Basketball Stress

Our team ahead by one point.

After last Saturday's match, I don't know if my heart can take many more basketball games. 

Background info. If you go here, you can see a picture of Justin's team. If you scroll down you can see how the season is going. It's a long and sad tale. The worst was the 73 to 16 game. Sigh.

Justin hasn't been able to play since the beginning of December when he broke his wrist. His team prevailed in one game during this time. When Justin got the text announcing the win, he assumed that it was a joke. When assured that they really did win, he said, "Wow, the other team must be really bad."

On doctor's orders, he didn't play in January even once he got the cast off. But even though he still had a week to go of prescribed wrist rest, we gave in last week and let him practice and then play Saturday's game. The doctor had said the reason was to make sure he didn't fall on the wrist again, so I instructed Justin to avoid falling as much as possible and to stick out his right arm if he needed to take a tumble. This sounds flippant, but he REALLY wanted to play, and I gave in.

Still ahead 23 to 15.

Of course, consistently losing has been hard on the boys, but it's way harder for the parents.

Parents vacillate between joking around, yelling encouragement at the team, shouting advice to the team, taking a break to smoke outside to relieve stress, mild cursing, threatening to take back Christmas presents, and sometimes just leaving for a while to get perspective and air before returning to the benches. There's a feeling of camaraderie among us as we walk this road together.

Justy with the ball.

So, when we saw that the opposing team this Saturday showed up with only five kids, we were hopeful. Hopeful that they would cave in to exhaustion by the end of the match, allowing our boys to eke out a win. Our guys were all there and healthy for the first time in months.

To help encourage our team, we had two very loud noisemakers. First time for me to ever see this kind of thing in France, but the parents are desperate.

So, the match began as these things typically do; with the other team leading right away four to zero. But, our guys rallied, and were soon in the lead. I was not the only parent to quickly snap a picture of the scoreboard. Every lead is to be celebrated and recorded.

Our group grew increasingly excited as the lead continued. The parents from the other team likely thought we were insane, but Scott pointed out that they probably figured that we were used to losing  the moment we all took pictures of the scoreboard when we first were in the lead.

All looked good going into the fourth quarter. The boys were ahead 39 to 30. The other team was getting tired. Their coach was turning pink in his frustration. It all looked good. And then...the lead was eaten up basket by basket as the opposing team rallied.

They nailed their shots. They made some free throws. Their coach's color returned to normal.

39 to 35. Yikes.

And we looked on with mounting anxiety and heart rates.

Here's a picture of the final time out. There are twelve seconds left. Our team has scored zero points in the last quarter. The score is 39 to 38, our lead.

This is our coach, telling the boys,"If you lose this one, your parents are going to be seriously mad," or whatever coaches say in these situations. I don't really know. I never was a basketball player.

Here are the final twelve seconds of the match. 

My goodness. It took me about an hour to feel calm again.

And the final score. Phew. 

We were good sports and clapped for the other team. They were incredibly resilient and just about pulled it off. 

But I'm so glad they didn't. It would have been demoralizing for us. 

And for the boys too.