Requiem for a season

I would apologize for the amount of time that has passed since I last posted, but that has become something of a distressing habit. These last two weeks have been especially busy, as we have been at the crossroads of basketball and baseball seasons. As I mentioned earlier, I was asked to help coach Josh's basketball team. Much to my surprise, however, I have also been enlisted to help coach Josh's baseball team. It is becoming very clear to me that if you want to be involved in youth sports, as well as anything involving youth, you pretty much just need to be willing to show up. Anyway, basketball season officially ended yesterday, and I would say that it was a very successful season, as measured by two things.

First, our team, while not particularly good, made as much improvement from the first game of the season to the last one as any team in any sport I have ever seen. Not only did we become competitive, but we actually dominated a couple of teams the same way that we were dominated in our first game. We rebounded well, we defended enthusiastically, and we had a couple of players turn into fairly reliable scoring options, especially in the lane. We worked on getting the ball inside, and like most teams that do this, when the ball did go inside consistently, good things happened.

The second, and far more important reason that the season was a success is that the kids had a lot of fun. This was most evident at the party after our last game. The seemed to really enjoy each other's company, and were all excited about coming back and playing basketball at some level next season (not all of them will be at the same age level next year).

My overall evaluation of my experience helping to coach this team is that I never knew coaching could be so much fun or so rewarding. I enjoyed playing sports when I was younger. The baseball and basketball teams that I played on were the cornerstones of my daily life when I played, occupying a majority of my energy and attention, even if I was never a particularly good athlete. This was only rivaled, and then ultimately overtaken by my devotion to guitar. Coaching has provided for me the same kind of joy that playing did, but without as much insecurity and anxiety.

Basketball season is over, but baseball has begun. I am typing now using an arm that is as sore as it has been since I gave up baseball twelve years ago, because I spent most of this week throwing batting practice. I think this is going to be a lot of fun.