A Few Words About Sportsmanship

One of the reasons I haven't posted as often as I'd like to lately is because it's been basketball season for the last few months.  Imma has been really enjoying playing.  We were blessed that she has the same coach for basketball as she had for baseball last spring.  While playing a team sport certainly has it's challenges for Imma, she really likes playing and we love seeing her gallop down the court!

My cutie-pie! Photo curtesy of RC Furr Photography

When I was growing up, my dad was my basketball coach for a couple of years. I started playing in 5th grade. I wasn't particularly good at first but I enjoyed it and my dad really worked with me.  I ended up playing through 8th grade and decided to stop playing in high school when I found other things that interested me more, like acting and choir.  My dad didn't just teach me how to play basketball, he taught me how to play as part of a team. My dad coached a lot of sports and thousands of players over the coarse of his life. One thing he really focused on with each of his athletes was that sportsmanship is a life-long skill. In order to be successful in school, at work, and in life, we have to be good sports.  Though I don't play basketball anymore, I still cheer for my "teammates", support them when they are down, and always contribute to the end product.  I can attribute many of my collaborative skills to the lessons my father taught me while I was on the basketball court.

Don't judge people, it was the '90's!  8th grade basketball pic

If you've read my blog for very long, you know how proud I am of the little community we live in.  The coaches here are much like my dad.  They know it's important to teach these little boys and girls the fundamentals of the sports they are playing, but beyond that, they teach them how to work together, how to find a common goal, how to cheer for each other, how to take turns, and how to be good sports whether they win or lose.  We witnessed a beautiful demonstration of those skills a few weeks ago when Imma was playing another team from Community.  Imma is playing on the kindergarten team so that she could have the same coach that she had for baseball.  Her team was playing against the first grade team, a team full of girls who know and love Imma.  The coaches of the first grade team also know and love Imma (one of them was an assistant coach on the baseball team who helped Imma run the bases.)  The coaches and the girls on the first grade team got together and decided it would be wonderful to help Imma score a basket. Even the ref was involved.  Imma got the ball, dribbled to the basket, took a shot--and missed.  But she got her rebound and made it the second time!  The gym went wild!  Everyone was cheering for her!  Imma was so very proud of herself. She ran to her coach and gave her a high-five, yelling, "Imma made it!"  What an incredible moment of sportsmanship and good-will! Even though we went to Great Wolf Lodge water park that weekend, all Imma could talk about was her basket.  It was truly one of those moments you might see on Youtube when the special needs child makes the winning basket--except for Imma's team still lost.  Nevertheless, it was an incredibly special moment and one we will never forget.

Imma scoring her basket.

I would like to say that this is the end of the story--we all went off with great memories of an exciting play. However, that wasn't what happened.  As is too often the case, one lone disgruntled parent tried to ruin it for everyone.  Those amazing coaches who had done such a wonderful thing, were bombarded with hateful comments from a parent who just totally missed the point of what had just happened.  They handled it with grace and poise, which is just more proof of how they have taken those character traits of good sportsmanship to heart, but it is just so very unfortunate that this woman missed out an amazing act of kindness.  What's even worse is the confusion her daughter must have felt, not sure who was right in this situation and who was wrong.  Luckily, that argument was completely missed by my little girl, who was too busy floating around on Cloud 9.
Imma's last basketball game is this Saturday. She starts baseball next week. Honestly, I'll be sad to see basketball end.  While I have lots of memories of my dad with both sports, there's something about being the coach's daughter that made me feel pretty special. I hope that Imma has fond memories of her first basketball experience and even though her parents weren't the coaches, it's incredible to know that she has made such an impact on so many people that even the coaches on the other team know how special and amazing she is.  And that's because all of the coaches we have had the honor of working with in Community are pretty darn amazing and special themselves.

Would you want to run into this crowd in a dark alley?  I don't think so! Photo by R.C Furr Photography via Facebook