Basketball Games

Basketball Games

I like sports for a lot of reasons:  confidence gained, healthy body, ability to concentrate, effort, determination, persistence, work ethic etc.  On the negative side exists:  pressure, failure and fear of, as well as injury.

Even if you don’t play there can be an appreciation of the art.  And with this appreciation in mind Ben and Ian and I followed local indoor winter sports in the Philadelphia area.  On those dark early, bitter cold winter evenings we would travel to see the Bensalem Owls High School Basketball games or Holy Ghost Prep or Holy Family University play basketball or volleyball. 

We would eat dinner and be on our way, bundled up for the cold and an adventure on a weeknight.  The parking lot of Neil Armstong Middle School, where the high school games were played, was always crowded with cars.  There were the high school cool guys and rich girls who drove their own cars.  These were all two door cars with a hint of sports cars or economical Volkswagens or Mazda’s.

There were the conservative driving honor students who were able to borrow the four door sedan of their father or the family minivan from their mother.   Friends would pile out amid laughs and shouts of “Go Owls.”

In the stands, there were the former players who still came to games.  Guys in their 50’s and 40’s who still enjoyed coming out on a Tuesday to see live basketball.  To smell the gym and walk across the floor.   They sat in pairs, always in the same spot of the bleachers for each game, mostly on the visitor’s side where there was more space and not so many young drunk or high teenagers making a bother.  You could still talk about the game and be heard while sitting on the Visitor’s side.

The line for tickets started outside in the cold until it finally snaked into the warm comfort of the complex.  The Rotary Club lady, a heavyset mother with short hair and a thick navy sweater in defense off the open and closing double doors would welcome us and rip our tickets in half.   We could hope for a halftime chance to make a basket from half-court and win free tickets to the next game or a Combo Dog/Chips/Drink package from the concession stand but we never won.

Once inside we found Uncle Jeff, who is not your real uncle but we call him that anyway.  Uncle Jeff and his son Luke sitting midway up the bleachers on the visitors side.  Uncle Jeff is a former player of championship seasons for the Owls.  We sat on the visitor’s side with him and filled the sleeves with hats and gloves and stashed the coats on the bleacher below us.

Before the game started we rose for the singing of the National Anthem.  I loved this part of being a father.  I felt so good modeling the honor and respect that the flag deserves.  Even if somebody doesn’t agree with the politics of the U.S.A. and the decisions that have been made, (in fact, in spite of decisions that have been made,) the soldiers who have served and died while in the armed forces deserve our show of respect.

I cry at every national anthem, even if it is not my country.  I feel the culmination of profound effort and sacrifice that is a part of nationalism.  It is an effort for me not to cry. 

We stood with our hands on our hearts.  You tried to talk but I put a finger over my mouth and bent down and pointed to the flag.   “That is where we are suppose to look,” I whispered.  The song ended and we clapped and I looked on Ian and Ben; my two handsome sons standing by my side and the tears fell and the game began.

It wasn’t a technical course in the theory of basketball, it was simple:  Keep your eye on the ball. I explained on our first game that each team tries to put the ball in the hoop.  Simple.  My other advice was to “watch the ball.”  “Try and keep your eye on the ball.”  This was a common theme in any ballgame.  Keep your eye on the ball. It is the start of extended concentration and we did it for whole minutes at a time.

There is the thrill of the bleachers.  You began at my side and then slowly stepped off a few paces with Luke.  And then the three of you were be five paces away and down one row.  They up five rows and Uncle Jeff  yelled, “Walk,” in his lifeguard voice.  Uncle Jeff only said one word for three whole summers as a lifeguard:  “Walk.”

And it worked; you walked up and down until that halftime buzzer.  The abrupt compressed air horn would shake Ian and frighten Ben. 

At halftime we avoided the mad rush at the concession stand by watching the cheerleaders do their routine.  Cheerleaders are athletes.  They do more than dance to a choreographed routine and excite the old men; they threw each other to heights that I feared.  One or two of the smaller cheerleaders performed an impossible series of flips and that ended the show and we moved on to the less crowded line of the concession stand.

This was undoubtedly the favorite part of going to sporting events.  We each ordered a hot dog and a pretzel.  The piece de resistance was the Starburst candies.  You both loved the sweet colored sugar and the way is lasted.   We first stretched out then wrapped the thin paste around our tongues and grind the sugar into teeth.  I loved the Starburst too.

We played the luck off the draw with which color found which person.  The red and the pink were of course the favorites.  I ate the lemon as part of some fatherly code of responsibilities.  I would happily eat a lemon Starburst for my children.

The second half of the game was divided into the minutes before we ate another Starburst.  The pack lasted until towards the end of the game and we applauded the players and the cheerleaders and returned to the dark cold and rode home silently.  We greeted mama and changed clothes and brushed the Starburst out of our teeth. The Starburst colored the toothpaste red to give us one last reminder that our night together was a success and that we had a whole season of games to keep our eye on the ball and eat sugary candies together.

It has been three years now and we haven’t been to a game since.

I am keeping my eye on the ball boys, help Hannah to do the same.