Well, Monday came and went and the girls put their hearts out on the basketball floor. They were competing with twenty other girls for four spots. The Principal told Eric and I that a teacher was going to be the Basketball coach, but he lied. The coach is of course a parent, and she kept the girls from last year and any that she knows that have played with her daughter over the years. I'm not a big fan of parent coaches at the middle school and especially the high school level, way too personal. They aren't going to cut their own kid, or his or her buddies. New kids have very little chance to make a team, no matter how good they are. Military kids have it even worse, we have friends with amazing young athletes, one kid is playing and the other is not - even after beating the local home grown hero in tryouts. What I am learning is that sports are incredibly political, and it's not who you know it's who knows and likes you with a little bit of talent thrown in. And after that, it's all about the money.
Let's face it, if parents don't fork their money into sports, kids are not getting put on the teams in school. There's a local High School that has early morning workouts for basketball that parents have to pay for, way too much money for by the way. And here's the thing, if you don't attend the workouts...you don't start and you play less. Yeah, that's fair. So if your parents can pay the money they can buy your spot on the team. As it is, parents are buying spots for their kids through all the Club sports. Three thousand dollars for a seven month season, that puts a kid on the school team...now, parents are expected to pay a weekly fee for workouts to determine if a player is going to get to start, let alone get to play at all.
Your strength of heart, your passion, your skill... I am seeing less and less chance for a non-Club player to make that High School team. And it makes me so incredibly sad for my kids. But maybe it shouldn't. You see I am sad that they might not get to experience the fun of sports, the connection that a sports team brings you. Because even if they make a team, what hidden fees are going to potentially derail them before they could even get started. I can see them making a team, then not getting to ever play because their parents can't afford a $60 a week fee for workouts. Nothing like
putting their hearts out there, and leaving it all on the court to then not really play because of money. But if that's what sports are now about, if it's all about the money...then do I want them any where near that mercenary enterprise?
I keep most of this stuff to myself and when they say they want to try out for a basketball team that they have little chance of making, I encourage them to go fight hard and fair and do all they can to make sure they leave the court each day proud of themselves. WhenI dropped the girls off this morning, I asked them each, "Did you do your best? Are you proud of the work you put in?" And they both said yes, my reply to them was, "Then you have done all you can do, be proud of yourselves and if they can't see you then that is their loss."
Neither girl made the team. They were both devastated. Madison made it to the car before she melted into her tears, then sobbed all the way home. Sydney was quiet in her anger and shock. Too many of the girls from last year's team kept telling her how good she was, how they wanted her...she was believing it. Not being chosen was just crushing for her. Dad came home before going to class, spending time loving on each girl, helping them spend their grief.
Sometimes the toughest lessons in life are the ones that show you that life is not fair. That sometimes no matter how good a person you are, how hard you work, how much you deserve something...it just doesn't matter because life is not fair. These are the moments that hit the hardest and they come at any time. They come when you don't make the Basketball team, they come when your brother is sick and that changes everything, they come with the loss of someone you love for reasons you still don't understand. They just come and keep coming. How well you stay on your feet, how well you climb up from your knees... That's the true measure of who you are and who you will become.
When we learned that we lost our friend Bok and finally told the girls, Eric and I knew we had to let them work through that grief, to understand it and let it hurt because he mattered and their matters. We decided that because life is unfair, but this time, with this pain...we could maybe create a little balance and ease a little pain with some good news. So tonight we told them that their brother's service dog will arrive on November 16th, and then we reminded them that when the dog isn't working, then he or she is just our dog. There were still tears of course; but somehow, those were just so much better to see.
After wanting and waiting for a dog for so very long, losing basketball stings, but somehow, the pain is not so huge anymore. Yeah, life isn't fair, but that doesn't mean we don't keep working hard to push back a little and create a little fair and somehow bring a little joy.
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