Family First Friday #7--Kindness and Charity

Last night we went to Shorty's basketball game.  It was against a team in one of our outlying areas.  The game was held in the skating rink.  The floor was blue and hard.  As Drew and I watched the teams warm up, I knew it was going to be a slaughter house.  Their team was half the size of ours, in number of players and in their height and body build.  I thought, "This isn't going to be any fun to watch."

Just picture the ceilings higher and the floor blue concrete with bball hoops!

The last time we had played this team, Shorty was sick so we didn't go to the game.  I guess we beat them 48 - 4.  I was worried.

When it came time for the game to start, our coach put in all of the second string players.  "That's great!" I thought!  They played for a quarter and a half and the score was 18 - 2.  Then he put in our first string players.  We wondered what the heck they were doing.  Then we noticed that none of the boys were shooting unless they were behind the three point line.  What are they doing?  After a few minutes of play, the coach pulled them all out and put the second sting back in.

 We weren't the first ones to think of it...see the scoreboard?

One of the boys came to talk to his dad who happened to be standing behind us.  (You know, standing on the wall of the skating rink??  We were sitting on a bench in front of the wall.)  "The coach told us that we couldn't drive at all.  We could only shoot three's.  He won't let us do anything else!" he reported.  Interesting.

I have to tell you though, the highlight of the game came in the third quarter.  They had a player on their team who probably had not made a basket all season.  He was just a tiny little guy with coke bottle glasses.  He didn't play defense or even seem to have any cognition about what was going on around him.  As the ball came down the floor (their team as offense), his teammates gathered around him and told him where to stand.  Our boys all kind of stood in place with their hands up.  They passed their teammate the ball and encouraged him to shoot.  The ball ricocheted off the back board not even approaching the basket.  Our team got the ball and took it down to the other end and shot three's.  When their team came back to their basket, the scene repeated itself.  The only difference was when Shorty rebounded the ball and instead of passing it to the outlet, he handed it back to their player and encouraged him to shoot the ball again.  I almost cried. 

I was so proud of my son.  Here we were in a competitive arena and he had a great coach who understood what was important that day.  Shorty understood enough to know what was happening and to do the right thing to encourage the growth of someone he didn't even know.  It just renewed my faith in the good people of the earth knowing when and how to do the right thing, to take a competitive agenda and turn it into morality, and then to teach that to the children.