O P I N I O N

TRANSCENDENTAL DAD

By Dan Szczesny

Well, it’s time we began talking about something that I feel will become a recurring theme here at Transcendental Dad.

Sports.

Why sports you ask? I wish I had an easy answer. But a couple weeks ago, Little Bean came home half excited and half in tears. The girls elementary school team try-outs were happening and she wanted to try out for the team, but she thought she’d be very disappointed if she didn’t make it.

This came a surprise to us. We’re not – how can I put this – a sports-enthusiast family. I grew up with hockey in Buffalo and even was on my high school track team, but that’s about it. I own no “sport” trophies or ribbons or medals. I barely know how to play basketball.

I confess that my first reaction was that she was feeling peer pressure by her more sporty friends, as opposed to actually being interesting and wanting to play basketball – a sport she herself admitted she knew almost nothing about.

But that suggestion just seemed to irritate her all the more, so we dropped it. Then I went into disappointment preparation mode. In other words, I figured that when she didn’t make the team, she was going to be crushed, so how do we help her deal with the fall out and refocus her energy on the activities she excels at.

Try-outs lasted two days, and she was there with many of her friends. In fact, there were so many girls trying out, that a special third try-out was called to make the final picks. Parents were not allowed in the gym during try-outs, and at home afterwards she was always tired but fairly quiet about how things went.

Each day for school during try-outs, she’d carry her own second-hand basketball to school, the one that always lost air, the one that needed to be constantly pumped up.

“When I make the team, we’re gonna need a new basketball,” she’d say. I’d nod.

She wore the best white T-shirts she could find, the ones with pictures of baby cats on them, and sneakers that barely fit. She’d come home sweating, her voice horse.

The evening of that final try-out, she said she did well and I said, “No matter what happens, I’m really proud of you for trying.”

Later that evening, just before she went to bed, my phone buzzed. It was an email from her coach. I braced for the worst.

“Congratulations on making the team!” the letter began. I stood there, blinking. I read it, and re-read it. The new season would begin after the holiday. Practices would take place twice a week. Jerseys. Times. Drills. Locations. More info to come. Practice dribbling.

Well, damn…

I walked over to her bedroom and said, “I just got a letter from the coach.” She and her mother looked up and I turned my phone to her so she could read it. We held our breath. After a moment, she smiled and did a little stiff upper lip nod. That was it. She knew. She knew she was going to do it.

I was wildly, tremendously, wrong about my daughter.

And I think maybe I was wrong because now, I can’t really help her. And maybe that was why I had trouble getting my arms around this thing from the beginning. All of our other hobbies and adventures together involved doing them as a team. Hiking. Rocks. Music. I KNEW those things. I could help her learn them, participate with her.

But now, I was in the stands, literally. This was hers. She made it, despite us. She put her head down and figured it out and did it. Herself.

Educators would call this an important developmental milestone. To me, it was the first time I felt tremendously sad AND overwhelmingly proud at the same time.

“Daddy,” she said, “you said we’d get a new basketball!”

“You bet we will!” And I gave her a hug and maybe I held that hug for a little longer than usual. And maybe I need to learn a little something about basketball.

Dan Szczesny is fielding your basketball pointers at danszczesny@gmail.com