have the right parents and know the right people then we will make special privileges for you. You are not allowing someone that might not be a good player right now, to be a great player in the future. The kid who hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet might end up being better than the kid you let have all the playing time if someone would work with him. The shy and timid kid that you let warm up the 5th seat on the bench for 28 minutes might end up being better than the one who is more aggressive and runs faster, because he (shy and timid kid) understands the fundamentals and can shoot the ball, and in the end we have no idea what they are going to be like in 5-10 years. However, if you don’t work with them, teach them the important things, and make them feel worthy they might not ever become something great. Why coach three kids when you can (and signed up to) coach ten kids? Why make three great players when you have a chance to make ten great players? At this age, in this league, the focus should be on developing players. My kid and the other kids who held that bench down this week deserve as much playing time as anyone else. They are young, they will never be great if someone doesn’t give them a chance to be and show them how to be.

I am still bitter and want nothing more than to pull Ricky and focus his time somewhere else but Husband says we can’t and ultimately I also know we can’t. If we learn anything from this season it will be patience and that everyone deserves a chance to be great but sometimes people will do whatever they can and use their privileges incorrectly and we have to look past them and remember that WE are great and WE can do big things.

For now, I will continue to sit in the bleachers and cheer for Ricky. I will resist all urges to walk onto the court, take the ball, and throw it right at coach’s face, and I will also resist all urges to change the group text name to “Three Man Circus”. I will privately call the coach things in my head that are inappropriate for little ears and I will remember that life isn’t always fair. I will also continue to roll my eyes at the moms who say things like “Whoops there it is” because I am just not that mom (again, we will discuss this another time. I can see it now – the 5 moms you meet at Youth Sporting events).

So, we put a smile on and continue to cheer for the team that was hard to be on and the coach who was selfish, because they taught us nothing about basketball but a lot about life.

See you at the game,

#JWT